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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.
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."
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.
...that this Amit Singh actually is a researcher at IBM Almaden Research Center.
Apologies for the munged link in my initial post.
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)
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?
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?
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
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.
is that most geeks would then have equal size arms.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
"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... ***
I used to have something like that in my home studio . Alesis' Air FX seems like a hackworthy piece of hardware.
Consider tilting your laptop all over the place on an airplane. I''m sure it would annoy your neighbors to no end.
Actually, tilting the laptop didn't annoy my neighbors nearly as much as the airplane sounds I made, or when I'd headbutt the guy sitting next to me when I'd tilt my head along with the laptop.
The stewardess took my laptop away half way through the trip. Something about homeland security...
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
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
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.
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
Do you really want to be tilting a PowerBook around when you've only got one hand free?
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...
God forbid us feeble nerds be subjected to the lifting of a small amount of weight.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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