accelerometer

Hear the Table Manners of Canada Lynx in Gruesome Detail

For the past five years, researchers in Canada have been spying on their local wild cats, the Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis), using accelerometers and audio recorders. The instruments have given the researchers an intimate look at how the animals engage with their environments, from how they hunt down food to how they communicate with other…

Biology Isaac Schultz Jun 2

Smartphones Knowing When You’re Drunk Is the Next Frontier of Data Spying

In case your smartphone tracking your travels, web browsing, dating history, job changes, diet changes, shopping habits, and general content consumption wasn’t enough for you, there’s good news. Soon, the little snitch in all of our pockets might be able to tell us when we’re plastered just by measuring a few of our unsteady steps.…

Privacy & Security Rhett Jones Aug 18

All the Sensors in Your Smartphone, and How They Work

Many of your smartphone's coolest feats are accomplished with a wide range of sensors—but what are they and what do they all actually do?

Gadgets David Nield Jun 29

Brilliant Mod Makes Smartwatches Actually Useful

Back in October, an analysis of the smartwatch industry found that sales were plummeting. That was quickly rebuffed by a different analysis that said sales were rising. One thing is for sure, smartwatches are boring. But this one is pretty awesome. https://gizmodo.com/no-one-is-buying-smartwatches-anymore-1788153001 Using a custom smartwatch kernel, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have altered the…

Tech News Rhett Jones Nov 20

Here’s Why the iPhone 5S Accelerometer Is So Screwed Up

A few weeks ago we confirmed reports that the iPhone 5S motion sensors were embarrassingly off. Some enterprising devs have investigated the problem, and figured out that at its root, it’s indeed a hardware design issue that Apple either overlooked or ignored. The good news is that there’s a fix coming—but not from Apple. https://gizmodo.com/the-iphone-5s-motion-sensors-are-totally-screwed-up-1440286727…

Tech News Mario Aguilar Oct 16

Report: Advertisers Could Track You Via a Smartphone’s Accelerometer

Careful how you handle your phone: researchers have been testing out new surveillance techniques, and they think that you could easily be tracked around the web using your phone’s accelerometer. That might sound a little cooky, but according to the SFGate security researcher Hristo Bojinov has discovered that it’s possible to distinguish between individual devices…

Privacy & Security Jamie Condliffe Oct 14

A Fuelband-like Collar Shows You What Life Is Like As a Polar Bear

Those nifty Fuelbands and activity trackers can measure pretty much anything you do and even knows when you’re having sex. So why not use similar technology to try and understand mysterious animals like the Polar Bear. That makes so much sense! And even better, why not add a GoPro camera to see what life is…

Biology Casey Chan Jul 30

Two Cheap Sensors Could Transform GPS Navigation

A team of Spanish researchers has developed a way to vastly improve in-car GPS navigation—and all it requires is some cheap, extra sensors. It’s one of those why-didn’t-they-think-of-that-earlier moments. By adding accelerometers and gyroscopes to a car’s navigation system, the researchers from Spain claim that they can pinpoint a car’s location to within 2 meters.…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Feb 14

Your Table Could Be Your Next Mobile Keyboard

Not a fan of typing on a touchscreen but don’t want to have to carry around a bluetooth keyboard just for your phone or tablet? There might be a new option on the table soon, so to speak. This prototype software tracks keystrokes by using the accelerometer to track vibration, turning all kinds of things…

Tech News Eric Limer Nov 9

Putting Smart Collars on Wild Animals Will Help Us Predict Their Wild Behavior

Though adding “smart collars” to animals in the wild doesn’t do anything for the animal, it helps us humans better understand their habits. Which hopefully means we end up helping the animals. Traditional collars have used GPS before but these new ones, which are expected to be implemented in the next few years, use GPS…

Biology Casey Chan Aug 30

YouTurn Brings Car-Style Turn Signals to Bicycles

If you’re a “biker” you probably know what hand turn signals mean and use them daily. But if the people behind you don’t know them, they’re essentially useless. That’s where the YouTurn turn signaling glove comes in. The YouTurn has a built in accelerometer that detects your hand signals and activates the corresponding LED arrow…

Gadgets Michael Zhao Jul 30

Spin Like a Top in This Accelerometer Chair

If you’ve ever dreamed of spinning like a top, here’s your chance. Designed by Jaanus Osugaar, the spinning accelerometer chair lets you sit and spin to your heart’s content. The chair uses six balls inside the base to keep the chair moving and hand straps to keep you from falling out. It’s meant to be…

Tech News Kelly May 24

Apple’s New Gaming Patent Would Allow iPhone Laser Tag

“Interactive Gaming with Co-Located, Networked Direction and Location Aware Devices,” sounds dull, but Apple’s latest patent is anything but. The tech described would use augmented reality tricks to open up whole new forms of portable gameplay—iPhone guns, anyone? The gist of the patent is its ability to take advantage of the phone’s position-sensing guts—gyroscope, accelerometer,…

Tech News Sam Biddle Nov 5

By Your Accelerometers Combined, I Am Quake Catcher!

