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The Verizon Wireless HTC Eris 'Silent Call Bug'
Hall writes "In the last few months some users of Verizon Wireless HTC Eris phone models have encountered what's being called the 'silent call bug' with their phones. What has happened since the update to Android 2.1 is that some phones get dead silence (can't hear the person they call nor can the other end hear you). The only solution is to reboot the phone, though the problem will re-appear after some time. VZW tech support for a while was simply swapping out Eris phones in hopes that the replacement didn't have the same issue. Too many were, though, and now some users have been told they're not swapping anymore. A couple of days ago, a user witnessed a car accident and was unable to call 911. Well, at least not until after rebooting the phone."
You're completely mistaken. Cell phones got GPS well after consumer units had appeared, because there were no small GPS chips that would easily be powered by a cell phone battery until relatively recently.
The reason they could find your location before GPS was a thing called triangulation. They could (and still can on phones without GPS) check your signal strength to various towers to figure out where you are because they know the geographic location of all the towers.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Depends on the 911 system used. Some small departments don't have the money to upgrade their equipment. Really rural counties out west are simply using telephones with recorders attached.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Wikipedia:
Eris (Greek , "Strife") is the Greek goddess of strife, her name being translated into Latin as Discordia. Her Greek opposite is Harmonia, whose Latin counterpart is Concordia. Homer[*] equated her with the war-goddess Enyo
[*] Homer the ancient greek poet, not Homer Simpson
Not really because when was the last time you upgraded your firmware on it? In general "dumb" phones are pretty disposable, if there is a bug like this on a "dumb" phone (and, there are) the chances of getting it fixed are zero. With a smartphone, chances are there will be an update within the next month that corrects the issue.
Any issue in a "dumb" phone never gets fixed, issues in smartphones might though.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The reason they could find your location before GPS was a thing called triangulation. They could (and still can on phones without GPS) check your signal strength to various towers to figure out where you are because they know the geographic location of all the towers.
Your description is correct, but that's not triangulation, it's trilateration. From signal strength one can derive a distance but not a direction. The technique is drawing circles of to see where they meet, rather than drawing lines to see where they cross.