Slashdot Mirror
PowerBook As A New Kind Of Human Interface Device
An anonymous reader writes "As covered earlier on Slashdot, Amit Singh had shown how to access and use the motion sensor feature in the late model PowerBooks for innovative things, which created quite a buzz in the Mac community. In an ingenius new article, Singh has taken the idea all the way and released software which lets you use a PowerBook with a motion sensor as a general purpose input device which works with existing apps. IMHO the coolest use of this is for playing games: be sure to check out the video footage in the article. For instance, in a car racing game, you steer by tilting the PowerBook left and right, go faster by tilting it forward, brake by tilting it backwards! You can also scroll in apps. Google Map scrolling with my PowerBook feels like flying in an aiprlane over the terrain. I must say you have to try this in real life to appreciate the experience ... go to the Apple store or something if you don't have the hardware ;-) Before this my girlfriend (who uses a Dell notebook) has never called anything computer related "jawdropping"! Wouldn't it be nice to have a gaming motion sensor be standard issue in all future laptops?"
What's even cooler about Amit Singh is that he's a he's a researcher at IBM Alamaden Research Center, working on, among other things, secure communications and Linux on the desktop.
And be sure to check out his other articles, particularly What is Mac OS X? . They're all well written, comprehensive on their respective topics, and generally excellent.
This article is fake. Note the following lie in bold:
"Before this my girlfriend (who uses a Dell notebook) has never called anything computer related "jawdropping"! "
This Porn Site is Powerbook Enabled ..yes, I can see a lot of new ways of interaction
and Apples new Powerbook tagline:
"Shake it Like A Polaroid Picture"
or
"Do the Powerbook Shuffle"
maybe DonkeyHote is an alien trying to communicate, but we just can't understand him/her/it? ;-P
Thinkpads have this sensor too...
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
How much good all this tilting and stuff does the hard drive. I'd think it caused some undue wear and tear, if not a head crash. Plus, to be picking up the whole laptop for use as an interface device seems a bit risky. Especially a Powerbook (you're talking around 2 grand there, Slim.)
You like your new Mac more than you like me, don't you, Dave? Dave? I asked...She said Yes.
A friend built an Atari 2600/400/etc compliant joystick device into a Tupperware container. It had mercury switches in it, and you controlled it just by tilting it. I never used it much.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
....Then someone makes a boxing simulation and everyone blames Apple when their hard drives go bad.
Amazing!!! I quick look at my company's global address book, and I found that Amit Singh is actually working nine jobs.
Oh wait, seems this might be a common name.
And how much worse does this torque the bearings of the fast-spinning, gyroscopically-simulating hard drive?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I love tilting my expensive laptop and testing my underdeveloped motor skills
Is the motion sensor sensitive enough to navigate/play while it's in your lap, or as I fear, you have to pick it up and tilt it. Even if the laptop is 3 or maybe 4 lbs, after a while, it's going to tire your muscles. However, I do appreciate this hack because it's using something in a way that it wasn't intended to on top of working well (minus muscle fatigue).
Umm, actually, she was just yawning.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
Sounds like a great way to accidentally drop your powerbook. Hope it's worth it "flying" around google maps.
...until you shake your CPU or RAM loose which hours of continuous gaming would eventually do!
Maybe Mac users but they'd have to develop some sort of peripheral device to be successful with gamers. Gamers use desktop PCs, not laptops, and they're slow to accept gimmicy crap like this. Remember the Orb controller? there's tons of new human interfae devices that come out, they all suck.
...that this Amit Singh actually is a researcher at IBM Almaden Research Center.
Apologies for the munged link in my initial post.
Now I really want one of those Powerbooks...
Why? Because they can finally do something Nintendo were doing commercially ten years ago?
I don't think this is a particularly good application for racing games, because if you watch the video, since you're actually tilting the notebook, the screen tilts with it. It's somewhat disorienting, and requires you to tilt your head repeatedly (as you turn) which will quite likly get annoying real fast.
