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MacSaber Turns Your Macbook into a Lightsaber

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the macs-and-other-jedi-mind-tricks dept.

Petey_Alchemist writes "SomethingAwful.com forum goon isnoop has developed a useless but fun app that takes advantage of the new sudden motion sensor available in Macbooks. The MacSaber 1.0 causes your Macbook or Macbook Pro to whoosh and crash like a lightsaber depending on how you swing it around. The reviews from those who have installed it say it is quite fun--although there is some concern about whether or not 'lightsaber battles' fall under warranty."

11 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Okay... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It would probably a lot more cheaper to build a lightsaber out of Lego blocks and some electronics. Trying to catch a laptop lightsaber in mid-air may result in a fatal (physical) crash that AppleCare won't cover.

  2. Re:Talk about your gimmicks by Wizy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Funny you should say that. Thats exactly what my laptop is setup to do. GRUB loading up and showing OS X, GENTOO, and XP as its three options is a beautiful thing.

  3. iPod - iSaber by MasterPi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This could be the thing that finally convinces me to get an iPod. I've been resisting, but that would just be too cool. Especially if they used semitransparent casing and made the indiglo spread the whole way 'round. They could call it the iSaber

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    ( I
  4. Accelerometer by gjuk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How accurate is the Mac's motion detection? Does this mean I should trade in my PC, stick a Mac in my rucksack, and let it work out how many calories I burn cycling to work?

    1. Re:Accelerometer by Rosyna · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Does this mean I should trade in my PC, stick a Mac in my rucksack, and let it work out how many calories I burn cycling to work?

      Yes, however you'd probably have to connect a dummy DVI connector in order to keep the laptop from Sleeping. Note that this will drain your battery life in this configuration. You'd only be able to take about a 3-4 hour "trip" with all the power saving features turned on. But if you don't live that far away from work, battery life shouldn't be a problem.

    2. Re:Accelerometer by Jeremi · · Score: 4, Interesting
      The Sudden Motion Sensor is accurate enough that there is a dashboard widget that emulates a bubble level.


      Cool... but do they have an emulation of that annoying wooden table game, where you steer a little steel ball through a tilting maze while trying to not to fall into the holes? That's clearly what the SMS was originally designed for...

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      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  5. Think different by knappe+duivel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    With the ambient light detector, sudden motion sensor, infrared port, isight, airport, bluetooth and microphone a macbook pro should be able to pry more information out of its surroundings than a tricorder. How about putting that into a game in stead of starting dangerous new fads.

  6. Re:Rendezvous by jrockway · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Rendezvous has nothing to do with physical proximity. What they could do, though, is associate two machines via bluetooth and see how the link quality changes as the machine move nearer to each other. You could do this with 802.11 also, but the proprietary drivers won't give you enough information to do anything useful. This could be solved by using the Linux drivers for the Intel Wireless, which are open source, and give you good information about the link quality. (Do the MacBooks use Intel Wireless, or did Apple choose some other vendor?)

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    My other car is first.
  7. Hooray! It is already patented! by Misagon · · Score: 4, Interesting
    According to this article the motion sensor is actually a three-axis accelerometer. I doubt that George Lucas would sue, but I know of a guy who claims that he has a US patent on the use of an accelerometer in a lightsaber toy to trigger sound events.

    I suggested the use of an accelerometer on an Internet messageboard, when another user had asked for advice for building a high-end lightsaber toy. I directly got snotty remarks that it would be infringing on this guy's patent. He was then selling circuits with an accelerometer that were connected via radio-link to a PC that played sounds.

    I then told him that I was building such a circuit myself and knew of other people who also had designed similiar circuits independently from eachother, because it was quite straightforward design if you know your way around electronics. I pointed out that I thought that such straight-forward patents were stealing from the community, especially if this was a software patent but that it wouldn't apply to me anyway because he was in the US and I was in Europe. For this I was banned from the msgboard, for "software piracy" (!) .. apparently the admins did not distinguish between different types of intellectual property, or they were friends with this guy. I don't know.

    --
    "We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
  8. That's just wrong by syncrotic · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As the AC that replied to your post already said, the sensor in Thinkpads is mounted on the motherboard, and the shock protection is software controlled. The laptop ships with a control panel applet that gives you a realtime 3D view of the computer: it pitches and yaws as you physically move the machine.

  9. Software-based Etcha-sketch by Adelle · · Score: 2, Interesting

    would be so cool on this unit.