While randomly browsing about the other day, I came across a blog post containing a video of a rather cool – and somewhat violent – method for switching virtual desktops using the motion sensor in Apple’s new laptops (intended to disable the hard drive in case of falls). While I’m hesitant to spoil the video, this post would be pretty pointless otherwise – it shows the developer of the hack, Erling Ellingsen, switching between virtual workspaces by whacking the right or left side of his screen. For those wondering “what relevance does this have to BeOSNews,” the idea has also been implemented under Linux using the similar motion sensor in IBM / Leonovo ThinkPads – so it probably wouldn’t be that difficult to accomplish under BeOS / Haiku / ZETA. Sadly my Thinkpad is a generation or two earlier than models containing the motion sensor (an X30 – still a sweet little laptop nonetheless, especially if I ever find my laptop-to-desktop ATA converter and get BeOS on there), but despite that critical factor, it would still be a pretty neat toy.

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