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Turn a Laptop Into a More Elegant Weapon For a More Civilized Age

by , 1:05 PM EDT, May 23rd, 2006

Programmer Ian Anthony has created a handy little utility called MacSaber, which uses a MacBook or MacBook Pro's motion sensor to create lightsaber sounds as the laptop owner swings their expensive piece of hardware. It gauges the speed of the swinging to determine the lightsaber movement sounds and senses the acceleration to produce different levels of striking effects.

Anyone who is squeamish about wildly swinging their laptop can simply download the utility and move its window around their Mac's screen to get the same effect. Mr. Anthony said on his blog that the MacSaber Beta isn't compatible yet with the motion sensors found in PowerBooks and iBooks. No word on whether or not the final release will feature such functionality.

Unsurprisingly, videos of Mac owners playing with the software have already popped up on YouTube.


Two MacBook Pro owners risk their hardware in this YouTube video

Thanks to Inside Mac Games for the heads-up.

Observer Comments

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Close Name:Dreadnought Posts: 159 Joined: 01 Jan 2005
Wed May 24, 2006 9:12 am Subject: As my mother used to say

This is all going to end in tears...

Especially when that lovely MBP or MB gets dropped.


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View Name:Guest
Wed May 24, 2006 11:33 am Subject: Bad idea
Close Name:chrishart1 Posts: 1 Joined: 24 May 2006
Wed May 24, 2006 11:36 am Subject: Bad idea

As the saying goes "Just because you can do a thing, doesn't mean you should do that thing."

I don't applaud this programmer creating this app.

Why?

Because this kind of dramatic motion with a laptop makes a hard drive crash a near certainty.


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Close Name:Intruder -   TMO Mac Specialist Posts: 2843 Joined: 07 Jul 2004
Wed May 24, 2006 2:04 pm Subject:

Supposedly the motion sensor would prevent the hard drive from crashing.

That being said, to intentionally push that sensor into operation constantly is asking for trouble.


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Close Name:les aptt Posts: 221 Joined: 19 Nov 2003
Thu May 25, 2006 3:53 am Subject:

It would be abused yes, but for the less apt among us it would make a nifty "Don't Do That" alarm


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