Use a Powerbook as a level…(video)

IconHere’s “Pall Thayer’s fun with Apple’s Sudden Motion Sensor (ams/sms/accelerometer)” It’s pretty much the coolest widget I’ve ever seen – once installed on a new-ish Powerbook or iBook, you can use your computer as a level. While the act of viewing a level isn’t exactly earth-shattering, there are lots of new ideas and applications being developed: a virtual world controller and a marble madness port…(and here’s a puppet) [via] Link. If you’re wondering what this looks like, here’s a video (MP4).

20 thoughts on “Use a Powerbook as a level…(video)

  1. pelrun says:

    Is it just me or is gravity inverted wherever this guy is? The air bubble in his level *sinks*! :)

  2. Izzard-UK says:

    That would be really nice if the bubble moved in the right direction.

  3. Unomi says:

    Hey, if you can do this, why not do the following?

    Use a GPS locator device, lock your ‘windows’ to its current location and altitude and make your desktop global. This would be a huge desktop!

    So when you move your notebook to the left, your windows stay put but other windows slide in to your screen frame.

    Where did I left my Photoshop instance? Oh, yes about 35.6/78.3 and 6 foot high above sealevel.

    Is that what they meant by ‘virtual reality’ or ‘virtual desktop’ or what?

    Your cyberspace is unlimited expandable!

    – Unomi –

  4. jon.emmons says:

    Yeah, I’m glad I’m not the only one bothered by the inverted action of the bubble.

  5. hello_david says:

    normal levels use air bubbles, maybe this one is a dense object??? therefore it would *sink* why would one have to rewrite the laws of gravity, when all you have to do is think a little harder….

  6. hello_david says:

    normal levels use air bubbles, maybe this one is a dense object??? therefore it would *sink* why would one have to rewrite the laws of gravity, when all you have to do is think a little harder….

  7. Izzard-UK says:

    Don’t be silly: it’s CLEARLY a bubble :P

  8. dkliman says:

    as a stabila fan, i have to say it was hurting my eyes and giving me a headache to see the bubble going the wrong way. hopefully that’ll be fixed.

  9. dkliman says:

    as a stabila fan, i have to say it was hurting my eyes and giving me a headache to see the bubble going the wrong way. hopefully that’ll be fixed.

  10. Axello says:

    The C code for the motion sensor is different on various i and Powerbooks. Apple changed the specs also. I got a more natural bubble motion by changing the line in the HTML source of the widget to
    AMSout = (AMSsplit[0]*(-3)+176);
    Also, I do not know if the source of the ‘motion’ c program is updated yet to incorporate the Powerbook HiRes (1,67 GHz). You might have to recompile the motion.c source and re-assemble the widget.

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