Enjoy an e-piphany
Depending on how you have your power settings, the HD is probably going to be asleep most of the time anyway. And the gentle motion you're talking about here is hardly going to be enough to phase a laptop drive - I've got a portable storage device that uses a laptop drive and had it sucessfully write a whole GB of data while I was walking quickly and had it in a pocket in my shorts.
In short, don't worry about the HD... slippery fingers might be a bit more of a concern but just be careful to do this above your lap, not held high in the air like a trophy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
daveschroeder discovered to be the username for Amit Singh at Slashdot.org
There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those that can keep their train of thought,
...with those Atari games that can now be contained completely within the base of the thing. Now we turn an expensive laptop into a joystick. And I thought it was expensive to get a broken Gravis joystick replaced.
Somewhere in the future as AI/Expert software spreads, "Will you stop freaking shaking me like that and get a gyro mouse already?! I'm getting nauseous and feel like I need to take a hex dump. I think I'm going to reformat..."
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Again, we see the unique innovation of Apple's products and their users!
The solution to this is to market a keyboard with the same capabilities. This keyboard could be plugged into the Powerbook, at which point it would disable the Powerbook's internal "shake controller". Then you could rag on the keyboard without worrying about shaking up the Powerbook. It makes it less portable, of course...
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
It's an accellerometer! There have been inertial mice based off these guys for as long as the sensors have been available.
h tm l
There's some projects out there to hack one of these into some earlier palmpilots directly onto the bus, a nifty hack. Oh, wait, starting to get that feeling..
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/03/30/1546247.s
Sigh. I have a powerbook and like it, but new kind of HID? Please.
Call me when they have a camera in there like the Sony vaio picturebook used to, and you can wave your arms at it and such. Then it might be a new interface device.
..don't panic
Well, no.
Don't get me wrong, this is a cool hack, but a 17" powerbook weighs over 3 kilograms.
You know how your Xbox controller was a bit big? Well, it wasn't that big.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
I seem to remember that the Compaq Ipsi (a handheld research prototype that was made before the ipaq by Compaq) had the "Rock&Scroll" interface modality. That was 6-7 years ago.
Compaq IPSI
I've had a similar, but certainly more integrated technology for nearly a year, in my Toshiba Portege M205 Tablet PC. It has built in accelerometers to determine the orientation of the screen and can automagically rotate the screen in the proper direction if you change the "up" direction for the screen. There is also an included utility that can turn the "tilt" from the accelerometers into key presses. One of the "TabletPC" demos I show my friends is a shareware marble maze game and I can play by simply tilting the screen.
After (of course) parking the disk heads, I think that turning the laptop upside-down and giving it a good shaking should clear the screen.
I mean, wouldn't that just be common sense?
All I can say is...yawn.
The submitter acts like they have never seen anything you can tilt before. The fact is its purely a novelty. Is this more useful than, say, a joystick? I really don't think so. Consider tilting your laptop all over the place on an airplane. I''m sure it would annoy your neighbors to no end.
Something that would really be good... Controlling stuff by holding your hand out over the keyboard and tilting/sweeping your hand. Now that would be quite an idea.
-d
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
"Apple recommends that this motion sensing device be not used to play dirty games with adultz materials, and especially all "G Point" research are to be prohibitted: as our customers have noticed, notebook behave badly under high accelerations, even counted in heartbeats.
Furthermore, let us remind it still disipate some heat hat may be prejudicial not only to your underpants."
Jokes appart, when will they include motion captors in stereoscopic headsets so that we really become sick with Doomlike games ?
I am not Remy Mouton, unfortunately: http://remy.mouton.free.fr/art/
Does that mean if you tip it upside down and shake vigorously the imagaes on the screen disappear??
Other laptops may have had this for years...
So where are the Windows apps that make use of this sensor?
Apple doesn't even deserve credit for this one as they include the sensor for the same reason everyone else does. Apple does deserve a little credit for making the output of this sesnor accessible to the programmer, and then the guy that developed the initial software to make use of it deserves the lions share of the credit for saying "hey, what if I did this!".
In your rush to discredit Apple, you were a bit too hasty in dismissing the accomplishments of the programmer as well.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you turn it upside down and shake it, does that clear the screen now?
