MyShake helps detect earthquakes

Earthquakes are costly not only in terms of infrastructures and assets, but also loss of lives. For example, the 1995 Kobe earthquake in Japan led to $131 billion worth of damage, and unfortunately more than 4000 deaths. Thus, one essential goal of seismologists has been developing more effective early-warning system to minimize the damage. Usually, the seismic networks worldwide can detect earthquakes and send data back to scientists. One limitation to this approach is that there are some areas where the network is thin, which impede seismologists from accurately and timely analyzing the situation.

App developers offers a solution with a recently developed app called MyShake that helps user detect earthquakes. This smartphone app would “pick up and interpret nearby quake activity, estimating the earthquake's location and magnitude in real-time, and then relaying the information to a central database for seismologists to analyze.”(LiveScience). Users carrying smartphones with them in earthquake zones can instantly share data with scientists, notifying them about the seismic activities. MyShake thus can fill the gaps caused by the imperfect seismic networks.

MyShake’s underlying principles is similar to fitness apps, as it also utilized the smartphone’s accelerometer, an instrument that detects changes in device’s orientation, accelerational forces, vibration, tilt and movement. So that it would not confuse everyday shakes with that of earthquakes, the app contrasts the vibrating motion against the signature amplitude and frequency content of earthquake’s shakes. 

After MyShake detects an earthquake, it would send an alert to a central processing site instantly. A network detection algorithm would then be activated by incoming data from multiple phones in the same area, to "declare" an earthquake, identify its location and estimate its magnitude (LiveScience). Although right now this app is limited to only collecting and transmitting data to the central processor, its end goal is to send warnings back to individual users. Yet, even without this feature, MyShake is already incredibly helpful to seismologists. The more data it can gather about earthquakes, the more scientists can improve their understanding of quake behavior, which would help them design better early warning systems and safety protocols (LiveScience). 

Works Cited: http://www.livescience.com/53703-earthquake-detecting-app-myshake.html

http://www.techgiri.com/appsforpc/this-myshake-android-app-can-detect-earthquakes-now-available-for-download/

http://kbctv.co.ke/blog/2016/04/15/deadly-earthquake-hits-in-southern-japan/