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?"
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.
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
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?
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
"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.
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.