I love the "gee whiz" aspect of the motion sensor as input, but I really don't feel this will ever be more than a toy.
As it is, I hate lifting my hands off the keyboard. To think that I'd actually have to take my hands off the keyboard, lift my laptop, and hover it around is absurd.
I'm rather surprised no one has yet thought of applying this to a Pinball game. Tilt indeed. Could get rather rough with the bumping though.
we'd have more people switching to apple. www.apple.com/switch/pr0n
is that most geeks would then have equal size arms.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
So what do camera sensors have to do with tilt/shift sensors?
I wouldn't think it would make as much sense to build programs around tilt/shift sensors in the PS2 since few consoles are in a position to be easily picked up and shifted around...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You slam it violently against the wall. Sure, you may destroy your Powerbook, but you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you won.
"Laptops are big...Mice are small...add a motion sensor to a blue-tooth mouse and you will drop my jaw."
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
...anything that doesn't plug into the back of your neck just plain sucks!!
I fuse with Mercer every single day...
Zapp Brannigan: Kif, clear my schedule.
Kif turns the Etch-a-Sketch upside-down and shakes it.
Yes with both you could bludgeon someone to death , however with the powerbook you could bludgeon in style whilst running OS X and with the sensor you would risk less HDD dammage whilst doing it
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
I can't see this becoming anything more then a novelty. So instead of doing something easily and quickly with a mouse or a touchpad underneath your hand. You're gonna hold a 5-12 pound laptop in your hands. After 4 minutes of gaming you're arms will be tired.
*DrugCheese rants*
A better game for the "ball/tilting" genre might be Marble Blast Gold, which is different from Neverball in that the image does *not* tilt in response to input. Considering that the Powerbook is being physically tilted already, it would look much more like real-world forces are acting on the marble.
I guess the next big craze in laptop gamming will be a virtual maze game like the ones we had when we were kids that had a small metal ball inside & u had the tilt the maze to get the ball thought the maze & to the finish hole.
Damn things have gotting expensive & complicated but havnt realy changed at all...!
For instance, in a car racing game, you steer by tilting the PowerBook left and right, go faster by tilting it forward, brake by tilting it backwards! ...Wouldn't it be nice to have a gaming motion sensor be standard issue in all future laptops?"
I tried it with John Madden's NFL Football. I threw a Hail Mary pass; a perfect, aim-for-the-end-zone spiral. My Powerbook sailed out the window of my 10th floor San Francisco apartment and I haven't seen it since.
I wonder if the pass was complete?
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
Whatever the big problems with swiss-cheese OS's and borglike office packages, they rightfully rule when it comes to controllers. Their optical mouse is the best I've seen, and after looking a long time for a good keyboard, the one I bought last year was theirs.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I agree the poster is all hot and bothered
I've never understood these complaints about heavy laptops. Cripes! "weighs over 3 kilograms," eh? If you can't hold that much weight for a while then you need even the slight workout you'd get from gaming that way. You remind me of the people here at the office who will wait 5 minutes for an elevator to arrive and take them up or down a single floor, ignoring the stairs 5 feet away.
This is really cool from a UI perspective, but not entirely new. A couple years ago people were doing interesting things with tilt sensors for Palm devices. Also see: Nintendo's new WarioWare game for GameBoy advance, which has a rotational sensor built-in to the cartridge. Also, Sony has done research in this area as well.
~jeff
Well then...*takes deep breath*
KHAAAAN!!!
Ahem...
Several problems have already been mentioned, like using the whole laptop like this defies the original reason ot have a motion sensor - to protect the hard disk -; plus, it's a bit heavy too.
Still, an input device like this would be cool, but I'd rather have it integrated in my (separate) keyboard or mouse.
"Money is a sign of poverty." - Iain Banks
I can see the powerbook/ibook sensors becoming popular amoungst laptop music geeks as a controller for interactive performances. (making the computer more and more like an instrument that can be played live)
No, no, no. Wrong! You should use an old IBM clicketyclick keyboard for this! As you can run a truck over them (and have them still work), they've been a sysadmin's favourite way of getting rid of pesky users. "Do you see any weapon, police officer? There's only me and my keyb... eh computer!"
