Ambient light sensing via LED response

[C. Scott Ananian]

On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 8:38 AM,  <pgf at laptop.org> wrote:
>  > By the way, has anyone really thought about this feature ?  I grok
>  > the intent, but you have to make
>  > sure that kids who happen to be in brightly lit rooms (glaring
>  > fluourescents aren't uncommon)
>  > don't loose their backlight, and wonder why ?   The keyboard lighting
>  > on my mac is a good idea,
>  > but they only allow adjusting the amount of light output, not the
>  > sensitivity to ambient light.

My suggestion would be binary on/off control, with the level set high
enough that you will be very certain that you are outside on a sunny
day.  I'm personally not interested in trying to say a few watts in
marginal lighting conditions -- just that the kid who's outside all
day in the full sunshine using their laptop -- and who can't tell that
the backlight is on anyway, since the sunlight's so bright -- isn't
held responsible for turning off something they can't see.
 --scott

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