Remember back in the old days, when men were men, dogs ran free, and computers were the size of small countries? It was a time when viruses weren't malicious, rather, they delivered cherry popsicles, unicorns, and nuclear joy-beams. Well, now you can return to a simple time of laughter and love thanks to the Newton Virus and related dongle, created by the design collective Troika. Instead of gnashing your files, spamming your address book, or giving you "The Finger" repeatedly, this virus engages just once, and creates a playful desktop mishap that will undoubtedly inspire the victim to hug the nearest person. Though the virus was coded way back in 2005, it's now being shown at the MoMA's Design and the Elastic Mind exhibition. Watch it all go down, literally, in the video after the break.
[Thanks, H&M]
posted Mar 7th 2008 3:01PM
Where can one such as myself get my paws on one of these.
iLike it.
Kind of reminds me of the game "Warioware: Twisted!"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=raSFGxDxjVM
Wait... If the Macbook has a gravity sensor, why not make a game taking advantage of it?
Its not a "gravity sensor". Its called an accelerometer. Its meant as a means of detecting the movement of the laptop and thus protect the hard drive. It was never intended as an input device like, say, a SIXAXIS or Wii controller.
Anyway, pretty cool video! :D
@Aguiluz
Google 'Neverball'
haha, you just made my day..... :)
I love apples, but this is getting a little ridiculous.
Over half the page is apple products!
This post isn't about Apple at all! Holy crap! Everybody keeps saying that, but it's about the art (program) that the guys made. NOT Apple! Man people, read!
As Kyle said: this isn't specifically on the computer/an apple product, its about the "virus". Besides, deductive reasoning would lead us to the conclusion that it is acceptable for Apple related posts to be here.
Apple = computer manufacture
Computers = Technology
Technology Blog = Engadget
Therefore: Apple = Engadget
That is ingenious.
Too bad everyone else out there making viruses want to either destroy your computer or get your personal information.
Wait, I thought Mac's couldn't be infected? =p
Mostly all viruses are for pc's not macs
KC, theoretically you can infect any electronic device with a 'virus'-like program. Sometimes though, there's just no point. As is the case with Mac OS'.
Its not a virus, it doesn't spread. Its an exe that runs when the laptop invokes autoplay (or whatever the crazy mac people call it) on the thumb drive.
Why don't you 'artists' go paint something...
Why don't you go make a pie chart or a spreadsheet.
I think I will go edit a movie on my Mac partition and then go play some Crysis :)
Abuzar, no matter how witty your comments are, no one will ever vote for them.
Why?
- Because you have a zune as your avatar.
Seems high ranked to me :)
The Zune rocks, so I don't know what you are talking about.
Haha, oh wow, I'd love to use this on some of my unsuspecting buddies at work, hehe. Well, the ones with a good sense of humor anyways - the rest would kill me, hahaha!
Why don't they offer a download link? :(
I can imagine so many fun things to do with something like this :D
unfortunately, Not that many pc/laptops have motion detection like the apple laptops :(
The Lenovo T series do
What about for macbook/pro/air users though!
Most modern laptops do include the motion sensor, I'd I'd be happy if they only released a mac version (already build, don't have to port it).
lol, I wish this was available for the PC.
How does it know its position like that? That's really cool!
...and when does it go away? :D
The macbooks have an accelerometer inside them. Just as the iPhone/iPod Touch do. So it knows its orientation exactly.
So, wouldn't work too well with a PC, all it would be able to do is the initial part, but it wouldn't be able to tell which way is down on a normal laptop.
if you have a thinkpad with hard drive active protection, there is an accelerometer, so you CAN have a similar thing in windows if someone was to make it.
Several Laptop PCs these days include accelerometers to protect the HD. Perhaps this virus could be adapted to a PC.
I know that ThinkPads have accelerometers, and I believe that a few other brands do too.
Is that for all macbooks, or only pros? Anyway, I would love one of those. Just think of the uses...
By position I assume you mean the way the laptop is being tilted. If you noticed, they were using an Apple MacBook Pro (or Powerbook, I can't tell) which has an accelerometer built into the machine. So basically, you would need to do this on an Apple laptop for it to be usable. Which is why he states, rather humorously, that it would need a 'flawless piece of technology'.
