Slashdot Mirror
MacSaber Turns Your Macbook into a Lightsaber
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."
They could also use this to play Tennis! No wonder the Wii looks like an Apple product, it uses bluetooth to let you use your Macbook (Pro) as a paddle! Hooray!
I would buy a new macbook just for this feature (well, that and tri-booting osx, xp, and gentoo).
Normality is now: overrated.
Nice little app. Can't say I've tried it myself, but it does give me horrible images of Lucas-ites squealing with glee every time they drop their laptop. Perhaps Mac put this out intentionally to make money off of repair gouging? (And yes, I kid. (Kinda (Maybe)))
Now I can take my $1000 laptop and shake it to hear cool sounds! I can't imagine any downside in that. Oh crap, I just dropped my laptop. I can't wait to see the clip of the starwars laptop kid.
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
I don't want lightsaber effects, I just want to be able to use force pull on a Mac laptop. That would be fun. And profitable.
Emerald Astrology
...you can, before George Lucas sues the authors.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
...followed by a lawsuit of course.
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.
Can you make it scream in terror/pain when you drop it?
We are all just people.
The article is /.'d.
I couldn't access the site (see below), but it sounds extremely bad ass. Definitely is a selling point for me to see if I get a Mac this time around or not. It's been so precariously balanced for years...always in favor of NOT getting one, but this year with the Intel changes and lightsaber capability I'd have to say that I may as well get a MacBook for the wifey.
/.?
site dump:
WordPress
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And I love it :) I'm sitting here waving around my spankin' new 17" and smiling like an idiot. Luckily you don't have to wave it too hard to get the cool sounds.
And the SMS data display is just kinda neat anyways. I had no idea it was so detailed... now I know that my desk leans 3 points to the left.
Cheers.
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
( I
The Macbook (and before it, Powerbook) line has had the motion sensor for a while now. The sensor isn't the news.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
NetworkMirror since the original site didn't connect for me. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The most famous app to use this feature is probably iAlertU, which has a demo on YouTube.
e gym.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkAtRfA1UXc
http://www.slappingturtle.com/home/
Bubblegym was one of the first games to make use of thos:
http://www.balooba.se/baloobasoftware/texts/bubbl
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?
Maybe they can use Rendezvous to tell how close they come to other lightsabers for more realistic crashing noises at the right time.
Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementia (There is no great genius without a mixture of madness) - Aristotle
I hear they run hotter than a light saber.
What was your username again? -BOFH
I second that it would be cool to get this to scream when you dropped it.
I can't even see the light saber effects now!!!
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
No, what you're saying is incorrect, and unfortunately, what many people seem to believe.
Apple and IBM sensors are similar.
*BOTH* are on the motherboard. Not sure where this "sensor on the hard drive" myth comes from.
*BOTH* use the same technology (they are MEMS sensors).
*BOTH* are manufactured by non-Apple/non-IBM companies.
*BOTH* are driven by software drivers (what else do you expect?).
*BOTH* have a private interface that is not available to third parties.
*BOTH* have been reverse engineered by third parties.
There's already support for using the IBM's sensor in Linux. The first reverse engineering was that of the PowerBook's sensor (the kernelthread.com link that you mentioned) -- way back in early 2004.
Most importantly, please don't say "Apple sensor has an API" etc. Apple certainly never made anything public about how to "use" the PowerBook/iBook/MacBook/MacBook Pro sensors. kernelthread first reverse engineered it, and then the whole idea became popular all over the net in no time.
And while we are at it, IBM started including such a sensor in ThinkPads a long time before Apple. Like Apple, they didn't make their "API" public either.
Maybe in a classroom, but my girlfriend just got a kick out of it and kissed me after showing her this and the iAlertU app. It's probably just because she things I'm insane, but it's fun just the same :-)
Dorks. They look like Dorks, Mr. Wolfe.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
I just installed this and started playing around with it.
My daughter saw me and wanted to try. So I let her.
This lead to a saber duel and the lopping off of her imaginary friends toe.
Now, I am at the imaginary emergency room.
MacSaber 1.0 causes your Macbook to whoosh and crash like a lightsaber
;-)
"Crash"? Then it should be called WindowsSaber
Table-ized A.I.
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.
the software is the news, not the sensor.
Or get a sense of humor, and appreciate the fans donating stuff to him. Kid gets an instant ticket to (in)fame, and he cries about it, because he's fat and awkward, and looks goofy. Ridiculous.
The sounds now complete the MacBook as a lightsaber. It was already hot enough to sever limbs and cauterize the wound at the same time.
Doing this will increase the chance of damage to the hard drives to do torque while the platters are spinning.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xcffXvJ7TnY&search=macs aber
What the onomatopoeia is for the sound of a Light Sabre igniting...?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If iAlertU uses the bluetoothed Front Row remote, surely someone can come up with a way to use a bluetooth mobile instead... Sryn
I tried this on a 12" PowerBook, and it doesn't quite work. At idle, the registers say the following:
Roll: Left 1835
Tilt: -2070
Force: 0 0
Motion of any kind doesn't really affect it (obviously, I didn't try too hard, because I don't feel like having sector errors all over the place). The sensor registers seem to spike at quasi-random intervals, and adjusting the brightness control seems to move the registers to opposite corners. The version of Sudden Motion Sensor in the 12" PowerBook is 1.0; perhaps the newer SMS versions in the MacIntelToshes have better magnitude-sensitivity.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I contributed to the slashdotting of a comrades' website :(
Oh well.
Mirror 1
Mirror 2
Don't have a copy of the original page, sorry--but it was pretty much just a link to this file anyway.
