Remember the Etch-A-Sketch and how you would shake it to erase it? Imagine shaking your laptop to empty its trash. Silly, maybe, but doable, thanks to Sudden Motion Sensors found in some laptops (used to safely “park the head” of a hard drive if the laptop gets whacked or falls). A hacker discovered such a sensor in the latest Apple PowerBook and folks have been having fun programming apps that make other use of the sensor (such as creating tilt-sensitive games and a way of switching iTunes with a smack of your hand). Wired News has a piece about the phenom (with some links) here.
Hardware Beyond the Hype