5 ms·

Google uses accelerometer API in Jules Verne Google Doodle

105 points by tomwans 16y ago

ben1040 16y ago
Doesn't work on my 2010 Macbook Air. I was a little confused until it dawned on me that due to the SSD, Apple had no reason to build in an accelerometer.
pero 16y ago
And which devices that support Firefox or Chrome actually have accelerometers? It doesn't work on my Froyo phone...
- windsurfer 16y ago
  It doesn't only support Firefox and chrome, but my N900 has both and it works fine (though slowly).
- younata 16y ago
  the nexus 1/s, probably.
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    Default Nexus 1 install has a Mobile Webkit browser, which doesn't even get the interactive version. It works - somewhat - on an iPad - but there's a problem in that tilting the iPad makes the screen rotate and locking the screen seems to disable the tilt events. Best experience is on a MacBook with Chrome, IMHO.
    - younata 16y ago
      I just tried it with my mac. I was surprised that chrome had access to the accelerometers. I thought they were only used to make sure the hard drive doesn't die in case of dropage.
      - 10char 16y ago
        Never tried http://blog.isnoop.net/2006/05/20/macsaber-turn-your-mac-into-a-jedi-weapon/ http://blog.isnoop.net/2006/05/20/macsaber-turn-your-mac-int... ?
        catch23 16y ago
        where's the one that switching workspaces when you tap the left/right side of the laptop?
    - estel 16y ago
      Ditto default Nexus S. Dang.
    - pclark 16y ago
      Incredible that the clever google logo doesn't work on the google phone...
- jonah 16y ago
  ThinkPads, Mac Laptops
  - mhansen 16y ago
    Doesn't work on my new Thinkpad T510, running Ubuntu and Chromium 9.0. I know it has an accelerometer (I've seen the bundled Windows software use it), but I don't know where the API to access that data is.
    - martey 16y ago
      See http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/HDAPS http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/HDAPS . I am not sure whether Firefox or Chrome/Chromium on Linux will actually read the data that is provided by hdaps.
      - mhansen 16y ago
        Thank you! :)
- SoftwareMaven 16y ago
  Works on my iPhone with Safari and my MacBook with Chrome, but not on my MacBook with Safari. Go figure.
nostrademons 16y ago
FYI, the accelerometer works on a MacBook Pro with Chrome or Firefox as well. I remember when Kris showed me the demo on his Mac, I was like "Wow, you can do that on a normal laptop?"
- ugh 16y ago
  All kinds of laptops have had accelerometers since the early 2000s or so. (IBM ran commercials for their ThinkPads with “airbag” all the time. Yep, this was already built into laptops when IBM still sold ThinkPads.) They stop the hard drive when accelerations get too extreme.
  - lloeki 16y ago
    Yet having the accelerometer made usable by software is actually nice. It was (and still can be, sometimes in HD themselves) often a hardwired feature. Also, there's quite a gap in sensibility between detecting a drop and registering subtle variations of the acceleration vector.
  - Isamu 16y ago
    I thought they stopped the drive when the acceleration is zero (freefall). If the acceleration is high, it's probably too late.
    - ugh 16y ago
      That makes a lot of sense. Fun fact: The astronauts on the ISS use ThinkPads [0]. They would have to disable the accelerometer if their laptops had one. (I’m now just going to claim that zero was the extreme I was referring to.) [0] http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Susan_Helms_works_with_three_laptops_in_the_Destiny_laboratory.jpg&filetimestamp=20101230224154 http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Susan_Helms_... Edit: The laptop in question — model A31p from 2003 — doesn’t have an accelerometer. http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:A31p http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:A31p
    - logophobia 16y ago
      Zero acceleration only happens after an object has been falling for a long time (more then a few seconds) and the friction is in balance with gravity. Zero acceleration also happens when the laptop is just sitting on a table. Probably wouldn't be a good measure to stop the drive. Initially, an object falling will accelerate with g=9.81m/s^2, after it reaches the ground it will de-accelerate to a speed of 0m/s in a couple of ms. You are confusing weightlessness/zero-g with no acceleration.
willscott 16y ago
The accelerometer interaction hooks into javascript via browser events. Here's the basic usage for chrome: (for firefox the event is MozOrientation, and values are radians rather than degrees) window.addEventListener('deviceorientation', function(evt) { var x = evt.gamma, y = evt.beta; }, false);
Groxx 16y ago
Huzzah for Whale Sharks[1]! Funky critters. The "Google" at the bottom is a nice touch, too. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_shark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_shark
ars 16y ago
Spec (for webkit based browsers): http://dev.w3.org/geo/api/spec-source-orientation.html http://dev.w3.org/geo/api/spec-source-orientation.html of how to access acceleration data. Mozilla does it somewhat differently: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Detecting_device_orientation https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Detecting_device_orientatio...
- paulirish 16y ago
  You can view source on this page for the normalization code to harmonize both implementations: http://studio.html5rocks.com/samples/orientation/index.html http://studio.html5rocks.com/samples/orientation/index.html (see VideoPhysicsController.prototype._onTilt() )
Hacktivist 16y ago
Here are the images if you want to cheat. http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-1.png http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-1.png http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-2.png http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-2.png http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-3.png http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-3.png http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-4.png http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-4.png
nrbafna 16y ago
I navigated through the entire doodle just to see if there was something encoded in it as well, like in the cr-48 ad.
- tomwans 16y ago
  well ?
noonespecial 16y ago
I didn't know they'd done it. I opened Firefox and grabbed my Macbook to head for the couch and was most surprised by the awesome.
chaosmachine 16y ago
It would be interesting to log this data, and try to figure out how many users are leaning back, in a car, etc. I wonder what kind of patterns you'd see.
jrockway 16y ago
Doesn't work on Android? Sometimes Google confuses me.

