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Your laptop could detect the next earthquake

Listening to All things considered on NPR and they are interviewing a woman who developed a computer program, that uses the motion sensor in lap top computers to measure earth quakes.  Most newer laptops have an accelerometer, a kind of motion sensor that detects when a computer gets dropped or shaken.  If the computer gets dropped, it shuts off the hard drive to save the laptop.  Gosh, wish I had one of those three years ago when Purrball knocked the laptop off the kitchen table. 

Your laptop could detect the next earthquake  I love this quote from Elizabeth Cochran - almost as much as I love the her last name is Cochran - wonder if she is going to have a distant relative named Zefram  Okay, anyway, here is the quote --

"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.

The software can be found here   I am having so much fun playing on the web site  I almost forgot to down load the software.  And true Trek fans will know that Zefram's name was listed as Cochran in the Next Gen movie First Contact.

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