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!

[Tezkah]

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!

Re:They could also use this to play Tennis!

[FidelCatsro]

You could play Pong
Two white Macbooks , a big long strip of paper and an iPod

A short, crappy movie

[mu22le]

can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcffXvJ7TnY&search= macsaber [youtube.com]

Wiimote's built-in speaker & sensors

[this great guy]

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 !

Re:They could also use this to play Tennis!

[Irish_Samurai]

Yeah, but with the black ones you get to pretend you're a Sith.

Re:They could also use this to play Tennis!

[AoT]

Well worth the extra $200, I'm sure.

Talk about your gimmicks

[Hobbes897]

I would buy a new macbook just for this feature (well, that and tri-booting osx, xp, and gentoo).

Re:Talk about your gimmicks

[Wizy]

Funny you should say that. Thats exactly what my laptop is setup to do. GRUB loading up and showing OS X, GENTOO, and XP as its three options is a beautiful thing.

Re:Talk about your gimmicks

[tomstdenis]

The only good thing about having mac OS, gentoo and XP is that when you boot Gentoo you can say "I could boot XP or MacOS, I just choose not to." :-)

Tom

Re:Talk about your gimmicks

[TeknoHog]

But wouldn't the other 2 be a waste of HD space, if that were to be your attitude?

I interpreted this so that you don't even have to install the other OSes. But you can say you have the possibility of installing/running them. Personally I don't care as long as I can run Gentoo :)

OT - why do people think that these things are "motion" sensors? Such a thing would defy the laws of physics.

They are accelerometers, meaning they can be used to detect relative motion. You can combine acceleration informat

Re:Talk about your gimmicks

[tomstdenis]

It was a joke. The idea was you could snub the other OSes out of spite.

I wouldn't buy a Mac, pay the premium and then not run an OS that gave me the most lattitude to do my work.

MacOS may look perdy but USE flags are god. XP may play games but PocketNES rules them all.

Just MHO.

Tom

Hooray!

[ThatGeek]

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.

Re:Hooray!

[nitrocloud]

You are a skilled Jedi to drop your laptop while typing and being able to post before it broke!

Re:Hooray!

[QuietLagoon]

OMG, don't these people have a life?

No lightsabers

[ZzzzSleep]

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.

Re:No lightsabers

[zalas]

Dunno about using force pull on the laptop, but the laptop can sure force pull its own power cable. [apple.com]

Grab it while...

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

...you can, before George Lucas sues the authors.

Re:Grab it while...

[NTiOzymandias]

Lucas doesn't have a chance to sue. Steve Jobs shoots first!

Re:Grab it while...

[Gogo0]

In the dupe, Lucas will shoot first.

Re:Grab it while...

[JediLow]

Lucas won't bother suing - all he needs is to slashdot the server!

Re:Grab it while...

[Tibor the Hun]

He finds their lack of faith disturbing?

fat kid swinging a macbook

[tddoog]

So when are we going to get a video of a fat kid swinging his macbook around.

...followed by a lawsuit of course.

Re:fat kid swinging a macbook

[Aladrin]

Give me a new macbook and I'll make that video. Hell, I'll even wear a cape. or wookie ears or something. (You'll have to provide that, too.

Re:fat kid swinging a macbook

[Keebler71]

I'll even wear a cape. or wookie ears or something.

Wookies have ears? Is this one of those special edition things?

Re:fat kid swinging a macbook

[93,000]

Duh. There's a scene in the upcoming Special Editon II where Greedo's first shot ricoches off the cantena wall and blasts off Chewbacca's ears. Han then gets so mad at seeing his companion in pain that he shoots Greedo, even though he doesn't want to and really feels quite bad about it. That's why Chewie is earless for the rest of the trillogy.

Re:fat kid swinging a macbook

[wed128]

True, but it's damn funny

Re:fat kid swinging a macbook QWZX

[Meagermanx]

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.

Re:fat kid swinging a macbook QWZX

[Professor_UNIX]

Kid gets an instant ticket to (in)fame, and he cries about it, because he's fat and awkward, and looks goofy. Ridiculous.

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.

Re:fat kid swinging a macbook QWZX

[72beetle]

Hit a nerve, huh?

Okay...

[__aaclcg7560]

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.

Re:Okay...

[ScrewMaster]

Fatal to who? The laptop, or the Sith Lord that you're trying to brain with the thing?

Re:Okay...

[__aaclcg7560]

I didn't know AppleCare covers braining a Sith Lord! :P

Re:Okay...

[Jeremi]

I didn't know AppleCare covers braining a Sith Lord! :P

The secret to defeating Darth Ballmer is to use the Force, not your eyes. Only with the Force will you be able to parry the onslaught of flying furniture in time.

Re:Okay...

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

It would probably a lot more cheaper to build a lightsaber out of Lego blocks and some electronics.

You miss the point: if you shake a lego brick light saber, you look like a dork. If you shake a Mac laptop light saber, you look like a rich dork.

Re:Okay...

[MarkRose]

You miss the point: if you shake a lego brick light saber, you look like a dork. If you shake a Mac laptop light saber, you look like a rich dork.

