Mobile phones as a research tool

Nature News : When Martin Lukac felt a small earthquake rattle his Los Angeles apartment, he immediately thought of the mobile phone lying on his desk. Two weeks earlier, he had programmed the phone to capture readings from its built-in accelerometer, a sensor originally intended to support features such as games. Now, Lukac âmdash; a doctoral student in computer science at the University of California, Los Angeles âmdash; transferred the phone’s data to his computer and saw the readings plotted as a series of tell-tale spikes. Success! His phone had become a mobile seismometer.

Such moments are happening more and more often these days, as researchers seek out innovative ways to exploit mobile phones. The opportunities are tantalizing. Phones are increasingly being equipped with not only accelerometers, but also cameras, Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers and Internet connectivity. Many of them can support programs devised by anyone, not just the phone’s manufacturer, which means that digitally savvy scientists can write and distribute mobile-phone software for everything from monitoring traffic to reporting invasive species.