Unless you reapply the thermal paste in sane amounts, the MacBooks will also melt anything they touch, just like a real lightsaber!
You've confused me with this term, "girlfriend." I can only assume from context that you are referring to your mother? No, the word doesn't ring a bell... and you'd think I'd have run across it sometime if it was real. I read slashdot all the time and I've never seen anyone else use it.
how long till a hack to use your mac as a Wii controller? pinball game tilt meter? jostle the mac and little annoying voice comes out screaming" Dont shake the baby! " just need a lil blue tooth controld rc car to strap the laptop to and let it drive itself around exploring the house. (make it an rc truck and have it tow the duster)
- Gronk!
Heck, I have a machine that reboots when you shake it and it's almost thirty years old. Still works too!
Those etch a sketch guys rocked.
My MacBookPro's sensor appears to be miscalibrated, so that even when level it thinks it's tilted to the left.
I suppose that a correct reading isn't strictly necessary for Apple's application of the sensor - it just needs to notice rapid relative changes, not the static orientation.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
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
Yes, the fat people always have to play the clowns for the skinnies right? Dance for us fat boy, dance. Your awkward movements amuse us. Maybe he didn't feel comfortable with people laughing AT him and not with him.
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.
Here's a mirror for you all! http://www.networkmirror.com/0hVbKVHBUZJfLz6G/isno op.net/blog/2006/05/20/macsaber-turn-your-mac-into -a-jedi-weapon/index.html
As a thinkpad owner, it's kind of annoying to see apple getting so much credit for something that IBM has been doing for three years. Actually, this seems to be a recurring theme: mac fans (and apple marketing) smugly claim that apple went and showed all the PC-manufacturing scum how to build a proper intel-based laptop. These people have obviously never held a thinkpad.
You really didn't deserve that kiss if the first thing you did when you got it was brag about it on /.
I'd prefer the sabre sound effect for mouse movement. And the sabre clashing sound when a mouse button is clicked.
would be so cool on this unit.
Once they write a program to allow you to turn around in video games with this, I'm definitely getting a Mac!
I thought that the word "nerd" should appear somewhere in this article. Now it does.
More pentenance:i book.mp4
http://kisco.free.fr/download/stable_window_demo_
Bert
(Couldn't find it on Google at first. Gasp).
Quite honestly, I'm looking forward to the introduction of the "light flail", where you swing it around by power the cord and it makes wonderful whooshing and crashing sounds when it smacks into things. Lovely bits of hardware those flails are.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
shhh.. apple invented it.
Strange thing is, it did, and had actually applied for a patent before IBM began shipping it.
Stranger thing is, Apple so far hasn't tried to enforce the patent against IBM or anyone else. Probably because they realize that IBM isn't likely to roll over, when it had similar technology at about the same time.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
The foot means it's a joke.
"This is all strongly reminiscent of the heyday of Communism and Socialism, when the bourgeoisie were hated from both ends: by the proles, because they had all the money, and by the intelligentsia, because of their tendency to spend it on lawn ornaments."
--Neal Stephenson
can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcffXvJ7TnY&search= macsaber
I don't know what's most disturbing: that you call your Macbook your girlfriend, or that you kiss it...
It's here... it kind of behaves like a car alarm...
http://www.slappingturtle.com/home/
eleven plus two / twelve plus one
.. *yawn* .. wake me up when it can be used to control a dildo^H^H^H^H^Hsynthesizer ..
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
And when you drop it, it's as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.
Plus, this way when I'm impressing people with my mad sabre skills, I can also drop the Macbook on a couch or something and hear R2D2's scream. :)
Hit a nerve, huh?
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
Some people pay more for a top-of-the-line video card. Some pay more for reliability because they're putting a server together. But others pay more for the ability to run the OS they want. I'm sure your $599 Dell is nice, but it's not a good deal for someone who wants a Mac.
I am surprised nobody mentioned it, but the perfect device for a MacSaber-like application will be the Wiimote because the Wii controller will have sensors of course, but also a built-in speaker. Which means as you move the Wiimote, it could emit laser saber sounds ;-)
Many people criticize the Wiimote sensors as being a gimmick, but the popularity of MacSaber just proved quite the contratry. It proved that people like physical interactions with games !
I'd set it up with R2-D2 sounds. Imagine, as your powerbook hurtles to the floor, it lets fly with the R2-D2 "scream". Or it has that R2-D2 question-like beeping and chirping when it asks you a question.
This space for rent
Looks like the apple NYC store story went squish
/ 2051243
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/19
Sniff - we hardly knew ye. And there's no direct email form for mentioning this either - unless I want to create ANOTHER account on ANOTHER submission site that reads about as conceise as the flight-deck of a Boeing 757. Nice interface - looks like a drunk UI designer barfed his PRD all over the place.
Ew.
Yes, yes good for you you have a "girlfriend" and you got a "kiss"
Insensitive clod...
The sudden motion sensor is not new to macbooks. It has been in the powerbook line since early 2005.
or else!
After I hacked in a free solid copy of x86 Mac OS - sure looks like a mac to me!
Horns are really just a broken halo.
Point take, but BitTorrenting a copy of OS X and getting it installed on unsupported hardware is not a task that the average Mac user (or Windows user, for that matter) can handle. :) In addition, there is no assurance that future versions of Mac OS X will still work with your equipment as they improve their anti-hacking measures. So if you want that PC as a Mac you have to live with the possibility that the current version of OS X may well be the last version that can be made to work on it.
I actually had a lot of respect for that kid for putting himself out there and making that video. Only when I discovered that he was a whiny pussy that likes to sue people did I think less of him.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!