"MyShake" app, a personal tsunami warning system

When an earthquake strikes literally every second counts. That was the case 5 years ago when a magnitude 9 quake unleashed a massive tsunami that devastated Japan.  A seismological network kicked into action issuing early warnings, but the massive waves still killed nearly 16,000 people and caused an estimated $300 billion (USD) in damage. Since then scientists have been working to improve detection systems in the hopes of generating more accurate earthquake data and ultimately buying people a bit more time to flee a soon to be disaster zone. Now researchers are hoping to tap into new pool data. It turns out the technology in conventional seismological instrumentation exists in every smartphone on the planet. Richard Allen, the director of the Seismological Laboratory at the University California and his team have developed a smartphone app called 'MyShake' designed to monitor a phones accelerometer data and send alerts to a central server when seismic activity registers. The app can be downloaded the Labs website at myshake.berkeley.edu