Moore Foundation grantees at UC Berkeley have extended the reach of MyShake, an Android app that crowdsources earthquake information from smartphones. The app is now available in Japanese, with Spanish and Chinese versions coming soon.
Using a phone's onboard accelerometers to record local shaking, the app collects information from these accelerometers, analyzes it and, if it fits the vibrational profile of a quake, relays it and the phone’s GPS coordinates to the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory for analysis.
The Berkeley team hopes more language options for MyShake will improve earthquake detection by providing additional data in locations that already have in-ground sensors, such as Japan, while bringing earthquake detection to places without sensors, such as Nepal.
A recent article quotes the foundation's chief program office for science, Robert Kirshner, about "the public safety benefits of the project, as well as the potential of the smartphone data to further increase understanding of earthquakes within the field of geophysics."
“(UC Berkeley) has been especially good at bridging that gap between research and public benefit,” Kirshner said.
Read the full article here.
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