Reinout van Rees
The Minolta 7 and 7D SLR cameras have a motion sensor so that the orientation of the LCD changes depending on whether the camera is held landscape or portrait.
It also automatically turns on when you raise the camera to your eye.
Although never seen on a laptop, we modified an Atari Jaguar controller in about 1995 with a motion sensor and used it to control their bundled video game. You tilted it to steer. It was just a prototype but we should have patented it looking back. With rergards to this brilliant Powerbook app, it would be nice to make it clear the screen/canvas in Photoshop and other graphics apps by shaking the machine, like Etch-A-Sketch!
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
to check the small movie showing how that sensor is used for
scrolling the content of the Google Maps web site in Safari. Pretty cool I must say.
Yes.
:-).
New innovation in the gaming market?
Not really.
Nintendo has made cartages for thier handheld systems that utilize tilt sensors. I'm sure other companies have them as well.
If you want to be really critical, we've had tilt games forever. You know, those cheapy plastic maze games where you roll the little steel ball thur. That is all I've ever seen these sensors lend themseves to, just digital versions of these games. The killer app for this tech is still waiting to be found. I guess hard drive protection is pretty close.
Like I said it's a neat toy if nothing else. I'm just waiting for my laptop with a power glove
That's what we get for not RTF'ing the previous A: How To Talk To Aliens.
I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent. - Q
Hate to sound like a phone geek, but my new Nokia 3220 with this standard mod has this feature, supported by 'Java motion' for programming, and ships games that use it...
You left out the rabbits, George. Tell me about the rabbits!
Sincerely,
Lenny
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
God forbid us feeble nerds be subjected to the lifting of a small amount of weight.
iSpiritLevel.... shipped on every Powerbook! ;-)
How about a revision of the controller SW that keeps the display "steady" by rotating it exactly opposite to the detected PowerBook motion? That would make the PowerBook seem to be a real "window" onto the virtual world within. The immediate, simple feedback would probably be so convincing that it would blow your mind. Which is what "thinking different" is all about.
--
make install -not war
...was at Siggraph in Orlando, FL in 1998. One booth had goggles (not sure what else to call them, kind of like these) and a headband with a gyro-sensor-thingie. Even though it wasn't 3d/stereo (the only possible improvement), it was so awesome. They had a good FPS game running (I think either GLQuake or Quake II at the time) and it was the greatest thing in the world. Just as good as you can imagine--walk with the arrow keys on a keyboard, shoot with 'control', but you could look around with your head, rather than the mouse.
It worked perfectly. Just what VR should be. Better than the those big, clunky, slow things at the mall; probably as good as what was imagined by Gibson. Better than what was shown in that crappy movie with Michael Douglas and Demi Moore, based on the equally crappy Crichton book. Perfect, perfect, perfect--very fast, no delay at all, nothing unnatural about it. Just turn your head, look up, and that's what you see. Exactly what you would expect.
My question is this: it's six and a half years later. Gear like this should be a few hundred bucks now. Why isn't it everywhere? Sony quit making the glasstrons, and this place has gyros be they seem like they cost a lot more than they should. I don't know a gamer who wouldn't love a setup like this. Gamers have spent a zillion dollars on video cards and controllers in the last decade. Stuff like this seems like it would have a huge market, and capitalism--more than nature itself--abhors a vacuum.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Wow this is perhaps the most genius post ever, why didn't we think of just doing it properly first instead of spending decades improving technology step by step???
Surely your revelation will usher in a new era of computing. Hell before this we hadn't even been thinking thanks fsterman, thanks.
WARNING: Comment may include sarcasm in reply to a horribly naive and foolish post.
I don't think he was saying that it was heavy for a laptop - he was just pointing out that it's not suited to being held out in front of you for any long periods of time.
I don't think it's unusual to find holding things out in front of you tiring. Most people's arms will get tired if they hold them out in front of themselves for any length of time - it's not a fitness issue.
