Tinkering with Apple portables' light sensors

"Amit Signh"

Actually, the last name should be Singh.

Um, Vance, that's what the F8, F9 and F10 keys are for.

How about disabling the damn thing altogether? The ALS makes the keyboard backlight on my MacBook Pro useless. In a room with unchanging lighting I have to watch the light under the keyboard move from bright to dim and back to bright. What's worse is for some reason Apple thinks it's a good idea to have the backlight on, but turned all the way down. In most lighting this will make the keys INVISIBLE. Just let me keep the backlight on and manage the brightness myself.

I can think of one use for color professionals (e.g. designers, photographers). Background first: When you profile a screen at two different brightness levels, and switch between these profiles at, say max brightness, you'll notice that neutral colors change slightly.

Amid's code can read out the brightness of the screen backlight, thus it can be used to switch between color profiles as the screen is dimmed.

I wish they put the light sensors and light up keyboards on the MacBooks, that would be so cool. Unfort they don't, well I guess somehow they have to make people buy the 'Pro's...

If only it worked for iMacs! Then I would never have to put my mouse pointer near the edge of the screen to switch desktops ever again!

The SmackBook Pro guys over at Medallia blog have used the AMS2HID as a means of switching desktops. Video here through YouTube:
http://ashpics.com/blog/2006/06/17/smackbook-pro-alternative/