By Amy Nordrum

Accelerometers introduced smartphone users to many handy new features—recording the distance you walk and automatically rotating the view when we turn the phone sideways, to name just two you probably used today. Though these sensors are generally quite helpful and accurate, computer scientists from the University of Michigan have just found a way to scam them.

A research team figured out that they could fool accelerometers using sound waves—in particular, a single tone played at an accelerometer’s resonant frequency. With it, they can cause two signal processing components within the phone to generate a false report of the accelerometer’s behavior. The group is led by Kevin Fu of the University of Michigan and includes collaborators from the University of South Carolina.   [Read More]