Stanford's Quake-Catcher Network has been up and running since early 2008, but it looks like it's just now starting to reach the critical mass of users that's essential for its success. As you may be aware, the software takes advantage of the accelerometers built into many new laptops to watch for any signs of shaking or vibration, which it then compares with data from other laptops in the same area -- if they're all shaking at the same time, that's a pretty good indication there's an earthquake happening. Until recently, however, there hasn't been enough users in any particular area to produce reliable data, but Stanford now counts more than 450 users in California alone, which has provided it with its first truly viable testbed. Of course, more users would be even better, and you can sign up and download the software at the link below if you're interested in helping out.
posted March 15th 2010 10:21PM
really no comments?
@TheSunman89
Wow, someone is a little too impatient.
@TheSunman89
Who's laptops? I did not know of this.
@TheSunman89
Hmm just need to coordinate a couple hundred people to gettyeir laptops and all starts shaking the outside Stanford to freak then out lol
@1800BelowMe I smell a brilliant prank in the making!!
@TheSunman89 yeah stil doesnt make sense
Google Earth (Quake)
no comments...
@TheSunman89
shut the fck up ass wipe.
I can see my house lights from here!
Is it too late when your laptop detect the earthquake?
@mianmian Not necessarily. Earthquakes travel fairly slow.
This is actually pretty interesting. Earthquakes are a type of natural disaster that really can not be predicted, other than the known borders of tectonic plates. I'm not sure how well this will work, but it's a step in the right direction.
@HotDog Now if they can get a version of the software running on every smart phone that has accelerometers. There would have to be some way to filter out 'normal' movement.
HotDog?
It could take advantage of all the phones that have accelerometer too I guess....
@loginatnine No doubt, where's the iPhone app?
@loginatnine
Most people use their phones on the go, it would be to bumpy to be accurate.
@loginatnine
Maybe because everyone is always shaking their phone?
@Jonas P It doesn't work because the iPhone doesn't have multitasking.
@jincongz Lol of course, note to self, think before submitting...
@jincongz That's why it needs to be ported to smart phones. Not the iPhone.
Don't they have.. yanno.. seismographs and so forth for this?
no earthquake for the quebec it looks great!
while it does detect earthquakes, is it particularly useful for a computer network to let us know as those computers are being shaken to the floor?
as a seismic structural engineer i have to say that this isn't a PREDICTION tool, it is a WARNING tool...though it would be a pretty short warning. Earthquakes travel at the speed of sound of the soil, so it is possible that for a large quake a 30 to 60 second warning (assuming you're relatively far from the epicenter) could give someone time to get under a table.
It's also a pretty interesting research tool. Typically accelerometer readings are only avialable by a few instruments which may already be in the area (Chile has about 20 or so, while haiti didn't have any, California has quite a few). Being able to access the time histories from all of these devices post quake would make for a great way to quantify localized soil effects (assuming you had GPS info) which have a very significant impact on structure response. Theoretically, you could use these localized readings to help develop better hazard maps and thereby improve the design codes. The downside though is that I doubt it's easy to quantify the accuracy of the accelerometers in use (probably just have to count on averaging of many results to give a general level of accuracy) or the influence of the structure your in (i.e.: reading at ground level will be different from at several stories up).
too bad my netbook doesn't have an accelerometer...dang!
@NGnerd Time for someone with the skills to step up and design an SD card with accelerometer, storage space and this software. That way you would at least have a standardized accelerometer in place to distribute and anyone who wanted to participate could purchase one for there laptop even if there laptop didn't have an accelerometer.
@NGnerd
I don't know, the theory behind this sounds a little shaky.
This is really not that great. I mean it sounds nice in theory and in practice but how is it useful? It is certainly not a predictor of earthquakes, and won't work where there are no laptops and/or no internet, like a lot of poorer places in the world. And in developed areas, there are certainly earthquake detection services available.
I would say, you might as well monitor tweeter and see if a ton of people in a certain location start tweeting, "omg, ground is shaking! brb."
@poached If this project proves reliable then it's not hard to imagine embedded appliances. For example, it could be a device similar to a smoke detector, where most homes (at least in earthquake prone areas). It could hook into a cellular data network, or connect wirelessly (or even wired) to your existing home network. If this could give 30 to 60 seconds of warning before the largest impact of the earthquake then that would give someone enough time to get to a safer place or position and could save thousands of lives if a big one hits.
If the embedded devices work out at a cheap price (maybe it will be under a government price reduction plan, like the digital tv converters) then I don't see why there wouldn't eventually be one in everyones home and is just as common as a smoke detector
@touchmygadget
WMD!!
What happens if everyone is copulating on the same time?
Okay, so I installed the thing. Have a thinkpad, thought I would contribute. I have just uninstalled it.
First, it doesn't have a monitoring module. You have to run EVERYTHING, including the graphical interface that watches all the other computers and everything. You can't just leave the sensor watcher running in the background. That alone killed it for me.
On top of that though, the internet stopped working (Windows 7 32-bit, Firefox, a recent install actually so fairly clean) after I stopped running it and didn't work again until after a removal/reboot. Ugh.
Umm... when your device senses vibration, it's not called "predicting an earthquake," it's called "detecting an earthquake." And USGS already has many million dollar worth sensing devices in different locations... why would I need to get my info from some layman devices? And... earthquake is not predictable. What are they thinking? Oh right... fools from Stanfurd...
@patches7
Yes, because as we all know, if Stanford is known for one thing, it's for having absolute idiots on its campus and for never innovating anything. Yea, definitely sounds like Stanford...
"... gains foothold in California" So you would say the earthquake software is on "stable ground"? Ha ha ha!!!!!!!!
@SkonOfVulcan lol nice
Why are they bothering? I mean sure it's a cool concept but I think professional equipment can detect vibration immediately and send out a notice faster seeing as how they're designed to pick up these things. Even if there's only one such device every 20 miles or so, it's not like it takes long for the earthquake to travel that distance.
@ChrisK15
yes, but the main point here is that it'd be much much cheaper using people's laptops instead of million dollar equipment. and if the results are the same, then it could be just as accurate.
Oh my God, my laptop is shaking...it must be an earthquake...lllleetsss ch chc eeck the ssooftwwwaaree...
@touchmygadget Lol Thatd be so win
How convenient that the earth just decided to give California an earthquake to test the software.
@KConradG
Beat me to it. Damn thing woke me up at 4 this morning. I'm tired!!!
When your laptop is shaking it's too late. At most it will buy you a few seconds if a nearby group of laptops gives off the signal.
The ideal solution is to have an active real time simulation of the earths innards at any given moment running on a monstrous computer. That way these things can be predicted weeks or days before. Of course there is no way get the data to do something like this.
Thanks Engadget.... You tell us that they are ready to collect data and then less than 12hrs later I am jolted awake by a nice little data pack for them..... coincidence.... I think not