The MacBook Pro is indeed amazing, and I plan on purchasing my first very soon, but even I know that it isn't flawless. No piece of technology will ever be without flaws, not that we will stop trying to make it, or the fanboys will stop saying it about [insert fanboy product here]
Look at the irony. People are now ASKING for a virus.
I don't think it would be as impressive on a PC. For one, the taskbar won't have far to fall...
@ qwerty613: Yes, 'non-pro' MacBooks also have the accelerometer. It has been used in some funny little apps like the MacSaber: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/21732
I'm sick of all this cutesy Apple bullcrap! Admittedly that prank is pretty funny, but I'm tired of this whole motif of sickeningly sweet video clips and commercials, complete with smug little sentences and an overabundance of short, tart little phrases that end with periods.
I think Apple products have some appeal, but I'm starting to agree that Engadget is laying it on a little thick.
I agree. Even in this post, someone is trying to hide yet ANOTHER apple reference. This would have been okay by me if the SDK didn't get over 11 separate posts yesterday.
Engadget, please make a Macgadget to keep them separated! I'm tired of having to filter through 2000 mac posts to see one I'm actually interested in!
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/20/tired-of-iphone-and-or-apple-news-on-engadget/
sheesh.
same here, its getting sterile
Troika are weird, they project SMS messages on people for fun ... wtf
Umm... what? Since when did this post say a single thing about Apple? Just so happens it's a virus... for an Apple computer. Something Apple fanboys say never happens so if this is skewed in any way, it's towards Windows.
When in actuality it's not skewed any way.
There pretty much is a Macgadget guys...it's called TUAW.com 'The Unofficial Apple Weblog' it's actually a sister site to engadget in vain of joystiq.com and autoblog.com
So please...just scroll down to the bottom of the page and take a look for yourself ;-)
Well if there's already a Mac-centered blog, it's not helping the state of Engadget. I'm not saying that Engadget shouldn't cover Macbook, iPhone, and other Apple product stories, so that link, nd, where they say, "...so for those of you...[who] wanted to opt out of our iPhone or Apple coverage, we hear ya! We whipped up some slightly modified Engadget RSS feeds..." isn't helpful. I don't want to exclude stories, I just want balanced coverage.
We don't need to hear about every little potential Apple development or rumor. If the posts were skewed in, say, Microsoft's direction I'd be just as upset (if not more so).
@Drew
It's not actually a virus. It's a program they loaded on their USB thumb drive. What they omitted from the video (remember this is an art project) is them opening the program -- there is no "AutoPlay" on Mac OS X.
Shut up. I hate you. Fuck fanboys.
so much hate in your little heart...
@ Raptor007
you're right, it's not really a virus at all. and there must be some shit omitted for the video, because it wouldn't just extract it's self onto the HD. the drive would mount and then you would need to either a.)play the video or b.) enter a password to install a program or c.) have an apple script or automation already on their mac to either play the video or install the program.
the "flawless piece of technology" claim is a litte ambitious
where can i get one?
Unfortunately, there's no virus. The video itself was the art piece. :(
Does that mean it is a full screen application (swf or the like) pretending to be the desktop? Or can you access all of the screen objects in OSX to actually make this work?
Probably not SWF... more likely it was built using Quartz Composer. I suspect you can't use the objects, but I don't know for sure... that'd be cool if you could!!
I wish I could afford a Macbook Pro.
And not just because of this. ;_;
Ah, the good old days of Sneakernet viruses. :D
Seriously, that is an ingenious "virus" that not only would be awesome to use as a prank, but would be a "cool" way to see if your accelerometer's on the fritz. :D
Plus it can give you minutes of entertainment.
AKBlade13
Wow they bought it...
Nice work Troika... trick ya!
It's not a virus if it isn't self propagating, and since it's not malicious...
Still, in old school terms, I suppose it could be a virus.
Heh heh, call Steve Jobs, there's a "virus" for Macs
Nope, even by old-school standards it isn't a virus, because the code is not self-replicating.