Yeah, but a Mac laptop gives you +2 points for style.

Re:Okay...

[randyest]

Australian is a race now?

Re:Okay...

[astro-g]

Have you bought any lego lately?

Suggested mods

[Original Replica]

Can you make it scream in terror/pain when you drop it?

Re:Suggested mods

[Original Replica]

or yell for help if someone moves it without disabling an anti-theft program.

Re:Suggested mods

[FleaPlus]

I heard that in the newer version it'll scream like a little girl when you toss it down a chute.

Re:Suggested mods

[Reverend528]

I heard that in the newer version it'll scream like a little girl when you toss it down a chute.

I don't know about the laptop, but the owner certainly did.

Re:Suggested mods

[I Like Pudding]

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

(additional text added to get Lucas' dialogue past the lameness filter)

Re:Suggested mods

[spectral]

iAlertU [slappingturtle.com]

HDD Motion Detector?

[ScottCooperDotNet]

Is this the same motion detector that IBM's HDD labs came up with a few years ago?

The article is /.'d.

Re:HDD Motion Detector?

[Lally Singh]

These are on the motherboard, not the HDD.

Re:HDD Motion Detector?

[samkass]

Is this the same motion detector that IBM's HDD labs came up with a few years ago?

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 [apple.com]
Some developer info on the motion sensor and how to tap into it [kernelthread.com]
Further discus [kernelthread.com]

That's just wrong

[syncrotic]

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.

Re:That's just wrong

[samkass]

Huh. As someone with both a MacBook Pro and a ThinkPad T41 in this very room, I had no idea. Sorry about the false info. It does seem that the community folks on the Apple side are taking vastly more advantage of the feature in their fun hacks, though. After 3 years I don't see half the fun things for the ThinkPads that have come out in the year that Apple's used the technology.

Re:HDD Motion Detector?

[pintomp3]

shhh.. apple invented it.

Patented Sudden Motion Sensor

[Foerstner]

shhh.. apple invented it.

Strange thing is, it did, and had actually applied for a patent before IBM began shipping it. [com.com]

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.

Re:HDD Motion Detector?

[BitHive]

I declare this /. thread the official stopgap forums for all the displaced users. What's going on guys?

Complete Idiocy...

[localman]

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.

Re:Complete Idiocy...

[System.out.println()]

Or your laptop's motion sensor is miscalibrated. Might want to rotate the book around different directions to make sure.

Might not be the desk

[SteeldrivingJon]

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.

Re:Complete Idiocy...

[igaborf]

Your desk isn't tilted, the gravity in your office is.

Re:Complete Idiocy...

[i, Mac]

Actually, that's due to the Reality Distortion Field [wikipedia.org] emanating from your machine. It makes accurate measurement impossible.

Re:Complete Idiocy...

[1u3hr]

You might be better off with an old fashioned bubble level from the local hardware store

Or the Carpenter's Level Dashboard Widget. [pallit.lhi.is]

iPod - iSaber

[MasterPi]

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

Mirror

[antdude]

NetworkMirror [networkmirror.com] since the original site didn't connect for me. :(

Other apps/games make use of the Sudden Motion Sen

[green pizza]

The most famous app to use this feature is probably iAlertU, which has a demo on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkAtRfA1UXc [youtube.com]
http://www.slappingturtle.com/home/ [slappingturtle.com]

Bubblegym was one of the first games to make use of thos:
http://www.balooba.se/baloobasoftware/texts/bubble gym.htm [balooba.se]

Accelerometer

[gjuk]

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?

Re:Accelerometer

[Rosyna]

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?

Yes, however you'd probably have to connect a dummy DVI connector in order to keep the laptop from Sleeping. Note that this will drain your battery life in this configuration. You'd only be able to take about a 3-4 hour "trip" with all the power saving features turned on. But if you don't live that far away from work, battery life shouldn't be a problem.

Re:Accelerometer

[jimbolaya]

You'd only be able to take about a 3-4 hour "trip" with all the power saving features turned on.

Good lord, man, just how long do you think the guy's commute is?

Re:Accelerometer

[Have Blue]

You'll also have heat problems from running the machine inside your bag.

Re:Accelerometer

[mmkkbb]

any USB event will wake a PowerBook up as well. just plug or unplug something just after clsoing it

Re:Accelerometer

[Firehed]

Actually with the screen backlight off, battery life ends up at almost 5 hours. Though last I knew, a laptop strapped to your back won't do much good as a pedometer when you're cycling, and I think strapping it to your leg instead might make for a rather awkward bikeride.

Re:Accelerometer

[RackinFrackin]

It wouldn't count steps like a pedometer, rather it would use dead reckoning to determine its position. Since the accellerometer would output the accelleration of the computer, this output could be numerically integrated to get velocity and then again to get distance travelled.

Re:Accelerometer

[atomic-penguin]

Note that this will drain your battery life in this configuration.

Convert the bicycle into a generator.

http://www.amasci.com/amateur/coilgen.html [amasci.com]
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question658.htm [howstuffworks.com]

Re:Accelerometer

[iphayd]

The Sudden Motion Sensor is accurate enough that there is a dashboard widget that emulates a bubble level. Of course, this is in my PowerPC-based Powerbook, so the SMS is not actually "new."

