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There are many devices available these days to make life easier. It seems that every second person you see has a smartphone. Smartphones are quickly becoming the way of the future. They are a “one stop shop” for almost all of your personal electronic and computing needs. With tablets PCs now becoming just as popular, it may not be too long before desktop computers are considered vintage! Considering directtv deals are left and right, majority of today’s households are ridden with technology.

One of the unique and quirky features of smartphones and tablet PCs is the ability for their screens to be rotated, thus enabling the user to view a web page or application in landscape. This is a great attribute in the technology as there is nothing more annoying than trying to read a web page or document with text missing on the side. SO who do these nifty personal devices accomplish this? With something called an accelerometer.

An accelerometer does not have anything to do with the speed of the device as you may rightly think. It has to do with the measured weight of the object and its frame of reference. The accelerometer is also able to measure dynamic forces such as movement, and it is because of this that it is able to detect the movement of someone moving the frame of reference of a personal electronic device.

Devices that use the accelerometer technology include the following.

• smartphones
• digital audio players
• personal digital assistants
• Nintendo Wii
• Sony PlayStation 3
• pedometers
• sleep phase alarm clocks

Accelerometer technology has allowed the products above to attain a higher lever of user interactivity.