the.com/accelerometer
the tiny pendulum in your phone that knows which way is down better than you do
means A device that measures acceleration — changes in speed or direction — which is why your phone can tell when you've tilted it, dropped it, or taken a step.
from A 19th-century scientific compound: 'accelero-' from Latin 'accelerare' (to hasten, from 'ad-', toward, plus 'celer', swift — a cousin of 'celerity') bolted to '-meter', from Greek 'metron', a measure. Literally 'swiftness-measurer,' built the way scientists have long assembled instrument names from Latin and Greek spare parts.
- airbag trigger
- Detects a crash and deploys airbags in milliseconds
- micro scale
- Senses motion using parts thinner than a hair
- step counter
- Your fitness tracker is just it counting wobbles
- free fall
- Knows when a dropped laptop is falling
- mars rovers
- Helped spacecraft land on other planets
iphone 6 motion coprocessor — apple's m9 chip in 2014 iphone 6 that enabled always-on motion detection without draining battery
nintendo wii remote — 3-axis accelerometer from 2006 that revolutionized motion-controlled gaming for mainstream audiences