Experimenting With Light on Apple Laptops

venkatg writes "Soon after Apple introduced sudden motion sensors in their PowerBooks in early 2005, Amit Singh had shown how these sensors can be used for creative purposes (covered by Slashdot earlier as Having Fun With PowerBook Motion Sensors and PowerBook As A New Kind Of Human Interface Device). This time around Singh discusses 'Experimenting With Light' in a new article whereby by light he means the ambient light sensors and the illuminated backlight keyboard sensors in Apple's laptops. The article shows (source code is included) how one can measure ambient light and do things with it. It also shows things like how to get/set illuminated keyboard brightness and display brightness or do fade transitions of the keyboard lighting. So now that we have all these motion and light sensors under control, is there a MacBook discotheque in the works?"

Comments

Blackout Game

[VorpalRodent]

I recall a game from not too long ago wherein one would push lighted buttons, and they would alternate the lighted status of those buttons around it. The objective was to turn off (or on, I forget) all the buttons on the unit.

With this, assuming that each key has a light associated with it, one could do the same thing with a whole keyboard.

And for those who don't have any issues with being violent towards their computers, you could reset it a la Etch-a-Sketch with the motion sensor.

The killer app

[Anonymous Coward]

As soon as the light dims, iTunes will automatically start the Barry White playlist and some soft porn starts to play via Front Row. All that is left for you to do is to hug yourself and cry yourself to sleep, feeling oh so lonely, lonely, lonely.

Re:How does the keyboard backlight work?

[Anonymous Coward]

The keyboard illumination does not allow for individual key lighting.

The mechanism is a mat of fiber-optic cables which are illuminated by just two leds, which also cannot be independantly controlled.