fysigunkus | jay hathaway dot com

Now that I have a shiny new MacBook, I’ve been trying out all of the things my trusty G4 iBook just couldn’t do. One thing the MacBook has that the G4 didn’t is the sudden motion sensor. It’s designed as a security device, warning your hard drive to batten down the hatches when you drop your MacBook or move it too suddenly. Clever programmers have come up with other uses for the motion sensor, though.

Enter MacSaber, a little app that makes some pretty believable lightsaber noises when you swing your laptop around. One of my friends demoed it for me back when the motion sensor was first introduced, and I suddenly remembered it while video chatting on Skype with my buddy Giannii. Yeah, we’re dorks.

We didn’t spend a long time on the video. All it takes is MacSaber, Skype, and a screencasting app to record what’s going on. Our video could have been slightly cooler if we had been able to pick up audio from Giannii’s speakers instead of just the sound from his Mac – you’ll notice that only you can only hear his saber during our fight. Another pro tip: if the person recording the video moves too wildly, the safety mechanism might kick in and stop the hard drive, which makes the video get stuck or come out choppy.

Even if you don’t have a camera, or any friends, MacSaber is a fun way to show off the motion sensor, which is definitely one of the less-hyped features of the Macbook. Is there anything else I can do with my new laptop that I couldn’t do with the G4? Let me know about your favorite features or Intel-only apps in the comments.

UPDATE: the video is back up. Check out our duel here.