I wonder how many people will drop their powerbooks while playing games in this manner... It's strange to me that something designed to help protect the hardware in the event of a fall is now encouraging people to walk around tilting and shaking their $3000 laptops... "D00d! These new seatbelts are awesome! Lets go drive backwards on the highway at full speed...because we can!! w00t!"
Anyone remember the Microsoft SideWinder Freestyle Pro from 2000? Didn't work out too well. Turns out using a tilt sensor for gaming was just another gimmick that quickly disappeared.
(I thought this was going to be a joke but someone's about to reply that they've already hacked this into GarageBand aren't they?)
How much good all this tilting and stuff does the hard drive. I'd think it caused some undue wear and tear, if not a head crash
Most Hard drives are rated for physical crashes in the hundreds of Gs of force. Tilting a laptop probably won't even cause 1G. Even dropping a laptop off a desk while it's in use won't nessicarily damage the drive, and I'd say most certainly won't damage the drive if the heads are locked (like if it's off). I'd be more concerned about the screen durring an accidental drop, but tilting won't do anything.
That's why you can shake your iPod while you run or jog with it. That has a HD, too, you know.
You do have a point, but those heavy laptops generally have other design flaws, namely using chips simply not designed for mobile use. It amazes me that people will buy this sort of machine because they must have the most power available, then have the nerve to complain about battery life. The uber-notes generally get only about 10% faster speed at best, for most desktop and gaming uses, and sacrifice half the battery life over systems that use chips properly chosen for the task.
(And don't forget to actually release it in Europe!)
Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?
While I doubt that a notebook is an ideal platform for this type of gaming, mainly because the keyboard is difficult to hit while tilting the notebook (you need both hands), I can see that Amit Singh has already thought about either selling the idea, the software, or patenting it, since his licence is only for a 10 minute demo preview. Apple might be wanting to include this software, or possibly even games that use it, in future macs.
Also, from the original submitter's story:
Wouldn't it be nice to have a gaming motion sensor be standard issue in all future laptops?"
I think that Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft have more to gain by making game controllers that use this technology. A lot of people, me included, don't like the tiny joysticks or pads on standard controllers. A controller using this technology would be much more natural. In fact, I'm postive that it will end up being used pretty soon.
Apple, or Amit Singh would be crazy not to patent the idea.
Besides just being cool motion sensors have some practical uses. According to this bloghttp://www.bobcongdon.net/blog/2003/10/new-thi nkpads-sense-motion.html, motion sensors can help to protect data by stopping the hard drive. To take it a step further, it could even send your important data using wireless before it even hits the ground.
Still different than using the tilt sensor, as it's relying on changes in the external view - if you were tracking around a plain white room it would not work very well at all.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Game controllers need to be durable. They need to be able to take abuse. This might work OK as a scroll-wheel replacement or such, but as a game controller it sounds like a recipe for destroying your laptop.
Also, as others have pointed out, the weight of the laptop, the possibility of hard drive damage, and the fact that the whole screen moves... all these things sound like showstoppers to me.
Does this software prevent the system from parking when dropped? If so, then there's a slight danger when using it. Otherwise it has no effect on hardware reliability. My god, do you lock your laptop in a vise when you use it to prevent the slightest motion? There's a reason it's called a "laptop", because you can use it on your lap!! We aren't talking about whirling the thing above your head like a rythmic gymnastics champion, after all - just slight tilting here and there!!
"drop in failed hardware" indeed. Has Slashdot become populated by a bunch of nintey-year-old grandmothers or what? Sickening to see such a lack of interest in a creative hack.
I'm sure the real issue is your unresolved jealously you can't do this with your Dell, dude.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Alls I am saying is this is not much of a "jump." The real WOW is what we can do when we understand what is going on. We can make a motorcycle now, sure, go ahead. But we could be a shitload better of one if we understand the basic underlying concepts of what is going on between computer and human.
Right now we have a Model-T. All we do is copy that design and end up with crappy results. I am a mac user, only becuase it is the _least_ annoying interface. I was a died in the wool blead green, yellow, orange, red, purple, and blue IN THAT ORDER blood!
