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Knock Some Commands Into Your Laptop
An anonymous reader writes "For the first time, you can smack your computer and get a meaningful response! An article at IBM Devworks show you how to rap on the laptop case with your knuckles and have commands run on those knocks. Enterprising hackers have developed modules for the Linux kernel to take advantage of laptop integrated accelerometer sensors; with them the possibilities are endless."
I don't know about you, but I would not go out of my way to subject a laptop to sudden motion intentionally while the hard drive is running, no matter how well the hard drives are built. If I spend $2,000 on a laptop, I'd want the thing to last.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
What they need to do to install the sensors int the monitors of desktops because that's were the average user will hit they computer.
My guess is that most people get fixated on the monitor or don't realize that if they wanted to do damage then need to strike the components that actually do the work.
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
Aside from the fact that encouraging people to gradually ruin their notebook's hard drive, this idea is the next "MOUSE GESTURING".
Write press release - introduce a few whiz-bang apps or games - stumble over an article about the concept ten years later and laugh at the idea all over again.
At least it's not the next Z-Board.
Maybe we should just start putting in different types of random sensors in laptops that can pull data from the emediate environment and see what the hackers can do with them. Some suggestions:
:P ??? :I !!?# :(
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Gyroscopes for Orientation (pitch,roll,yaw)
More accelerometers
Altimeter
GPS
External temperature,humidity, pressure
Pressure sensors (which determine how hard the user is banging on the keyboard in aggrevation).
Thermal imaging
I'm all for that, except my backpack is not big enough to fit nuclear power plant that goes with that setup
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
How would this be better than just hitting the space bar or mouse button? And how could a program possibly discern a dot from a dash if all you're doing is hitting the computer?
The self-destruct sequence on Dell equipment is fully automated and is initiated the first time the unit is powered up after purchase. The countdown is assigned to a random number at the factory, ranging anywhere from ten seconds to several months.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The sudden motion the sensors were originally designed to sense was the first stage of it starting to fall off of a desk or table, onto the floor. If it took very much shock energy to trip the sensor, it would be totally useless - since it would basically be asking the hard drive to shut down after the computer already hit the floor.
Therefore, the sensors are very sensitive - registering a response to levels of shock well below what would actually harm a spinning laptop hard drive. (If your drive was fragile enough to crash because of someone lightly tapping on the top of the notebook's case, or giving a light tap to the side of the unit to switch virtual screens, it would also die whenever someone tried to move around to get moer comfortable with their laptop in their lap, or adjiust the position of the lid, or.... (you get the idea).
This stuff seems perfectly harmless to me, as long as users exercise some common sense. (Obviously - it was NEVER a good idea to whack your computer hard on the side or top!)
"...as the technology became more sophisticated, the controls were made touch sensitive ... now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but meant you had to stay infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same programme. D. Adams"
Lump lingered last in line for brains, and the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane.
They do...it starts when you press the power button.
Videogames made me kill people...I also eat mushrooms to grow bigger.