IGN Wii has got their hands on official developer documentation for the Wii Remote controller, and have broken down what they feel are the Remote's key features for their readership.
The key question answered is how the Wii Remote will be powered. Just like the GameCube's wireless Wavebird controller, the Remote is powered by two AA batteries. Battery strength is indicated by the four LEDs on the controller face when the controller is turned on. The documentation claims the Remote will normally last 60 hours powered by a set of these, or 30 hours if the Remote's pointer functionality is being used.
Speaking of the pointer, IGN thinks it might be usable for more than just pointing at the sensor bar. IGN says "Interestingly, according to documentation the Wii-mote is able to act as something of an eye, measuring coordinates between 0-1023 on the X axis and 0-767 on the Y axis, which means that it is more or less seeing a megapixel image," speculating that camera functionality may be present.
This speculation doesn't seem to jive with other information we've gleaned about the Remote and the sensor bar, however. Digital photos taken of the E3 demos show the sensor bar has six beacons, invisible to the naked eye but not to a digital camera, suggesting the sensor bar may use infrared LEDs. The Remote's imaging sensor, behind a piece of dark plastic not unlike the infrared window in standard remote controls, would see this infrared light and use PixArt's imaging technology to extrapolate its orientation and position in relation to the sensor bar.
This is quite in-line with Nintendo's warning that halogen lighting may confuse the Remote; unfiltered halogen lighting is a strong source of infrared light. Given all this and the relative expense of the full-color CCD that camera functionality would require, it seems highly unlikely that the Wii Remote's sensor can double as a visible-light camera, but we'll of course have to see what features the final product has to say for sure.
Beyond the camera speculation, other details have also emerged. The Wii Remote's built in force feedback ("rumble") has only one level of power, but documentation suggests it can be pulsed on and off to create the effect of stronger vibrations. All buttons on the Remote as well as the C and Z buttons on the "nunchaku" analog pod are digital.
The wireless Remotes are virtually "attached" to the system by pressing a sync button on the console, then pressing a sync button located inside the battery compartment on the Remote. The Remote also features 6KB of onboard non-volatile memory which could concievably be used to store player-specific settings. Again contrary to IGN's speculation, non-volatile memory is highly unlikely to be used as a buffer for the speaker; most forms of non-volatile memory would find themselves with a drastically shortened life if used for this purpose.
Nintendo intends to launch Wii sometime in the fourth quarter of 2006. Nothing beyond this has yet been announced, though the rumor mill is pretty strongly beyond October. Nintendo has committed to making further announcements come September.