An accelerometer is the ubiquitous little sensor that tells your tablet when to flip orientation or informs the brain of your quadcopter how closely its actual actions are matching your desired ones.

We barely notice them, but they're one of the most important features buried in the everyday smartphone experience. Accelerometers are devices that can measure acceleration (the rate of change in ...

An optomechanical accelerometer that uses light to measure acceleration. Credit: F Zhou/NIST An accelerometer that uses laser light instead of just mechanical strain can register changes as small as ...