From Stanford University and the University of California – Riverside, an intriguing example of “distributed computing” being used to provide evidence of earthquakes around the globe. Download the free software and become part of the Quake Catcher Network.
The Quake-Catcher Network is a collaborative initiative for developing the world’s largest, low-cost strong-motion seismic network by utilizing sensors in and attached to internet-connected computers.
With your help, the Quake-Catcher Network can provide better understanding of earthquakes, give early warning to schools, emergency response systems, and others. The Quake-Catcher Network also provides educational software designed to help teach about earthquakes and earthquake hazards.
The Quake Catcher Network uses the built-in movement sensor (accelerometers) in many laptops to ‘read’ seismic events. By combining the results of many sensors, the overall size and time of the quake event can be read. (An associated initiative provides USB accelerometers for desktop computers.) The researchers are also interested in using this initiative to foster learning in the K-12 environment, and have developed a version of the software and a set of lesson plans specifically for school settings.
I saw this too and am going to try it out… sort of like SETI at home, but stands a better chance of being useful!