Catching earthquakes, with help from your laptop

Got a notebook PC with a built-in accelerometer—you know, those motion sensors that protect your laptop by detecting sudden drops? Turns out they're pretty good at sensing earthquakes, too—and by installing a small software download, you could help researchers detect (or even predict) the Big One.

Using the distributed-computing BOINC software (familiar to anyone who's used SETI@Home and Rosetta@Home), the Quake-Catcher Network (as reported by NewScientist.com) aims to detect and monitor earthquakes around the globe using a network of accelerometer-equipped laptops—yep, we're talking PCs and Macs, all putting aside their differences and working together in peace. (Desktops will also work, provided you've got a USB-enabled accelerometer handy.)

The more systems running the QCN software, the closer the network comes to real-time earthquake detection—a key factor in giving people near the epicenter a few seconds warning before a quake hits. The biggest quake detected so far: A 5.4 trembler near Los Angeles on July 29. 2008.

Here's how it works: You just download the BOINC distributed-computing client software onto your system (the QCN Web site lists which laptops are most likely to have on-board accelerometers), associate BOINC with the Quake-Catcher project, pick the locations where you use your laptop the most (using Google Maps), and set the client to run in the background. (All the QCN-specific instructions are right here.)

Once your notebook's been idle for three minutes, the QCN client starts monitoring any movement sensed by the accelerometer; if it detects any significant up and down, front/back, or side-to-side movement, it sends the data back to the QCN headquarters for analysis. If a series of laptops in the same vicinity start firing off signals, there's a good chance an earthquake's in progress; if your laptop is the only one that's detecting a tremor, the QCN servers will figure you just dropped it or something (doh!) and disregard the readings.

I did my part and installed the BOINC software with the QCN project this morning—but I'm in New York, not quake-prone California. So if you're in San Francisco or Los Angeles, do yourself (and the rest of the state) a favor, and get cracking.

Related:
How your laptop can spot earthquakes [NewScientist.com]