105 points by tomwans 16y ago

Doesn't work on my 2010 Macbook Air. I was a little confused until it dawned on me that due to the SSD, Apple had no reason to build in an accelerometer.

pero 16y ago

And which devices that support Firefox or Chrome actually have accelerometers? It doesn't work on my Froyo phone...

windsurfer 16y ago
It doesn't only support Firefox and chrome, but my N900 has both and it works fine (though slowly).
younata 16y ago
the nexus 1/s, probably.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  Default Nexus 1 install has a Mobile Webkit browser, which doesn't even get the interactive version. It works - somewhat - on an iPad - but there's a problem in that tilting the iPad makes the screen rotate and locking the screen seems to disable the tilt events. Best experience is on a MacBook with Chrome, IMHO.
  - younata 16y ago
    I just tried it with my mac. I was surprised that chrome had access to the accelerometers. I thought they were only used to make sure the hard drive doesn't die in case of dropage.
    - 10char 16y ago
      Never tried http://blog.isnoop.net/2006/05/20/macsaber-turn-your-mac-into-a-jedi-weapon/ http://blog.isnoop.net/2006/05/20/macsaber-turn-your-mac-int... ?
      - catch23 16y ago
        where's the one that switching workspaces when you tap the left/right side of the laptop?
  - estel 16y ago
    Ditto default Nexus S. Dang.
  - pclark 16y ago
    Incredible that the clever google logo doesn't work on the google phone...
jonah 16y ago
ThinkPads, Mac Laptops
- mhansen 16y ago
  Doesn't work on my new Thinkpad T510, running Ubuntu and Chromium 9.0. I know it has an accelerometer (I've seen the bundled Windows software use it), but I don't know where the API to access that data is.
  - martey 16y ago
    See http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/HDAPS http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/HDAPS . I am not sure whether Firefox or Chrome/Chromium on Linux will actually read the data that is provided by hdaps.
    - mhansen 16y ago
      Thank you! :)
SoftwareMaven 16y ago
Works on my iPhone with Safari and my MacBook with Chrome, but not on my MacBook with Safari. Go figure.

nostrademons 16y ago

FYI, the accelerometer works on a MacBook Pro with Chrome or Firefox as well. I remember when Kris showed me the demo on his Mac, I was like "Wow, you can do that on a normal laptop?"

ugh 16y ago
All kinds of laptops have had accelerometers since the early 2000s or so. (IBM ran commercials for their ThinkPads with “airbag” all the time. Yep, this was already built into laptops when IBM still sold ThinkPads.) They stop the hard drive when accelerations get too extreme.
- lloeki 16y ago
  Yet having the accelerometer made usable by software is actually nice. It was (and still can be, sometimes in HD themselves) often a hardwired feature. Also, there's quite a gap in sensibility between detecting a drop and registering subtle variations of the acceleration vector.
- Isamu 16y ago
  I thought they stopped the drive when the acceleration is zero (freefall). If the acceleration is high, it's probably too late.
  - ugh 16y ago
    That makes a lot of sense. Fun fact: The astronauts on the ISS use ThinkPads [0]. They would have to disable the accelerometer if their laptops had one. (I’m now just going to claim that zero was the extreme I was referring to.) [0] http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Susan_Helms_works_with_three_laptops_in_the_Destiny_laboratory.jpg&filetimestamp=20101230224154 http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Susan_Helms_... Edit: The laptop in question — model A31p from 2003 — doesn’t have an accelerometer. http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:A31p http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:A31p
  - logophobia 16y ago
    Zero acceleration only happens after an object has been falling for a long time (more then a few seconds) and the friction is in balance with gravity. Zero acceleration also happens when the laptop is just sitting on a table. Probably wouldn't be a good measure to stop the drive. Initially, an object falling will accelerate with g=9.81m/s^2, after it reaches the ground it will de-accelerate to a speed of 0m/s in a couple of ms. You are confusing weightlessness/zero-g with no acceleration.

willscott 16y ago

The accelerometer interaction hooks into javascript via browser events. Here's the basic usage for chrome: (for firefox the event is MozOrientation, and values are radians rather than degrees) window.addEventListener('deviceorientation', function(evt) { var x = evt.gamma, y = evt.beta; }, false);

Groxx 16y ago

Huzzah for Whale Sharks[1]! Funky critters. The "Google" at the bottom is a nice touch, too. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_shark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_shark

ars 16y ago

Spec (for webkit based browsers): http://dev.w3.org/geo/api/spec-source-orientation.html http://dev.w3.org/geo/api/spec-source-orientation.html of how to access acceleration data. Mozilla does it somewhat differently: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Detecting_device_orientation https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Detecting_device_orientatio...

paulirish 16y ago
You can view source on this page for the normalization code to harmonize both implementations: http://studio.html5rocks.com/samples/orientation/index.html http://studio.html5rocks.com/samples/orientation/index.html (see VideoPhysicsController.prototype._onTilt() )

Hacktivist 16y ago

Here are the images if you want to cheat. http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-1.png http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-1.png http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-2.png http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-2.png http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-3.png http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-3.png http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-4.png http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-4.png

nrbafna 16y ago

I navigated through the entire doodle just to see if there was something encoded in it as well, like in the cr-48 ad.

tomwans 16y ago
well ?

noonespecial 16y ago

I didn't know they'd done it. I opened Firefox and grabbed my Macbook to head for the couch and was most surprised by the awesome.

chaosmachine 16y ago

It would be interesting to log this data, and try to figure out how many users are leaning back, in a car, etc. I wonder what kind of patterns you'd see.

jrockway 16y ago

Doesn't work on Android? Sometimes Google confuses me.