frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)

https://anishathalye.com/macbook-touchscreen/
64•HughParry•1h ago

Comments

als0•57m ago
Still an amazing hack today and I love it. However, I heard Apple are developing a touch screen MacBook this year, and I simply don't get why they're doing that. I don't know what's worse, the ergonomics or the fingerprints.
bardackx•50m ago
i used to have a bad touch screen laptop like 7 years ago and back then it made the mobile development more pleasant (both native and web based)
Etheryte•47m ago
So you mean they're developing the iPad, an insanely popular device, and you're not sure why they would make such a device?
nsxwolf•34m ago
I have been around touch screen Windows laptops for I don’t know how many years now, and I have never felt even the slightest compulsion to touch the screen.
bigfishrunning•4m ago
It might be a generational thing; my kids get touchscreen laptops from their school, and they interact with them almost exclusively by touching the screen. I agree, I'd much rather use a mouse (or even better, a trackball; i wish most laptops still had those)
t1234s•56m ago
Is there a coating you can apply to the glass to help with smudge marks?
rappatic•51m ago
Oleophobic coating is standard on phones and tablets, which is part of why they don’t pick up fingerprints as easily.

Some brands offer coating you can DIY yourself (eg ProofTech OLEOPEL) but these seem mostly designed for phone screens. I don’t know whether they’d be as effective on laptop screens

dotancohen•33m ago
And this is why modern screens (and eyeglasses) should be cleaned with a damp microfiber cloth and no aggressive cleaners. These coatings are fragile.

I do carefully clean the nosepads with soapy water, however.

anandkulkarni•49m ago
Brilliant!
spidermonkey23•48m ago
Using an external webcam is that not more than $1? cool project though; reminds me of how you could use a Wii remote to create a interactive whiteboard.
jbverschoor•46m ago
Internal with a small mirror
solfox•45m ago
Love it! I appreciate the ethos of doing more with existing hardware. Adding an actual touchscreen would add real COGs to a macbook, and many potential failure points. Using the existing camera hardware + software seems to produce a "good enough" result for most people for casual use. I'm sure with some time and eng, Apple could make the "hack" shippable. But it doesn't earn product managers the big big bonuses, so it'll never happen.
egypturnash•41m ago
I wonder how well this would work with my bright blue fingernails that are about .5" longer than my finger.

I then wonder how much recalibration I would have to do when one of them broke and I was poking directly at the screen.

brcmthrowaway•39m ago
Checking this profile of a random hacker in 2018, of course they are now working on AI.
anishathalye•11m ago
I was working on AI in 2018 too :)

At that time, I was quite interested in adversarial examples and ML security.

dotBen•23m ago
I wouldn't want a touchscreen MBP even if it was free, anyone else feel similar?

I don't get the draw - we already optimize for keyboard commands to avoid living our fingers over to a touchpad. Why would I want to start clicking on my screen?

If you're using your computer for tasks (rather than entertainment) and you're not a visual designer, I don't get why Apple are apparently going to be putting them into the new MBP line later this year.

post-it•20m ago
> I don't get why Apple are apparently going to be putting them into the new MBP line later this year.

Apple has apparently being going to put a touchscreen in a laptop every year since the iPad came out, and it's never materialized.

xmprt•10m ago
Previously, those were rumors from enthusiasts who wanted to see it. Now it's an internal leak so there's a lot more credibility to those rumors.
thesuitonym•11m ago
Macs are definitely not optimized for keyboard commands. If you feel the software you use is keyboard optimized, odds are it's not really Mac software.
bitmasher9•5m ago
Sometimes, if I’ve been using my iPad for awhile and switch over to my MBP, I might reach out and touch the screen out of habit. I can’t be the only one.
nothrowaways•19m ago
Touch screens are not pleasant for laptops. I prefer not to have them.
gavinsyancey•17m ago
You don't have to use it.
nothrowaways•11m ago
you will accidentally touch the screen more often that you think.
criddell•5m ago
[delayed]
mrtksn•15m ago
It's actually quite pleasant user experience for scrolling. Some interactions are better with a pointer, others are better with touch.

You can try it on an iPad with Magic Keyboard attached, it's very good to be able to do precision through the trackpad and then casually move large things on the screen with your fingers.

nothrowaways•12m ago
Agree for iPad. But for a laptop trackpads ftw!
long-time-first•18m ago
This is amazing. They should start to install upward looking cameras to implement this officially.
ForOldHack•17m ago
I think I could do this for less than 15 cents: four small peices of double sided tape, and the tiny mirror, and two hair pins... but the software? Priceless.

