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PowerBook As A New Kind Of Human Interface Device

Posted by Hemos on from the interesting-applications dept.

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?"

11 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. More from Amit Singh by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:More from Amit Singh by TheGuano · · Score: 4, Informative

      The same motion sensor (with real-time 3d display of the notebook's orientation) has been on the IBM Thinkpad for a while now. Since he's an IBM researcher, maybe he'll take the time to port it over to the PC as well! I've always wanted to play Labyrinth or Marble Madness (or Super Monkey Ball) by actually tilting the machine.

  2. Thinkpads hmmmm by RebelWithoutAClue · · Score: 3, Informative

    Thinkpads have this sensor too...

    --
    "However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
    1. Re:Thinkpads hmmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      On Thinkpads the sensor is on the hard drive itself. The difference is that in PowerBooks it is on the motherboard, allowing it to be used with any hard drive and technically any hardware - e.g. Sudden Motion Sensing iPods...

  3. Except... by daveschroeder · · Score: 2, Informative

    ...that this Amit Singh actually is a researcher at IBM Almaden Research Center.

    Apologies for the munged link in my initial post.

  4. Re:racing game appliations by mrmez · · Score: 2, Informative

    IIRC from the previous article, a previously created app from the originator of these motion sensor hacks tilts the contents of the screen so that as the PB tilts the picture stays level to the viewer (i.e. - PB screen goes left and down, screen contents go right and up to compensate).

  5. Also See: by jeffehobbs · · Score: 4, Informative


    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

  6. Re:Many times HD asleep anyway by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 2, Informative

    IIRC, in the first article (which I didn't re-read), he advised about parking the drive before we experiment.

    --
    It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
  7. Shouldn't hurt the HD by BobPaul · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  8. Re:Laptops are big...Mice are small by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not bluetooth, but there's no reason the Gyration couldn't be.

  9. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion