Your Laptop Could Be an Earthquake Detector

[rob_neff]

When a good sized quake hits, one of the first two things to go is power and communications. So where a laptop might stay powered (if it was not destroied by falling debris) it's connection to the network would most likely be lost. Some good all that data is going to do if it can't be recovered in real time.

After a disaster hits, thousands of people pick up their cell phones to call family and friends, saturating the cell networks. Call prioritization kicks in for law enforcement and disater recovery. Cell networks jam up almost immediately, if they stay working in that area that is. Air cards for laptops would be useless.

Maybe for some smaller quakes, if they can be detected reliably, but any measurement for a good sized quake in real time would be futile IMO.

Neat idea though.

 

[heroofspirits]

adelaide (in australia) just had a earthquake the other day. hit like a 3.9 or somethin, no damage, just allot of facebook pages popping up!!

 

[conebone96]

It's not just apple and thinkpad HP Pavilions have had the smart protect system for years.

 

[Guest]

no, you're right that 2.5 seconds, or ten, or 20, won't help individuals. The information is already being used to shut down high speed trains, though, and to shut off natural gas pipelines. The idea is to prevent some of the horrific casualties that happen after an earthquake. Look at Kobe, Japan in 1996.