Sometimes you just want to smack your computer.

Now you can.

The program that makes this happen is supposed to be “useful.” I like the idea: another (more intuitive?) way of switching applications, etc. While this is using (abusing? I certainly wouldn't recommend doing this regularly) an internal protection mechanism (to stop hard drives and other things in case you drop the laptop [probably similar to IBM {now Lenovo} ThinkPad’s system]) to do something that it was never intended to, it seems that we’re entering into an age when computers are expected to respond to things outside the computer environment and interaction devices (keyboards, mice).

I’m thinking of the new video game consoles from Sony and Nintendo that use motion sensors to interact with them. I remember seeing all sorts of computer-extended-into-real-world examples of things that R&D teams are working on (I’m thinking of a now-defunct AT&T lab in the UK). This is part of the future of computing. I’m interested to see how the video game consoles fare, as they are mass-market, and whether anything similar continues to develop on this front.

ps. I’m still quite liking this Word 2007 Blog post thing. I can’t upload images automatically (that’s coming in the “final” version) and that video above. It’s still a lot quicker than using blogger. And nicer too (styles, fonts, etc. in Word are much nicer [and prettier to boot!]).

Links:
Original post by the guy(s) who made the “utility”