Your Laptop Could Detect The Next Earthquake

[Fumesucker]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126073353

By downloading a free program, you and your laptop could help researchers pinpoint earthquakes and even sound an early warning to surrounding areas.

Newer models of laptops manufactured by companies like Apple and Lenovo contain accelerometers -- motion sensors meant to detect whether the computer has been dropped. If the computer falls, the hard drive will automatically switch off to protect the user's data.

"As soon as I knew there were these low-cost sensors inside these accelerometers, I thought it would be perfect to use them to network together and actually record earthquakes," geoscientist Elizabeth Cochran of the University of California at Riverside says.

So a few years ago, Cochran got in touch with Jesse Lawrence, a colleague at Stanford. They whipped up a program called the Quake-Catcher Network. It's a free download that runs silently in the background, collecting data from the computer's accelerometer and waiting to detect an earthquake.

More at the link..

[Mojorabbit]

1. cool! nt

[byronius]

2. Excellent Cloudyness.

[Duer 157099]

3. Um. Laptop. Earthquake. Internet.

Why is the first thing I think of porn?