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Product idea: a USB device with an accelerometer. When you need to leave your laptop for a few minutes, you insert the USB device and start a program that plays
by michaelkeenan 16y ago
Product idea: a USB device with an accelerometer. When you need to leave your laptop for a few minutes, you insert the USB device and start a program that plays a loud siren sound if the USB device reports movement, or if it's removed. Then you lock your screen the usual way.
Downside: if they power off the laptop or remove the battery, they can still take the laptop. Would a thief do that? I imagine they'd want to leave as quickly as possible so they'd just put the lid down, remove any USB devices, and go.
- roryokane 16y agoApple actually includes accelerometers in their laptops, so there is a free app called iAlertU (http://ialertu.sourceforge.net/ http://ialertu.sourceforge.net/) that does exactly this.
- Timothee 16y agoiAlertU does that for Macs: http://ialertu.sourceforge.net/ http://ialertu.sourceforge.net/ It uses the accelerometers that the MacBooks already have (for the hard-drive protection) However, I'm not sure what happens if you close down the lid, let the computer go to sleep and pack it up.
- philh 16y agoPut a speaker and battery in the USB device itself. If it loses power, it can still warble. You might need to make it bigger if you want a sufficiently loud sound though (I don't know much about the physics of noise-making).