The humane interface is a real wow. This is merely a toy in comarison to what can be done. When one sets out to create a new server or OS they know what they are doing. The design has been thought out and been done. As Linus has said the real challenge is the "desktop." What he means to say is the interface. What he, KDE, Gnome, Apple, MS, or most others don't seem to understand is that it isn't a feature rush, it's understanding how it works.
Until interface designers turn into interface engineers we will continue to think that basic force input is exiting. The really exiting this isn't the newest sudo 3d paradim or new input method, it's understanding and expanding how we interact with those things.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
"For instance, in a car racing game, you steer by tilting the PowerBook left and right, go faster by tilting it forward, brake by tilting it backwards!"
And I suppose you can just claim on the warranty when the hard drive crashes because you've been thrashing it about ?
Great idea !!!! Very cool.
The whole tilt something to make something else move. Lets see Microsoft made a sidewinder controller that does just that. I have one. You could buy a bundle with the controller and Motocross Madness. Great game but the whole tilt control was cumbersome. I don't see how tilting a whole notebook could be any better? Even more so, wouldn't someone tilting a powerbook around starbucks trying to play Doom 3 at 15FPS on their powerbook look pretty rediculous.
sorry for spelling and I would sign up for an account but, no.
How is that different than the sensor on the etch-and-sketch?
It appears the design for the kernelthread.com site is a rip-off of an older version of CSS guru Eric A. Meyer's blog site. Compare the site's design to this version pulled out of The Wayback Machine. Time to let Pirated Sites know. And this from somebody who works at IBM? I'm sure somebody at SCO would find this amusing...
...and the most basic kind of interface: iTunes is set on shuffle. If a song you don't like comes along, you just bump the PB with your knees and it skips a track.
It's called BumpTunes - short python script available from there.
And, dedicated keyboarders, you don't have to move your hands. Bump. Skip. Bump. Skip.
Not really that new a concept... C'mon Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble is pretty old and pretty fun.
The sensor was built in to the game cart, which made it particularly cool, since they could add a new interface without actually changing the gameboy hardware.
Somehow it seems the head prevention mechanism would be most desirable when you're picking your laptop up and swinging it around!
...you can keep it, makes my screen all jumpy
zing!
Get your Unix fortune now!
maybe DonkeyHote is an alien trying to communicate, but we just can't understand him/her/it?
My guess is that he's using encryption. Maybe a spy, maybe a terrorist. Any crypto geeks wanna test my hypothesis?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
This should make the erase feature much more obvious to the pointy-haired bosses.
"Vee do not vear the hello-my-name-ist badge!!" - The Real Mad Scientist
Except these days, manufacturers have taken to calling them notebook computers, mostly because the "must have more power" crowd keep par-boiling their privates.
All I need is a Photoshop extension and 2 jog/shuttle wheels and I can turn my Powerbook into an etch-a-sketch. Awesome. BRB..gotta go to the store.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
The Mac did not start out as well, that is for sure. Remember the keyboard on the first Mac (now known as the "Mac Classic")? It was rudimentary and crude. It was worse than the Apple 2 keyboards and even the Vic-20 keyboard was a lot better. I think they spent their time concentrating on the mouse and the GUI. I also remember their "we're still behind the curve" late 1980s keyboards, with the hyroglyphics instead of "on", "off", etc.
If the Mac zealots think this is mere bashing, can you honestly say you would use the first Mac keyboard, instead of the one found on the IBM-XT, which is still state-of-the-art?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
specialized thin gloves equipped with bluetooth. That way you can use your hands to move the ball around, act as a mouse, etc. Are there any like this out there?
Can't wait for the SuperMonkeyBall port.
Or Marble Madness...
Some shareware game dev will find a use for it.. Just like those people who made an EyeToy clone for iSights.
http://www.toysight.com/
Could it be used to trace your path on a map without using GPS?
This is from the era when the big reason to get a PeeCee instead of a Mac was that you couldn't run your lotus spreadsheets on it:
Q: What's the difference between a Mac and Etch-a-Sketch?
