PC Guy with a Mac

It’s been a slow couple of weeks for Apple news, but this week a few things came down the pipe worth talking about, one of them being the Newton “virus” created by the design collective Troika.

Newton Virus comes on a USB key for manual infection. Simply plug the key into a computer and the virus will automatically copy itself on the hard drive.

The virus will then hit at random, but only once. It will not replicate itself, mail itself to your friends or destroy any of your files, but instead provides you with moments of blissful surprise and magic.

When I first saw this in action, I thought it was bogus. I mean, how does a MacBook know when it’s being turned on its side?

Well, it turns out that the MacBook is equipped with a doohickey called an accelerometer, which is a device that measures the total specific external force on its sensor. From what I’ve read, accelerometers are put in MacBooks so the MacBook knows when it’s dropped and can “lock down” the hard drive to prevent data loss and/or permanent physical damage. The “virus” taps into a MacBook’s accelerometer in order to cause the visual collapse-effects seen here:

What I find odd about the whole thing is that this functionality was never mentioned to me during the purchase of my MacBook, nor was it ever disclosed as a selling point for the unit. After some digging, I found some people developing small games and applications that utilize the accelerometer. I’m sure this won’t be the last thing that surprises me about the MacBook.

You know, the more I think about it, the more it is probably a bad idea that people know about this feature. The accelerometer is included to help prevent damage caused by laptops not being utilized on flat, stable surfaces. I guess developing games and applications that have users picking up their laptops and jiggling them around a game of Neverball would go against the accelerometer’s intended use.