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Knock Some Commands Into Your Laptop

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the wake-up dept.

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."

3 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. random sensors..... by eggoeater · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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:

    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

    --
    $7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
  2. SmackEdit by HTTP+Error+403+403.9 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    There is another Mac OS X app called SmackEdit. It simulates a manual typewriter and when smacked on the side, it performs a carriage return including the bell ring.


    Lots of fun at the coffee shop.

    --
    I'm not a Troll, it's reverse psychology.
  3. Or, you could just wave your hand over your Mac... by thedbp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is even cooler - using Virtual Desktops, Shadowbook, and Parallels Desktop, you can switch between OS X and Windows just by waving your hand over the ambient light sensor in the MacBook Pro ...

    Peep a video here:
    http://blog.medallia.com/2006/06/shadowbook.html

    Cheers!