A: You don't have to shake the Mac to clear the screen.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Although ultimately it is probably not very useful to have tilt control on a laptop, I could see it being possible to build a USB dongle containing the necessary kit to add the facility to any USB-enabled laptop. A bit of configuration software would take care of the different orientations of USB sockets. I don't know how hard it would be to home-brew something like that.
[Happosai]
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Don't slam the controller down on the floor when you lose the race.
I thought that's what the harddrives were for!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Finally, a HUI worthy of this, and a number of track-and-field events...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
But can I play LSL with this innovation? Even with the slim form factor I think it will chafe.
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
For a truly novel, if not 3 dimensional, experience with converging input technologies -- balance your tilt sensing PowerBook on top of your track ball. Now if only they could reinforce the keyboard so one could stand up and surf on it! Toe tapping function keys optional ...
try buying this mouse. does the same thing for any computer.
yeah, that's about it
Yeah, it's called the Air Mouse. Welcome to 1999.
Stupidest thing I've ever seen. Like I really want to pick up my laptop and work it like one of those marble games just to scroll around.
The Toshiba Portégé M200 Tablet PC has a similar accelerometer setup. It comes with some simple Windows apps, but no API as far as I can tell, and no Linux support.
Has anyone figured out how to access the accelerometers? Googling doesn't give much (or my Google-fu is weak, consider this a challenge).
Maybe one day it will have the same level of ease of use as an Etch-A-Sketch(R).
Manual for Etch-A-Stetch:
Q: My Etch-A-Sketch has all of these funny little lines all over the screen. What do I do?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: How do I turn my Etch-A-Sketch off?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: What's the shortcut for "Undo"?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: How do I create a New Document window?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: How do I set the background and foreground to the same color?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: What is the proper procedure for rebooting my Etch-A-Sketch?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: How do I delete a document on my Etch-A-Sketch?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: How do I save my Etch-A-Sketch document?
A: Don't shake it.
apple. ipod. g2782784334. steve jobs. done.
Whats next?, pushing your car to save gas? Or, how about jerking your whole body while keeping your dingy in place?
Well, at least he got the title of the post right.
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
Because all the other inertia controllers suck for games. It's basically like having a joystick without a spring to return it to the centre. Except in this case, the controller weighs 3kg, is in no way ergonomic, and the screen moves when you move the controller.
I tried this out for games when Microsoft brought out their Sidewinder inertia controller years ago (hey, does that mean it's a Microsoft innovation?), and it just plain sucked for everything I tried, due to lack of physical feedback.
There have been playstation controllers with this feature, too, but again, it's only ever been a novelty. There's a reason for that.
Will the laptop make a screaming sound when it becomes weightless after slipping out of your hands?
Will it then make the obligatory loud car crash sounds when the weightlessness ends right before it makes loud laptop crashing sounds?
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
In your rush to discredit Apple, you were a bit too hasty in dismissing the accomplishments of the programmer as well.
Using the accelerometer for parking the disk head may or may not be "innovative", since parking disk heads in emergencies is actually a standard feature in many drives. But using a built-in accelerometer as a user interface definitely is in no way innovative; those uses are old in human computer interaction.
So, why discredit the notion that some idea is innovative when it isn't? Because believable claims of innovation have important real-world consequences. For example, when people make a big deal out of a company doing something that was actually developed in academia, people get the wrong impression of where to put their money if they want innovation. The fact is that most of the nifty ideas in commercial software systems, ideas that the companies like to portray as "novel" and "innovative", were developed in academia with public funding.
Send her to goatse :)
Back in the days just before they were bought out, DEC created a linux-based PDA called the Itsy that used tilt-scrolling as the way to handle large pages/windows on a small screen. It was about the size of a deck (pardon the pun) of playing cards, and was probably the first linux-based PDAs out there (at least in prototype form).
I've got something on my lap that she would drop her jaw open for...and it's not a computer...
This should be modded informative, not funny.