Re:Accelerometer

[Jeremi]

The Sudden Motion Sensor is accurate enough that there is a dashboard widget that emulates a bubble level.

Cool... but do they have an emulation of that annoying wooden table game, where you steer a little steel ball through a tilting maze while trying to not to fall into the holes? That's clearly what the SMS was originally designed for...

Re:Accelerometer

[KDR_11k]

Are you nuts? A GAME? On a MAC? People buy Macs to get away from gaming!

Re:Accelerometer

[path_man]

No games like that for the mac.... but they do have Tetris. And Breakout... and Superbreakout. The confusing thing about PCs is, you like, go to the store, and there are just so many games. I mean, everywhere you look! But on the Mac, there's just six. And you already know which ones are good, 'cause they came out on the PC like five years ago!

http://files.redvsblue.com/switch/RvB_Switch.mov [redvsblue.com]

Rendezvous

[Avatar889]

Maybe they can use Rendezvous to tell how close they come to other lightsabers for more realistic crashing noises at the right time.

Re:Rendezvous

[jrockway]

Rendezvous has nothing to do with physical proximity. What they could do, though, is associate two machines via bluetooth and see how the link quality changes as the machine move nearer to each other. You could do this with 802.11 also, but the proprietary drivers won't give you enough information to do anything useful. This could be solved by using the Linux drivers for the Intel Wireless, which are open source, and give you good information about the link quality. (Do the MacBooks use Intel Wireless,

Well..

[outz]

I hear they run hotter than a light saber.

What do they look like, Jimmie?

[XO]

Dorks. They look like Dorks, Mr. Wolfe.

Re:What do they look like, Jimmie?

[Dolly_Llama]

Ha Ha Ha. They're your dashboard hacks motherfucker!

Thanks alot.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Think different

[knappe duivel]

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.

Re:Think different

[mkiwi]

You can turn on the laser in the optical music port via API as well. If you've run Windows on a MacBook, then you know the red glow that comes out of that port. Maybe the writers can get together and when "Lightsaber" is clicked both the sound and the laser turn on. That would be insanely great.

Torque on the hard drive

[insecuritiez]

Doing this will increase the chance of damage to the hard drives to do torque while the platters are spinning.

YouTube

[Anonymous Coward]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xcffXvJ7TnY&search=macs aber [youtube.com]

I wonder... [OT]

[mark-t]

What the onomatopoeia is for the sound of a Light Sabre igniting...?

Re:I wonder... [OT]

[mgabrys_sf]

Freweesshhhoooot?

I don't know otherwise, and Don Martin - the king of onomatopoeia is dead unfortunately:

http://dir.salon.com/story/people/obit/2000/01/15/ martin/index.html [salon.com]

Doesn't quite work on a 12" PowerBook

[AFCArchvile]

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

Re:Doesn't quite work on a 12" PowerBook

[Maniacal Laughter]

Roll: Left 1835
Tilt: -2070
Force: 0 0

As you can see, the force is missing. May the force be with you.

MacSaber

[suv4x4]

Unless you reapply the thermal paste in sane amounts, the MacBooks will also melt anything they touch, just like a real lightsaber!

Hooray! It is already patented!

[Misagon]

According to this article [kernelthread.com] the motion sensor is actually a three-axis accelerometer. I doubt that George Lucas would sue, but I know of a guy who claims that he has a US patent on the use of an accelerometer in a lightsaber toy to trigger sound events.

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.

Re:Hooray! It is already patented!

[bcmm]

According to this article the motion sensor is actually a three-axis accelerometer.

Indeed, "Sudden Motion Sensor" is something of a misnomer. In actual fact, it is as you say a battery of accelerometers, and the OS parks the heads when it reads near-zero (rather than very high) acceleration on all axes, i.e. freefall. The name makes it sound more like it activates on impact or something.

a more amusing idea for that sound effect

[Tumbleweed]

I'd prefer the sabre sound effect for mouse movement. And the sabre clashing sound when a mouse button is clicked.

Software-based Etcha-sketch

[Adelle]

would be so cool on this unit.

Re:Software-based Etcha-sketch

[TeknoHog]

Also known as the PHB edition.

What will they think of next?

[edunbar93]

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.

And now, a relevant quote...

[rakslice]

"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

And when you drop it...

[isny]

And when you drop it, it's as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.

Re:Old News

[System.out.println()]

The Macbook (and before it, Powerbook) line has had the motion sensor for a while now. The sensor isn't the news.

Re:I understand...

[PhoenixK7]

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 :-)

Re:Hasn't this been around for a while?

[wed128]

the software is the news, not the sensor.

Re:meh

[elbobo]

Huh? This is a post about an application made for the motion sensor, not a post about the motion sensor itself.

If you think that IBM's motion sensors should be getting as much attention, then perhaps you should write some cool toys for them? So far it looks like all the cool toys exploiting motion sensors have been written for Macs. Which is why we see posts about these toys on Macs. It kind of follows, you know?

Re:wtf?

[dn15]

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.