Laptop Computers Detect and Monitor Earthquakes 78
Pickens writes "Live Science reports that 1,000 people from 61 countries have signed up with the Quake-Catcher Network to take advantage of built-in accelerometers in newer laptops that transmit data about earthquakes to researchers at UC Irvine and Stanford University. 'It's providing additional data that can be fed into the seismic networks,' says Elizabeth Cochran, a UC Irvine geoscientist. 'It also allows us to record earthquakes at a scale that we haven't been able to before because of the cost.' Cochran came up with the idea for the Quake-Catcher Network when she learned that most new laptops come equipped with accelerometers designed to switch off the hard drive if the laptop is dropped. 'I figured that we could easily tap into this data and use it to record earthquakes.' While traditional seismic monitors can detect earthquakes of magnitude 1.0 or less, the lowest magnitude the Quake-Catcher Network can detect is about 4.0, a moderate quake much like the one that hit LA on March 16. But what the network lacks in sensitivity, it makes up for in price as traditional seismic sensors cost $5,000 to $10,000 apiece. 'Ideally we would have seismometers in every building, or at least on every block. And in tall buildings, we'd have multiple sensors [on different floors],' says Cochran. 'That way, we would be able to actually get much higher detail images of how the ground shakes during an earthquake.'"
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What is with the Mac hate?
IBM/Lenovo ran an ad a long time ago talking about his new Thinkpad stopping the drive when the laptop was falling. The other guy grabs the laptop drops it on the ground and says so the hard drive is fine.
The other guy says that's not my Thinkpad, hilarity ensues.
But if all you need is an accelerometer, somebody needs to tell this guy to write an app for the iPhone, iPod Touch, my Droid, and probably a lot of other phones.
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yeah
it would be cool to spin down the memory chips when you drop em.
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Funny, I can get one for a round $1000. I'd say a savings of 80-90% per unit is fairly significant. Since most of these computers are purchased for other reasons, the cost becomes very low.
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So we're looking at at least $4000 for a typical MacBook that isn't complete shit.
You said entry-level, not 'cheapest decent'. An entry-level MacBook is $1k, end of story. Similarly, a new entry-level video card costs about $100. It's not determined by whether it runs Crysis or is suitable for a power-user, entry-level is meant to be lowest cost that meets some minimum requirement to be a part of the group (ie, it's a laptop and not a netbook).
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'$5,000 to $10,000 apiece' is the cost of a traditional seisometer--not a computer. I know, you actually have to read the post to understand that, but just sayin'
UC Riverside (Score:1)
Take this! (Score:1)
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And that is why they no longer use "Etch a Sketch" as a means of recording earthquakes.
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"Etch a Sketch" as a means of recording earthquakes.
Only if it is rebooting at the time.
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Or polygraphs [/xkcd]. :P
Re:Take this! (Score:5, Insightful)
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I would think that there would be enough of a variation between models that any software attempting to obtain such information would have to be tailored for specific models. The surface that the laptop is rested on may also come into play.
There are simpler ways to obtain the same result.
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(Normal shaking, like from typing, is more important.)
Just wait until someone releases a paper on how to detect exactly what someone is typing by examining the accelerometer. That would be a very interesting research project and have possible consequences for anyone just randomly giving out data like this (not that I have anything against this project, I would use it on my play laptops but not my work laptops).
Is not the accelerometer a component of the laptop? In that case, if an adversary can obtain the readings from the accelerometer, they should have enough access to the machine to just install a keylogger. Therefore this technique, while technically interesting, seems rather pointless as a realistic attack vector.
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I thought of this, too, as I sit here in a coffeeshop, feeling the floor shake as people walk by. However, I'm going to guess that most people's typing wouldn't register 4.0 on the Richter scale.
Re:Take this! (Score:4, Funny)
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2) The data is supplemental and used only for additional info gathered at the time of an earthquake.
How about using Wii hardware? (Score:4, Insightful)
There was a report here on slashdot that the balance board hardware was actually VERY good. Maybe the MotionPlus could be useful.
Nah. Mobile phones (Score:5, Insightful)
Many mobiles have accelerometers these days in addition to gps. So you can get the gps positions of the wave as well as the gps timestamp and the accelerometer values.
They are even connected to a network. The tricorder in startrek... Mobile phone...