Transformer.js v4

https://huggingface.co/blog/transformersjs-v4
1•sroussey•6m ago•1 comments

GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/30/github_copilot_ads_pull_requests/
2•jjgreen•6m ago•0 comments

High memory usage in Postgres is good

https://planetscale.com/blog/high-memory-usage-in-postgres-is-good-actually
1•cyndunlop•7m ago•0 comments

6o6 v1.1: Faster 6502-on-6502 virtualization for a C64/Apple II Apple-1 emulator

http://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2026/03/6o6-v11-faster-6502-on-6502.html
1•homarp•7m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I made a cheaper alternative to Claude Code or Codex CLI

https://sweetcli.com/
2•gr00ve•8m ago•0 comments

Hermes Agent v0.6.0 solves its biggest weakness against OpenClaw

https://efficienist.com/hermes-agent-v0-6-0-finally-solves-its-biggest-weakness-against-openclaw/
1•jenic_•16m ago•0 comments

Judge halts Nexstar/Tegna merger after FCC let firms exceed TV ownership limit

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/judge-halts-nexstar-tegna-merger-after-fcc-let-firms-...
2•strongpigeon•18m ago•0 comments

Delve into Compliance Theatre

https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/delve-into-compliance-theatre/
1•flypunk•18m ago•0 comments

Love Dart

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_dart
2•magicbuzz•19m ago•0 comments

Quay.io down: Nginx 502 bad gateway

https://status.redhat.com/incidents/04vm68m00t61
2•starefossen•20m ago•1 comments

Glyphs 3

https://glyphsapp.com
2•hmokiguess•21m ago•0 comments

When the Real World Came to Wicker Park (2021)

https://www.chicagomag.com/chicago-magazine/august-2021/when-the-real-world-came-to-wicker-park/
2•mooreds•22m ago•0 comments

AgentHandover: Watches you work then teaches your AI agents to do it like you

https://github.com/sandroandric/AgentHandover
2•ainthusiast•23m ago•1 comments

Run open-source AI skills in one click in the cloud

https://github.com/ReByteAI/run-any-skill-with-single-click
2•sonicgg•27m ago•0 comments

Is it safe to turn off your ad blocker?

https://blog.zgp.org/is-it-safe-to-turn-off-your-ad-blocker/
1•speckx•28m ago•0 comments

Mistral raises $830M to build Nvidia-powered AI centres in Europe

https://www.ft.com/content/229f4f59-d518-4e00-abd6-5a5b727cd2aa
6•JumpCrisscross•29m ago•0 comments

Explore the top 1000 most-starred repositories on GitHub

https://repo-explorer-nu.vercel.app/
3•geox•31m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: What's your favorite number, and why?

3•QuantumNomad_•32m ago•11 comments

Office, Messaging and Verbs

https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2015/5/21/office-messaging-and-verbs
2•AftHurrahWinch•32m ago•1 comments

Kelsey Hightower: "Everyone is a junior engineer when it comes to AI"

https://thenewstack.io/hightower-ai-open-source-kubecon/
3•mooreds•34m ago•0 comments

A Crisis Merely Postponed

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/opinion/the-debt-crisis-merely-postponed.html
3•jonathanehrlich•34m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Is Google down or is it just me?

3•ahmedfromtunis•37m ago•1 comments

Joins Are Not Expensive

https://www.database-doctor.com/posts/joins-are-not-expensive
5•thunderbong•39m ago•0 comments

Market Participation Is Exhausting

https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/30/players-of-games/
2•hn_acker•40m ago•0 comments

A curated corpus of incidents and attack vectors for autonomous AI agents

https://github.com/h5i-dev/awesome-ai-agent-incidents
1•syumei•45m ago•0 comments

Microsoft plan 100% native Windows 11 apps in major shift away from web wrappers

https://www.techspot.com/news/111872-microsoft-plans-100-native-windows-11-apps-major.html
3•shaicoleman•45m ago•0 comments

White House Renamed 'Epstein Island' on Google Pixel Phones

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/2026/03/27/white-house-google-database-epstein/
13•thisislife2•45m ago•1 comments

There are no happy endings on the internet

https://embedded.substack.com/p/there-are-no-happy-endings-on-the
1•herbertl•46m ago•0 comments

UK Politicians Continue to Miss the Point in Latest Social Media Ban Proposal

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/uk-politicians-continue-miss-point-latest-social-media-ban-...
3•hn_acker•46m ago•0 comments

Ubuntu MATE Is Seeking a New Primary Maintainer

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-mate-seeking-maintainers/79264
4•apple4ever•47m ago•2 comments