I can easily say gaming is not the way to go with this. No offense, but taking something as big as a lap top and tilting it around in game would be nothing more than a novelty. Playing some marble game avoiding holes...sure, that might sound appealing to some people, but most gamers are so weak, they could only hold the laptop up for 5 minutes tops (kidding...mostly). This would be a lot more interesting on hand held devices where weight is less and there isn't a hinged monitor to flop around. I don't even think you would need to put it in the hardware...assuming that there is a little space in the game cartridge, or if some of the cartridge is sticking out it can have a little add on that can detect how much you are tilting the game equipment. But really, it's still a novelty. You have less control of what is going than with a d-pad or mouse. Eh, I just don't see it catching on...particularly on a lap top. I did my duty as a Slashdot reader and didn't read the article...maybe he lists somethings that are much more useful. I doubt it though...probably good for very specific uses, but I can't see any killer app for it.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
He probably got ahold of an old Kirby Tilt N Tumble cartridge.
Well, your girlfriend called my COCK "jawdropping"!!! :-P
I am not familiar with them. Did they have the wonderful "Model M" click?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I remember reading a review of a Compaq credit card size data storage device (no PDAs back then) that you tilted to scroll text. It only had two buttons I think. Anyone remember more details of this? I remember reading a review in a magazine (probably Byte).
pithy comment
Re-read what I wrote, for that is not the argument I am making.
I am claiming that the PROGRAMMER is the source of innovation, not Apple!! IBM had them before APple I believe.
I am just saying that In peoples rush to attack Apple, the company, they are not stopping to think "Hey, a guy has not done that with the built-in laptop sesnor before".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They also sense motion by the user.
No, they sense motion in front of the camera - and poorly, as they have ways to not sense all motion either.
Whereas accelerometers are more reliable and repeatable as far as control goes.
Trust me, I have an EyeToy. There is a world of difference.
Yes there is a ton of prior art. I just about put together the old hack with an accelerometer chip attached to my Palm years ago. But no-one has (as far as I know) done this with built-in laptop sensors yet, which is FAR more accessible. That's what makes it cool and impressive because it brings it to so many more people than just hardware hackers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I find it a little puzzling how that one flew right over your head, since I posted a link to the original troll/post. Did you even click on the link? It's a semi-famous troll here on slashdot, and people have made some very funny variations based on it.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Rather than providing yet another post about how using built in accelerometers as control devices is not inherently innovative, you've finally produced an example of a laptop (well, close enough...) device that is doing this already.
Thanks, that was actually very informative as I've not read about that feature in a tablet - it makes a lot of sense and looks pretty cool.
I still say the OS X programmer was rather clever to look into using it on Powerbooks though, as it was not a very widespread idea, but it's nice to see an actual manufacturer doing this already!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
On re-reading I find I missed your point as well, and I don't think you missed mine at all - so I am sorry about that.
To provide a better argument, those ideas are old but this particular twist is innovative, like being able to scroll (or pan across maps) using the sesnors. That's a kind of cool idea, even if another user pointed out it may have come from a tablet first (but I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt that he thought of it independantly).
Just because someone has used an accellerometer before for HCI does not mean there cannot be new, and truly innovative uses of that technology in the future. Just like gestures were an innovative use of mice, even though people have been using them for years.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://blogs.msdn.com/vbertocci/archive/2005/02/13 /371928.aspx
This is actually a design shortcoming. The muscles that hold our arms in the air must be contracted all the time and they are not designed for that. So no matter how fit you are, holding your arms in front of you for a long time can be really hard and painful. In fact, I heard somewhere that it was used as a modern torture method by cops somewhere (no evidence left, but after enough time it is just as painful as a kick in the groin).
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Note that Tilt Sensors as input devices are neither something very new nor very 'jawdropping', just because someone just found out they exist. In fact, our beloved software giant from Redmond in 2001 released the Sidewinder FreeStyle Pro gamepad, an input device that came with a tilt sensor to be used in place of an analog joystick and a game that used this feature right away. It was impressive and fun to use, but nowhere near "jawdropping new feature everyone has to have".
Now, four years later, the Apple community finds out about tilt sensors and all of a sudden you can tilt in style, etch-a-sketch with your notebook and play marbles with it...
From Wordnet (r) 2.0: hacker n 1: someone who plays golf