Well, real viruses don't replicate themselves either. They have to infect a host cell and make the cell do the replication.
You can say the computer is the host which has to do the replication, but perhaps you can say it's the computer+user, in which case this virus can replicate.
I didn't think so, but then again, I was pretty young in those good ol' days ;)
I wouldn't mind having this as a screen saver!
Thats as much of a virus as the ctrl+shift+alt+direction arrow shortcut in the intel integrated display drivers. You really want to screw with a coworker, spin their display orientation around upside down or sideways. Its even more fun if they have no damn clue how to adjust the video orientation afterwards.
I can't believe they used "Workaholic" and "Mac" in the same sentence. That makes it totally unbelievable.
A clever hacker will write a virus that duplicates this, except that it installs malicious code. Then it will be easy to sucker all the Mac Users because it is "cute" and "artsy". And no sweat because it's not like they even know how to detect a real virus. And then comes the iPhone version...
I know a huge number of windows users who would download spyware disguised as something artsy in a heartbeat. Sorry, but each operating system has such a wide user-base that you just can't make ignorant assumptions like that! The world is filled with idiots, and I do believe that they have distributed themselves fairly well between the different computer platforms.
And yes, I own a mac and love it.
@AnyKey
NO WHERE did he say shit about windows. Now STFU you apple loving queer.
Yea, no shit windows users would find it, we already had it in the way of the Bonzai buddy. What he is saying is that all of those stuck up pieces of crap who use macs would think its cute and disregaurd it thinking that their PC's cant get viruses, when in reality it IS a virus.
Oh and enough of this PC vs MAC crap! a MAC IS A
P ersonal C omputer
you god damn retards.
And NO I dont own a mac, Why? because I'm a GAMER that's why, now go fu¢k yourselves.
But ... clever hackers don't use Macs!
Yeah, but a Windows user would have an anti-virus installed and it would pick up that malicious code. Where as a Mac user...
Reminds me of an old school virus that would display an animation in the foreground, while in the background, a command prompt opened that ran deltree c:\
I'm starting to wonder about all the Apple whine posts. Now I wonder, how many posts have Microsoft or Windows references? Get over it. It's all gadgets.
and no, I do have a Mac.
http://tiny.cc/ZEXyt (google trends)
Says something, doesn't it?
OK, but now I'm wondering what does this say?
http://www.google.com/trends?q=Engadget%2C+Engadget+apple&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
Or this?
http://www.google.com/trends?q=Engadget%2C+Engadget+apple%2C+porn&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
Did....did I just write I DO have a Mac? Doh. I mean I _don't_.
....dang....
i envy everyone who has one of those
SO COOL!!!
Hmm..
So, a mac can be silently infected with a virus just by putting a USB key into it for a couple of seconds with no other interaction? And this is seen as good? I can't begin to imagine the reaction if this was for a windows machine.
"Don't worry! Its just art!"
Says who? The authors of the virus? People thought BonziBuddy was cool at the time too.
Like someone said, Mac's don't have Autoplay, so just plugging a USB in will do nothing, so no, Macs can't be infected by simply inserting a USB.
But moat macs DO have firewire and the fun direct memory writes enabled, right?
So just inserting a firewire harddisk could do the trick.
If someone is skilled enough to use the webcam of a laptop as a motion detector, then it could work on a PC!
Since when do workaholics and use Macs?
That's something I wouldn't mind having.
This must be fake, because Mac users had me thinking Macs didn't get viruses. (Sarcasm)
I had emailed Troika to ask if there would be some sort of download of the newton virus and I got this response:
"Thank you for your interest.
The newton virus is currently not available for sale.
However, I will put you on our waiting list and inform you as soon as it is.
Best wishes"
hmmm....
I didn't know the MBR had an accelerometer. I figured the virus was just using input from the camera as positional data (without showing on screen what the camera was seeing) to determine how to react depending on how the notebook was tilted.
When I saw the headline I thought it was a virus for the Apple Newton.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton
Just thought I'd point out that Apple is not mentioned a single time in this post or its tags. This is a post about art, and this "virus" is not necessarily only for Macs.