What if computers could be turned into a worldwide earthquake detecting network? With the Quake Catcher software and your laptop’s built-in accelerometer, that might just be possible. Elizabeth Cochran, an earth scientist at UC Riverside, has already managed to get about 1,000 people to install Quake Catcher and has been tracking the date submitted by…

Tech News Rosa Golijan Mar 12

An Accelerometer 1,000x More Sensitive Than the iPhone’s

HP has developed an inertial accelerometer that’s so sensitive, it can detect a change in the position of its center chip of less than one-billionth the width of a human hair. The sensor is part of HP’s unfortunately named CeNSE (Central Nervous System for the Earth) program, whose aim is to build a “planetwide network”…

Tech News Brian Barrett Feb 16

Highly Hackable TI Watch Used To Wirelessly Unlock Doors

Often when I reach for the keys in my pocket, I wonder why the hell we still use them. This dude is ahead of the curve though—he can open his doors by simply tapping his TI eZ430-Chronos watch. The watch itself features integrated pressure and temperature sensors, a 3-axis accelerometer and 128-bit AES encrypted wireless.…

Privacy & Security Sean Fallon Jan 21

Next-Gen Accelerometers Will Have Temperature Sensor Amongst Other Cool Functions

In an ongoing quest to bring you news about the guts of your next gadgets, here’s some riveting stuff about accelerometers. Remember when they first burst onto the scene? How much fun we had tilting out phones? Yeah, that. Anyway, STMicroelectronics is one of the big suppliers, and has just shed some details on a…

Tech News Kat Hannaford Jan 7

Next-Gen Nintendo DS Will Have Some Kind of Motion Detection

Nintendo’s president Satoru Iwata was more mouthy than most presidents are about their upcoming, but unannounced, products, and said that the upcoming DS will have an accelerometer. Or, some kind of motion sensor. Here’s the quote: [It will have] highly detailed graphics, and it will be necessary to have a sensor with the ability to…

Tech News Jason Chen Jan 6

New Apple Patent Prevents You From Screwing With the Hardware

The latest patent from Apple reveals ways in which their products could be fitted with a simple label or tag that provides evidence of tampering. If the strip is compromised, it gives Apple leverage to void your warranty. Apple’s patent application notes that it is in the best interest of an electronics manufacturer to be…

Tech News Sean Fallon Dec 10

Unnecessary Upgrades: Accelerometer-Controlled Marble Maze

Some old-fashioned games simply don’t need a 21st century makeover—like the wooden marble maze. Adding accelerometer control seems like a pointless endeavor. https://gizmodo.com/10-classic-analog-games-defiled-by-digital-5398738 I mean, it’s not the kind of game that should be played at a distance, and this custom-built board doesn’t even have holes along the track. Although, I have to give the…

Tech News Sean Fallon Nov 19

accelerometer

Hear the Table Manners of Canada Lynx in Gruesome Detail

Smartphones Knowing When You’re Drunk Is the Next Frontier of Data Spying

All the Sensors in Your Smartphone, and How They Work

Brilliant Mod Makes Smartwatches Actually Useful

Here’s Why the iPhone 5S Accelerometer Is So Screwed Up

Report: Advertisers Could Track You Via a Smartphone’s Accelerometer

A Fuelband-like Collar Shows You What Life Is Like As a Polar Bear

Two Cheap Sensors Could Transform GPS Navigation

Your Table Could Be Your Next Mobile Keyboard

Putting Smart Collars on Wild Animals Will Help Us Predict Their Wild Behavior

YouTurn Brings Car-Style Turn Signals to Bicycles

Spin Like a Top in This Accelerometer Chair

Apple’s New Gaming Patent Would Allow iPhone Laser Tag

By Your Accelerometers Combined, I Am Quake Catcher!

An Accelerometer 1,000x More Sensitive Than the iPhone’s

Highly Hackable TI Watch Used To Wirelessly Unlock Doors

Next-Gen Accelerometers Will Have Temperature Sensor Amongst Other Cool Functions

Next-Gen Nintendo DS Will Have Some Kind of Motion Detection

New Apple Patent Prevents You From Screwing With the Hardware

Unnecessary Upgrades: Accelerometer-Controlled Marble Maze

Bose SoundLink Home Speaker Quietly Falls to an All-Time Low After Months of Stable Pricing, No Major Sale Event Needed

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Absolute Robin Is a Giant Goddamn Robot

Apple Watch Ultra 3 Hits Record Low in Its First Big Price Cut of the Year Amid 2025 Smartwatch Clearance

ICE Reportedly Acknowledges Its Use of Notorious Graphite Spyware

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Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go

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