The Newton Virus spreads joy
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted March 7th 2008 3:01PM
posted March 7th 2008 3:01PM
[Thanks, H&M]
posted March 7th 2008 3:01PM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
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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!!