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Laptops aren't fantastic in that regard; but they are substantially better. Most of a laptop's "on time" is spent sitting on some more or less solid piece of furniture. There are the "user wandering around holding the thing" and "sitting in user's amply padded lap" and "on top of cushion on top of pile of blankets on top of bed, overheating" data points that you have to be able to filter out; but tho
prepay sim, superglue, custom python app (Score:2)
Nokia 5500 £20 on Ebay with accelerometer, no gps but if you're glueing it down you know where it is.
N82 with accelerometer & GPS. £50
It's really ridiculous how much computing power is being virtually thrown away these days. You even get premade accessories like solar chargers if you want to place them somewhere off grid.
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br> However, my impression was that this project was looking to piggyback on equipment that is already in the
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Couldn't they filter noise of that nature out with the same software they use for seismometers?
SB
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If a laptop is sitting on the table, on, it is fairly well coupled to the ground(not as well as a pro seismometer, where phrases like "located on concrete piers attached to bedrock" tend to crop up); but reasonably well. The actual accelerometer chip is soldered onto the board, which is bolted into a rigid frame, which has a few thin, non-skid rub
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Ah, so the real problem is too many levels of noise (laptop-rubberfeet-frame etc) Thanks :)
It's amazing what noise filtering software can do nowadays, but I don't have time to keep up with the field and couldn't hope to keep up with the math, so have to ask :)
SB
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The tricorder in startrek... Mobile phone...
There's an actual tricorder app for the Android (don't know about the iPhone). Best app ever - comes complete with acoustic, accelerometric, magnetic and solar data, and the all important sound effects. Now if I could just flip it and talk into it like in Star Trek.... geek bliss.
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The balance board uses strain guages, which can't detect earthquakes to my knowledge. Similarly, motionplus is gyroscopes, which in this case are not accurate enough to determine the very small displacements from an earthquake.
However, I'm very surprised they're not just going for a bulk purchase of unlocked smartphones, it must be cheaper and just as accurate as laptop accelerometers. Laptops seem very roundabout...
Re:How about using Wii hardware? (Score:4, Insightful)
However, I'm very surprised they're not just going for a bulk purchase of unlocked smartphones, it must be cheaper and just as accurate as laptop accelerometers. Laptops seem very roundabout...
Price, Quality, Speed. Pick two.
Laptops are "free", have "free" internet, get recharged for "free", are usually on a solid surface, and the reporting software is downloadable. And by "free" I mean "free to the scientists"
OTOH, do you want to be the guy who has to get permission from XYZ building owners in order to distribute and plug in an endless number of smart phones?
Software on laptops seem to be a lot better than smartphones when it comes to price and speed.
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Ah, I fail at reading comprehension. It's a distributed computing measure, meaning that yes, the laptops are already in the field doing someone else's work, they just happen to be earthquake sensors as well.
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Sure they can - just put a 200-pound weight on it, and place it on the floor. Look at the design of some of the old seismographs - or even gravity wave detectors.
Call from Quake-Catcher (Score:4, Funny)
[phone rings, Quake-Catcher volunteer answers]
Volunteer: "Hello?"
Quake-Catcher Scientist: "Hi, Mr. Jones. We'd like to ask you some questions about a highly-localized event last night."
V: "What?"
S: "We clearly read a 8.8 Richter reading in your apartment last night around 10PM, but we can't confirm this with any other data."
V: [puts hand over handset] "HONEY?! DID YOU LEAVE THE LAPTOP IN THE BED LAST NIGHT?!"
Re:Call from Quake-Catcher (Score:4, Funny)
S: "We clearly read a 0.1 Richter reading in your apartment last night around 10PM, but we can't confirm this with any other data."
fix't
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That definitely wouldn't be a problem if they kept them in the basements that slashdotters live in.
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Realism filter: Fixed (Score:2)
"Honey, what happened in the apartment last night when I was at work? The geo-survey people tell me they recorded a 9 richter scale earthquake here."
"Nothing, dear."
SB
Flash-Group Earthquakes are fun! (Score:5, Funny)
I can't wait for Facebook group 'laptop drops' to simulate earth quakes.. the winner being hte person that can get the highest on the Richter scale w/o braking their laptops..
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I think you meant the loser?
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If you could actually coordinate a mass shaking of laptops, with appropriately staggered times and shaking characteristics, I would be very, very impressed.
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Not to mention that you'd have to do it at exactly the same time as an actual earthquake, since afaict they plan to use the laptop data only as supplemental data to get more detail about events that they detect with the traditional seismometer network.
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Sudden deceleration without applying braking? Physical impossibility, I think.
