Laptops A Powerful Earthquake Warning System

Written by Pat's Papers | Friday, 12 March 2010 10:30 AM

Call them “Quake Catchers.” The LA Times says seismologists are pushing the idea that personal laptops are a powerful tool for predicting and combating the devastation caused by earthquakes. They say the same technology that allows a Wii controller to function as a tennis racket or an iPhone to flip from vertical to horizontal could be used to “build a system that links ordinary computers into a seismic network.” The paper says many laptops come with “accelerometers,” which are devices that detect movement, already built in and if not, they are cheap - about $50 - to install.

More about accelerometers from Wikipedia

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