Android Soon be able to detect earthquakes based on crowdsourced data: Google
The key to prevent human life from earth quake is early warnings. Google recognize these aspects and has announced that the company is working on Earthquake alerts which send right to all Android handsets in the affected areas. This feature would firstly to introduce for California while the company is testing and launching a crowdsource based approach, using the accelerometer sensor present in almost all Android phone in the world.
Nature has always been dramatic and never lose a chance to
surprise us while nature also brings natural disasters that also includes
Earthquake. Earthquake are more common nowadays, while these occurs to release
the pressure between/ among tectonic plates and by collision of these plates as
these are always in motion. The key to prevent human life from earth quake is
early warnings. Google recognize these aspects and has announced that the
company is working on Earthquake alerts which send right to all Android
handsets in the affected areas. This feature would firstly to introduce for
California while the company is testing and launching a crowdsource based approach,
using the accelerometer sensor present in almost all Android phone in the
world.
The Californian warning system is developed in partnership
with United States Geological Survey (USGS) and California Governor's Office of
Emergency Services (Cal OES), relying on the 700 seismographs currently present
in the state. This technology is based upon the ShakeAlert system which in
place as an early warning instrument on the West Coast. Whenever an earthquake
is detected, Android smartphones in the affected regions will display a red,
flashing earthquake alert and suggest you to drop, cover, and hood in order to
protect yourself.
Left: Full-screen earthquake alert. Middle: Incoming
earthquake notification. Right: Past earthquake notification.
While the other regions of world which lacks well equipped
seismographs so Google is trying to apply another approach. It would use the
collective power of idle Android smartphone's accelerometers which can detect
the so-called P-wave which precedes the often much more devastating S-wave
following afterward. Google has explained, "If the phone detects something
that it thinks may be an earthquake, it sends a signal to our earthquake
detection server, along with a coarse location of where the shaking occurred.
The server then combines information from many phones to figure out if an
earthquake is happening."
Google wants to use this data to send out alerts just like
those it will push to Californians. But in the beginning, Google will only use
the data to find the epicenter and the affected regions after the facts, and
then available via Google Search.
So, Californians will be the first to receive earthquake
alerts before the fact while the rest world would have to wait a bit for Google
to refine its crowdsourcing approach warnings. While Google has not shared the
version of Android required for this feature but it seems that it would be
widely available. It can be assumed that the company rely on its Play Services
to push this feature. Although the detection feature will automatically go live
for everyone but it is not certain if there will be an opt-out option or not.
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