Hackers Tilt PowerBook for Tricks

by Ian Betteridge Wired News, 22 Mar 2005 Introduced with the company's most recent round of PowerBook updates, Apple's Sudden Motion Sensor is designed to detect any strong vibration or sudden motion -- such as the laptop being dropped from a desk -- and park the drive heads, lessening the chances of damage to the drive. But the motion sensor does more than just notice sudden movement: It can be used to determine the angle the PowerBook is tilted at in any direction, along with the velocity at which the computer is being moved. Enterprising hackers have discovered that because the new motion sensor returns reasonably accurate measurements to Mac OS X, it can be used to do some cool tricks. Read the article