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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.
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.
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
No. About a year ago Apple starting adding a general purpose motion sensor to the motherboard, accessible via an API. The OS uses the motion sensor to park a HD during a jolt. Others have tapped into it for more fun/useful uses.
The IBM one, by the way, is a feature of the HD controller and is not available via a general API.
Apple's KB article on it
Some developer info on the motion sensor and how to tap into it
Further discussion of above link
A car alarm-style app that uses the SMS to detect if the laptop is being moved when the alarm is activated
E pluribus unum
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.
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.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xcffXvJ7TnY&search=macs aber
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.
would be so cool on this unit.
Where are all the mod points when you *really* need them??!!
"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
And when you drop it, it's as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.