accelerometer

Racing done right

Real Racing is the best racing game we've seen yet for the iPhone and that's no small feat, considering the number of racing games out there for the platform. The game features excellent graphics, a well-designed control system, several game modes to try, and an online component to compare best track times. You also can unlock 30 different cars in three different classes, including several hatchback, sedan, and muscle car models.

What sets Real Racing apart from other racing games are the controls. While other games have done a fairly good job with controls on the iPhone, the … Read more

Tilt and roll to the goal

Manic Marble Free is a free preview of the first two levels in Manic Marble, a tilting rolling, 3D arcade game in which you guide a fast-moving marble through a narrow, winding path full of ramps and obstacles. The intuitive, motion-based interface will be familiar to fans of similar games, as you tilt your iPhone or iPod Touch forward or back to accelerate or brake, and then left and right to steer (which also shifts your camera angle correspondingly). You can pause games in progress and recalibrate the accelerometer settings, and beating the "par" time on a level … Read more

iBowling a strike

iBowl is a fun, free bowling simulator that makes excellent use of the iPhone and iTouch's movement sensors. iBowl's simple and intuitive interface shows you looking down a bowling lane at a set of pins. You just drag your ball left or right to position it, hold down the "Bowl" button, and then swing your arm forward and back as if you were actually bowling to release the ball and determine its speed. iBowl has some fun extras like the ability to choose your ball color and send your score to a friend, but the gameplay … Read more

First Look: Apple iPod Nano 4G

When I first glimpsed the leaked photos of Apple's skinny, rounded-screen redesign of the iPod Nano, I have to admit I was a bit skeptical. It seemed so unlike Apple to revisit the older designs of its first- and second-generation Nano, and the wing-shaped form seemed a bit odd. Holding the Nano 4G in my hand, however, I'm starting to think that last year's squarish design was just an awkward, forgettable phase in the Nano's development. This year, Apple has set the Nano back on track with the thinnest, lightest design yet, and features that are … Read more

Accelerometer shows the world how you drive

Long before before $4 a gallon became the national average, many newer cars already included dashboard instruments that gauged fuel consumption. But it's the older gas guzzlers that arguably needed them more, to show how much money was being wasted models manufactured in the pre-hybrid era.

That's why the K.A.T. Matrix 3-Axis accelerometer may come in handy as a reminder of how much careless driving costs at the pump, depending on one's performance in horesepower, G-forces, quarter-mile speeds, and 0-60 clock time. Or, as Dvice says, it can be a badge of honor for those … Read more

Catch quakes with your laptop

In a project that's grabbing headlines this week, researchers at the University of California, Riverside and Stanford University are recruiting laptops to help them monitor seismic activity. The Quake-Catcher Network is a distributed network of laptops running software that takes advantage of a built-in accelerometer to monitor and report seismic activity. (The accelerometer's primary purpose is to detect a fall or shock to the chassis in time to stop the hard drive from spinning, though it's been a key element in several fun hacks, including the Smackbook [video] and SeisMac.)

Based on the same software as the … Read more