Gyroscope Type

• If your mental image of a gyroscope is from a high school science class, the ones in the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 are like the stuff out of science fiction. They're actually MEMS devices -- MEMS stands for Micro-electro-mechanical systems -- and means that the parts that make up the gyroscope are features that are in the ten-thousandths of a meter range -- as opposed to transistors in computer chips that are in the billionths of a meter range, and use very small amounts of electricity to power tiny motors.