The writer is a science commentator
As the years fly by and I spend more time squinting at shrinking fonts, I have become used to switching my phone from portrait to landscape orientation. Smartphones contains an accelerometer, a component able to sense when the phone moves and in which direction; this prompts the display to adjust. The same sensor enables step-counting.
According to a paper published in Science last week, inbuilt accelerometers can also turn networks of Android smartphones into crowdsourced earthquake detection systems. Smartphones might be less sensitive than traditional seismometers but, when shaking en masse, they become a useful tool for quake-spotting, especially in populated areas lacking conventional warning systems.
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