(Bloomberg) — A new app developed by U.S. scientists can turnyour smartphone into an earthquake sensor and potentially savelives.
|Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley andDeutsche Telekom AG have built an app that uses a smartphone'smotion sensor to feel earthquakes. The app, calledMyShake, records the time and amplitude of atremor and sends its data and the phone's location to Berkeley'sseismological lab for analysis.
|The more people use the app, the better the system will work.The goal is to create a global seismic network — acollective seismograph if you will — that will eventuallywarn users ahead of time of incoming jolts from far-awayquakes.
|"For many earthquake-prone developing countries such as Nepal orPeru, MyShake could warn potentially affected persons valuableseconds earlier and, ideally, safe lives," Deutsche Telekom said ina statement Monday. "These countries currently have either only asparse ground-based seismic network or early warning system, ornone at all — but do have millions of smartphoneusers."
|Related: Obama Administration takes steps to increaseearthquake resilience
|While a phone's motion sensor, or accelerometer, is lesssensitive than an in-ground sensometer, it can record earthquakesabove a magnitude of 5 within 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). And thesheer number of potential users makes up for a phone'sinsensitivity, with an estimated 16 million smartphones inCalifornia and about 1 billion worldwide. MyShake can be downloaded for free fromGoogle's Play store, and an iPhone app is alsoplanned, Deutsche Telekom said.
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