Our smartphone could serve as a tool to alert of possible earthquakes

Earthquakes can be devastating for this reason there are institutions that are trying to predict the time in which it is to be presented one of these natural phenomena. Unfortunately has not yet been found a pattern or a related cause that we can alert you of when we will have the presence of an earthquake; today we depend on systems that detect unusual movements and throw alerts, which offer us approximately 60 seconds to react and prepare ourselves, but these systems are costly and today can only be found in California, Mexico and Japan.

Therefore, today we know an ambitious project that seeks to take advantage of the large network of smartphones that exist in the world, so that thanks to an app can be transformed into a seismic detector device, thus creating a large network detector which in turn can serve to alert other areas, so that the population can prepare with time to face a potential earthquake.

In the search of a large network of seismic detection

The project comes on the part of the University of California at Berkeley and the Center for Innovation of Deutsche Telecom in Silicon Valley and is a application, available for the moment only for Android, which uses the accelerometer of our smartphone to convert it into a sensor detecting earthquakes.

This is only the first stage of MyShake, where they seek to create a major global network of devices connected to this system, which when match on the detection of an unusual movement, will be able to send alerts to other users about an earthquake.

The idea is simple, but curiously nobody had also developed its creators clarified that this application does not replace the current detection systems, this is more of a bracket that can help people located in regions of the world, which simply do not possess any of these systems, as in the case of Nepal.

The application has been launched today, and in this first version is only enabled detection function, since the objective is to start collecting the information that they receive in their central server, so as to know if the readings are correct or need to fine-tune some data because the programming of algorithms must be able to identify between the usual movement of the device and a seismic movement.

Later it will incorporate the system of alerts, which will be customizable according to the region, where we will also be able to see the latest earthquakes in the world. Their creators are confident that this can be a big step in system of this type, and they expect in the not too distant future to have available the version for iPhone.

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