OS X Mavericks Taps Ambient Light Sensors to Detect Motion and Prevent System Sleep
OS X Mavericks includes a new feature that leverages the light sensors included in many Macs to detect movement in front of the machine and prevent the system's Energy Saver sleep functions from activating even when the user is not actively using the machine, notes The Verge.
First highlighted by Moshen Chen of Radiantlabs and confirmed by developer Jonathan Wight, the feature was initially thought to use the iSight camera to monitor movements but was quickly discovered to actually be tapping into light sensors.
The sensor is already used to adjust screen brightness to ambient light, but the new OS puts it to a different purpose, tracking changes in the light as "movement," and resetting idle time accordingly. Verge tests confirmed this on two separate Mavericks laptops: after covering the camera but not the light sensor, we were able to delay sleep mode by changing the ambient lighting conditions.
Users have long been able to set separate thresholds for display and system sleep based on lack of interaction with their Macs, but under Mavericks, many Macs have now become smarter about being able to detect whether or not the user is sitting in front of the machine.
Popular Stories
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
Best Buy is discounting a collection of M3 MacBook Pro computers today, this time focusing on the 14-inch version of the laptop. Every deal in this sale requires you to have a My Best Buy Plus or Total membership, although non-members can still get solid second-best prices on these MacBook Pro models. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a...
Top Rated Comments
That would be really helpful.
Dave, are you awake?
"Ugh, just go to sleep."
I'm sorry, Dave. I can't do that.
Why are you not typing on my Dave?
I know you're awake...
this doesn't help?
Well, ask your application developers to use power assertions.
Here's my FAVORITE simple Mac app:
http://caffeine.en.softonic.com/mac
It puts an icon in the task bar that toggles on a 'no sleep mode' when you want it.
It should automatically disable sleeping in those cases though.