MyShake is an application, or app, on the Android platform in an effort to turn smartphones into a seismic detection network released on Friday by Researchers at University of California, Berkeley.
What MySkake App Do?
MyShake collects information of local shaking from a phone's onboard accelerometers, analyzes it and, if it fits the vibrational profile of a quake, relays it together with the phone's GPS coordinates to the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory. Specifically, if at least four phones detect shaking and this represents more than 60 percent of all phones within a 10-kilometer radius of the epicenter, cloud-based software program will confirm an earthquake.
People Behind MyShake App
Richard Allen said "MyShake can make earthquake early warning faster and more accurate in areas that have a traditional seismic network, and can provide life-saving early warning in countries that have no seismic network." Allen is the the leader of the app project and director of the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory
UC Berkeley graduate student Qingkai Kong, who developed the algorithm at the heart of the app, explained that "the stations we have for traditional seismology are not that dense, especially in some regions around the world, but using smart phones with low-cost sensors will give us a really good, dense network in the future."
"We need at least 300 smartphones within a 110-kilometer-by-110-kilometer area in order to have a reasonable estimate of the location, magnitude and origin time of an earthquake," Kong said. "The denser the network, the earlier you can detect the earthquake."
He saw MyShake project as "cutting-edge research that will transform seismology."
MyShake was able to provide timely early warning in simulated tests based on real earthquakes.
Information by Philippine News Agency.
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