http://qcn.stanford.edu/qcnalpha/
Particularly appropriate at the moment with the big China earthquake although unfortunately the only China participants were too far away from the epicentre to provide any useful data.

However...quote:
We are happy to report that two QCN alpha test participants who live in and near Reno Nevada detected vibrations from the recent Magnitude 5.1 earthquake in Reno using QCN software. We\'re very excited and are currently preparing a paper to show these preliminary results, i.e. that the QCN software seems to detect real seismic events and report to our servers within seconds. Hopefully this is the start of a real system that can be used for advanced warning someday! We\'re also happy to report that both participants and their laptops are fine! :-)

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/02/laptops-give-early-warning

http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2008/03/quake_network

http://www.physorg.com/news126368712.html

It is a \'non-cpu-intensive\' project so can be run in parallel with other projects such as CPDN without taking CPU time away from them.
nb. qcn is still an alpha project

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Marj, I don\'t have a laptop - or anything else - with an accelerometer, but what a truly amazing concept! I hope they can make it work usefully.

John.

The programmer for QCN is Carl who used to work for CPDN. I think he\'s set up QCN single-handed.

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Cpdn news

Marj, I don\'t have a laptop - or anything else - with an accelerometer, but what a truly amazing concept! I hope they can make it work usefully.

John.

Well, its looking good so far. They have direct matches between the seismic activity recorded on the laptops and that recorded on some of the big (and expensive) monitoring stations.
The plan for the future, which is currently under development, is to use a USB accelerometer which will just plug into a desktop PC. Not only will that mean that many more people can participate but it will also be much more stable in terms in movement etc for the seismic monitoring.
Apparently in earthquake zones even 10 secs or so warning can make a big difference, though it may not seem much it can give people time to run outside and move away from plate glass windows etc.
I\'ll post updates as they become available.

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That\'s a good project and they\'re fortunate to have Carl on the team. I\'ve added QCN to the Earth and Environmental Science section of the project list at BOINC wiki.

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Update:

The project currently seems to be using ~15-25% of the cpu when its running, so it no longer has the \'non-cpu intensive\' status unless there is more than 1 cpu.
With one cpu its now running as a \'normal\' project.

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An alpha version of the QCN software for Windows has been created which will work on Lenovo Thinkpad laptops.

For those running Windows who attach without a Thinkpad, the graphics display now provides real-time information from the USGS on earthquake activity around the world.

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QCN is now back to its non-cpu-intensive status so although it will use some of the cpu, it will run at the same time as other projects.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7542769.stm
Quakes caught by laptop sensor

The article reports on a broadcast which went out yesterday (5th August) on a BBC world service programme called \'Digital Planet\'.

There\'s a podcast and download here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/digital_planet.shtml which hopefully, as its a world service programme, will be accessible everywhere (not just the UK).
If you listen to the programme the interview is about 15:30 mins in.

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This week\'s issue of \'The Economist\' (Sept. 25th \'08 ) has an article on QCN written by Francois Grey of CERN. You can read it here:

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12295198

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This week\'s issue of \'The Economist\' (Sept. 25th \'08 ) has an article on QCN written by Francois Grey of CERN. You can read it here:

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12295198

Found it last night...signed up and put two desktop on the system...further reading I learn that the desktop won\'t be much help...since you could shake the whole table and it won\'t report a thing.

But touch the mouse...and everything all computations come to a stop. that is with the current version of Boinc...on another machine...I have a 5. something Boinc...nothing comes to a stop with that one.

Then I keep reading and learn that it is better to install it on my MacBook then the desktop, since the desk top needs a device added to it to take advantage of the software.

Since my last posting I have move to within 15 miles of the San Andres fault...tried to fine something on top of it...but too expensive.Looking forward to some good Rocking and Rolling here...still remember the Northridge event...now that is only 20 mile from me.

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Greg
hih_tv@yahoo.com
Asus P4P800-MX Motherboard
Intel Pentium 4 3Gig/hertz
PC3200/400mhz 184 Pin DDR DIMM 512Meg ram
Maxtor 40Gig Hard Drive

The \'ScienCentral\' channel has posted a short (two minute) video-clip on youtube regarding the Quake-Catcher Network featuring an interview with Prof. Jesse Lawrence of Stanford.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5TYBAk2FUeI

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A paper about Quake-Catcher Network appeared in Seismological Research Letters, Jan/Feb 2009.
http://srl.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/extract/80/1/26

The Quake-Catcher Network: Citizen Science Expanding Seismic Horizons

The Quake-Catcher Network (QCN) is a seismic network that implements distributed/volunteer computing with the potential to provide critical earthquake information by filling in the gaps between traditional seismic stations. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) sensors detect vibrations within the frequency range of local seismic waves (0.1–20 Hz), so any internet-connected computer with an internal or external MEMS accelerometer can become a strong-motion seismic station. The QCN, a distributed computing project, uses idle computer cycles and MEMS sensors to increase the number of seismic stations, which may soon provide faster and more accurate detection and characterization of moderate to large earthquakes. We present accelerograms and triggering analysis of an Mb 5.1 earthquake recorded by laptop MEMS accelerometers during early testing of the QCN system. In addition, we present here the advantages of distributed computing and MEMS accelerometers for seismic monitoring, as well as basic triggering algorithms.

The QCN capitalizes on the main advantage of distributed computing—achieving large numbers of processors with low infrastructure costs—to provide a dense, large-scale seismic network. While MEMS accelerometers are less sensitive than typical broadband or short-period sensors, a higher number of stations is advantageous for both the study of earthquakes and, potentially, earthquake early warning (Allen and Kanamori 2003; Wurman et al. 2007). Volunteer computing reduces overhead by limiting instrument, operation, and maintenance costs associated with traditional seismic networks (Anderson et al. 2002).

( Full article available to read Here )


http://qcn.stanford.edu/qcnalpha/

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QCN has caught a number of quakes over the last few weeks:

-M4.2 Quake San Jose --- March 30, 2009
-M6.3 quake in Central Italy --- April 6th 2009
-M5.1 quake in Hawaii --- April 21, 2009
-M4.0 earthquake in Yorba Linda, California --- April 24, 2009
-M4.5 earthquake in Southwest Germany --- May 5, 2009

QCN has also now moved out of Alpha testing.
http://qcn.stanford.edu/sensor

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News report on the BBC, here.