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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."

5 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. 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 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...

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  2. 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.

  3. 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
  4. 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.