Can Laptops detect earthquakes? and used as early warning system?

Now laptop can be used to detect earth quakes and give early warning to the user!!! yes a tiny device that is originally put into laptops hard disk to prevent damage to the hard drive if machine is dropped can be used with the little modification to detect unexpected movements and give warning on earthquakes....

Sensors known as accelerometers are been built by combining reading the sensors of laptop by quake catcher networks it is also said that the system successfully detected a quake in los Angele's asst professor Jesse Lawrence and colleagues at university of California riverside told told BBC World Service's Digital Planet program me that accelerometers are perfect for monitoring earthquakes.

In the case of laptops, the accelerometer detects when the machine has been knocked off a desk or dropped. Before impact the heads on the hard drive are pulled clear of the platters where data is stored to prevent physical damage.

"When you accidentally knock your laptop off the desk, the accelerometer is detecting a large, strong new motion," he said.

though the research is in early stages with only three laptops connected it is said that it requires a lot of laptops connected to analyze the difference between quake and someone else moving or tapping the laptop... though they are variety of scenarios to take of and the geographical locations where the laptop is situated have to see how it goes in long term source BBC