MyShake Android app uses your phone's accelerometer to detect earthquakes and automatically warn scientists
and after surviving the Nepal quake, I can't wait to download it Rob Price / Business Insider : 10 things in tech you need to know today Nick Mediati / Greenbot : MyShake is an Android app that can detect earthquakes EurekAlert! : New app turns smartphones into worldwide seismic network Los Angeles Times : New app uses your cellphone to detect earthquakes Jason Hahn / Digital Trends : MyShake turns your smartphone into an earthquake detector and research tool Iain Thomson / The Register : Earthquake-sensing smartphone app fires off early alerts of disaster Russell Brandom / The Verge : A new earthquake-sensing app just hit the Google Play Store Jonathan Amos / BBC : MyShake quake app invites public testing Quentyn Kennemer / Phandroid : UC Berkeley's latest Android app can detect earthquakes [VIDEO] J.E. Reich / Tech Times : This Android App Can Help Detect Earthquakes On A Global Scale Jon Fingas / Engadget : Android app turns your phone into an earthquake detector Hilary Brueck / Fortune : How To Turn Your Phone Into An Earthquake Detector CBS Los Angeles : Scientists Need Your Help In Experiment With New Quake App Tweets: school seismology UK / @schoolseismo : Excellent technical paper on how @BerkeleySeismo discriminate earthquake signals on myquake app http://advances.sciencemag.org/ ...
Context & Ripple Effects
UC Berkeley's MyShake launch in 2016 was the proof of concept that a phone accelerometer could double as a seismometer, and the arc since then has been steady institutionalization: MyShake sent its first public alert for a 4.3-magnitude quake in late 2019, and by August 2020 Google had partnered with USGS to build the same idea into Android itself as an opt-in worldwide alert system.
The payoff arrived this month, when Google researchers reported Android's built-in system has issued alerts for more than 1,200 earthquakes since 2021, sometimes with 15–60 seconds of notice — while a mistaken-notification episode in Brazil showed the failure mode of crowdsourced warning at platform scale.
First-order effects
- UC Berkeley gains a global, volunteer-run seismic network for free — every Android user who installs MyShake becomes a distributed sensor feeding @BerkeleySeismo automatically.
- Android owners get earthquake detection on hardware they already carry, no dedicated equipment required.
Second-order effects
- Google absorbed the model rather than competing with it: its USGS partnership turned the app-based approach into a Play-services feature, shifting the center of gravity from Berkeley's research project to Android's default infrastructure.
- Seismology agencies and alert providers now face a benchmark set by billions of phones — coverage that traditional station networks cannot match in density or cost.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, consumer-device sensor swarms become standard public-safety infrastructure, with platform vendors as de facto emergency-alert operators — and accountable for errors, as Google's deactivation of the feature in Brazil after false notifications demonstrates.
- The nine-year path from Berkeley's app to 1,200+ detected quakes suggests citizen-science sensing projects increasingly graduate from academic pilots to baked-in OS capabilities, compressing the role of standalone apps.
The trend: Smartphone sensor networks are maturing from academic crowdscience apps into platform-scale public early-warning infrastructure operated by OS vendors alongside government agencies.