TL;DR
- Android telephones gave early warnings for an earthquake close to San Jose yesterday.
- This was as a result of Google providing built-in earthquake detection performance.
- The telephones additionally beat iPhones to the punch when it got here to early warning alerts.
Android telephones have supplied built-in earthquake detection performance since 2020, utilizing your telephone’s accelerometer to assist create an early warning and detection community for quakes. This performance was put to the take a look at throughout a 5.1-magnitude earthquake close to San Jose, California yesterday, and it appears to have handed with flying colours.
Dave Burke, Google’s vice-president of engineering for Android, tweeted a neat visualization exhibiting a great deal of Android telephones detecting the quake earlier than the shock waves hit. Test it out beneath.
Earthquake in SF Bay Space at this time. Yellow/pink represents shaking Android telephones performing as seismometers. Circles are our inferred estimate of P & S waves. Earthquake alerts despatched instantaneously to surrounding telephones earlier than the waves hit pic.twitter.com/8pumt19ReI
This detection functionality was additionally mirrored in posts made by social media customers, as many people reported receiving earthquake notifications on their Android telephones 5 to 10 seconds earlier than they felt the shock waves. That doesn’t look like loads of time, however it does give folks a number of seconds to take cowl.
Curiously, several Twitter users additionally famous that they obtained an early warning on Android however that iPhones solely obtained the alert afterwards.
This wouldn’t be the primary time Android’s earthquake detection community gave an early warning. The system was capable of deliver early warnings throughout a quake within the Philippines final 12 months as nicely. Both means, this newest quake enabled one other spectacular demonstration of the tech.
Need to allow this in your Android telephone? Then you are able to do so by tapping Settings > Security & emergency > Earthquake alerts. This isn’t out there in each nation although, so that you may wish to test Google’s assist web page for more information.
