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Early Earthquake Warning System In iOS 5

Posted by samzenpus on from the escape-the-quake dept.

tekgoblin writes "A very important and functional feature has been added to Apple's iOS 5 for Japanese users: an earthquake warning system. This new feature may allow the people of Japan to be warned early enough to get out of harm's way and ultimately save lives. Most phones sold in Japan have some way to warn the user of Earthquakes."

14 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. Obligatory XKCD by itsdapead · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can't wait to see the reviews!

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    In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
    1. Re:Obligatory XKCD by Blackeagle_Falcon · · Score: 2, Informative

      You forgot the other obligatory XKCD reference for this topic.

  2. Apple cocksucking by bjourne · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It is also believed that most phones sold in Japan have some way to warn the user of Earthquakes.

    Great, so now when the stupid iphone gets the same feature other phones have had for years it is somehow news?

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    Football Odds
    1. Re:Apple cocksucking by Sockatume · · Score: 2

      Because people love copying other people's stories but can't be bothered to read them first, that's why. The originator of the story was quite clear that this was correcting a conspicuous omission rather than adding a novel function.

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      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  3. Next up by moonbender · · Score: 2

    Next up: Geiger counter.

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    Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
    1. Re:Next up by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

      Not that you'd want to be in a situation where this is relevant; but I'd be interested to see if, by shielding the processor and a small amount of RAM in an otherwise unshielded computer device, you could use software that runs within the shielded processor and RAM and monitors the unshielded system RAM for radiation-induced bit-flipping as a crude radiation sensor...

      Substantially less sensitive and accurate than a real Geiger counter; but skipping the delicate-glass-tube-and-high-voltage-drive-circuit in a high density embedded device would be nice, and it'd be a cute stunt.

    2. Re:Next up by zuzuzzzip · · Score: 2

      Justin Bieber proximity warning app

    3. Re:Next up by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      Right! Good for detection radiation in the range of "OMG, your hair is falling out! or "What's that shiny glow coming from?".

      Just a little late for anything useful.

      And thank you, no, I'm not interested in beta testing it.

      --
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    4. Re:Next up by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

      This is one piece of software where skipping the alpha and beta testing stages is totally reasonable: Neither would make it through the chip packages.

      Bring on the gamma-testers!

  4. Re:Feature of OS? Or just another app? by Sockatume · · Score: 4, Informative

    They're providing support for an SMS emergency alert standard that all 3G phones in Japan are expected to have. It's built into the OS at a low level. It's not a user-facing app.

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    No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  5. Re:These systems don't work by Sockatume · · Score: 2

    You're forgetting tsunami. If you detect an offshore earthquake and immediately sound the alert, people have valuable minutes to take shelter.

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    No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  6. Re:Why report this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because it's Apple. They pay a massive amount to the "press" to release "articles" on Apple products. Factor in the huge zealotry of this cult, and you'll see why the media perception of Apple usage is over 99% of the population.

  7. Re:Feature of OS? Or just another app? by dzfoo · · Score: 2

    Notice that at no time is Apple calling it anything. In fact, Apple hasn't announced the feature at all, whether app or bundle.

            -dZ.

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  8. Re:These systems don't work by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

    I saw a couple of these 'early warning' systems in action during the Christchurch earthquakes. At best the alert came a few seconds before the quake - hardly early enough to save lives.

    Their value depends pretty sharply on where you are relative to the epicenter and what the threat is.

    Unfortunately, geologists are Not Ready Yet on actual earthquake prediction(they are, to be fair, pretty good at determining that a given fault is starting to look real damn unhappy; but pinning an event within a decade or a century, or even a year is pretty good on a geologic scale, not so useful for humans. So, if you happen to be standing on top of, or very near, the epicenter, sucks to be you, I hope the local building codes are good; because building buildings that don't fall over, crush their occupants, and then catch fire is pretty much all we can do about that..

    If, on the other hand, the epicenter is located some distance away, you get more time to take basic measures like moving to the least collapse-prone/most likely to form a survivable pocket areas of a building(or, in lightly settled districts, running outside).

    And, of course, if the epicenter is deep underwater, hundreds of miles away, you'll have fairly decent time; but you'd better start moving uphill now...