Mobiles? (Score:2)
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This specific implementation (the quake-catcher network) has been around for several years already, so this is already old news - and I believe there was indeed an article on slashdot about a similar idea for smartphones. I think I posted information about this in that article's comments, actually.
several apps for the iphone for this (Score:2)
Easily? (Score:2)
I figured that we could easily tap into this data and use it to record earthquakes.
Sounds like someone from marketing. "Oh yeah, that's easy. It's only software."
Re:Easily? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, it is actually quite easy... there is a lot of software available that will capture the data from accelerometers and display it to you. The hardware is pretty simple and I guess the APIs are easy to use (I'm not a programmer I'm just assuming based on the software I've seen). When I first got a computer with an accelerometer (a Thinkpad from a couple years ago) I was even able to set it up to use the accelerometer input as a joystick in linux. Not practical, but kind of amusing to try to play a flying game by moving the whole computer around :) There are also several programs for iphones and Android devices that will output all of the accelerometer data to you (on android I recommend the free "Tricorder" program, it shows you data from all the sensors and more than you probably thought possible).
Therefore it should be - and apparently was - fairly trivial to set up a program to run in the background logging and monitoring the data
The neat thing is that the accelerometers really are quite high-resolution, and there is one measuring each direction (x, y, and z) which real seismometers also do.
Yeah. Easily (Score:2)
http://www.mobilenin.com/pys60/resources/N95_accelerometer.py [mobilenin.com]
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love the haarp but this is already "part" of seti at home... as in it runs under boinc, which is from the creators of seti...
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Well, maybe that would make a nice new laptop test. How long does it survive a washing machine's spin cycle? :-)
For ruggedized laptops, put them into the drum
How about using the sensor data to .. (Score:1)
How about using the sensor data to tell what keys the person has pressed on the keyboard?
One other advantage (Score:3, Insightful)
Hasn't Apple had this for years? (Score:2)
Haven't some Apple machines had this for a few years now? IIRC, it was called "SeisMac" or something like that.
My laptop is better (Score:1, Funny)
Earthquakes? Phaw. My laptop can tell both the weather and earthquakes!
When it's wet, it's raining. When it blows over, it's windy. And if it jiggles, there's an earthquake.
Captcha: goatse. Has someone been fooling around with Slashdot again?
AFRICA?? (Score:1, Insightful)
African internet presence is saddening, indeed.
The first link in TFS has a Google map. The google map shows a single laptop for Africa, located in Cairo. Zoom out and you can see it's not a fluke, because the other continents have plenty of entries of either laptops or USB sensors (compare to Puerto Rico or US presence)
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Yeah but by that measure Australia and India are both pretty damn empty too. It may just be a question of awareness or interest.
Sounds fishy... (Score:2)
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It's not for primary detection of earthquakes, so they know exactly when to look for interesting data from the laptops, and they can look at the motion of the laptop before and after the earthquake and throw out any results from laptops that were moving about at the time.
What about mice? (Score:2)
My optical mouse often turns on its LED for no apparent reason. This is in SoCal so I have a feeling it's just damn sensitive.
It always turns on when I walk into the room.
I don't use a mouse pad (which are usually a bit sticky so they should introduce a hysteresis) but the mouse just sits on the smooth desktop.
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That's just a new part of Superfetch. Windows 7 knows you're about to move the mouse, so it warms it up.
Seriously though, how flexible is your floor, could easily be shifting the floorboards. Dunno about its usability for quakes though, you're missing at least one axis of movement and probably magnitude in the remaining ones.
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If I ran Windows I might look into this hypothesis :)
My point is, it sometimes also turns on when I don't walk around. Of course it could be just a fat neighbor,
unanswered questions (Score:4, Interesting)
most new laptops come equipped with accelerometers
So how do I determine if my laptop has one? And if it does, how can I get access to it by software? Even if the is one or more accelerometers in there for protection of the hard drive, it will require a presence in the I/O address space, I assume, for it to be used by this or any other software. Apparently this exists, or the software would be as useful as Duke Nuken Forever, but I have not found any insight in the articles on how accelerometers can be accessed. Can anyone provide some technical details? I would like to use this for other applications, but would gladly share any earthquake data that the system captured while it was idle if I had the hardware.
/.'d (Score:2)
Many laptops in single building (Score:1, Insightful)
This could also provide interesting data in the case of a large office building, allowing better analysis of how the structure reacted to the motion. Hundreds of points of measurement, in a real-world structure, during and even, could lead to even better understanding of failure modes for structures.