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Browser To Facilitate Text Browsing In Emergencies
Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "Programmers at Fast Company are developing the Cosmos browser to allow text browsing from Android phones when networks are buckling under the load of local disasters. A common phenomenon when disaster strikes is the overloading of cell and data networks by massively increased traffic. The Cosmos browser is intended to facilitate using SMS text messages, which often still get through in such circumstances. To quote one developer, "We want this to be a way for people to get information when they're in dire need of it." Sort of a Lynx comes to Android affair. The Smithsonian contemplates the possibilities, here."
So in a disaster, when SMS i the only communication left, they want to encourage people to send even *more* SMS messages to ensure that SMS's fail too?
It's not likely to work very well, in the one disaster I was in where I could use SMS but nothing else (even my landline had no dialtone), SMS between customers of the same carrier worked well. SMS messages destined for other carriers took hours to arrive, sometimes longer, some didn't make it through at all. SMS's coming through an SMS to Email gateway stopped coming through at all, until after the disaster when they all came through at once.
People are foolish to rely on a mobile phone for anything during a disaster or wide-area emergency.
If you want reliable information in those times, get a battery powered AM radio, and tune to your local station.
Forget about the FM music stations, they are all automated, and will just keep on playing "more music per hour than..." No one is there.
Your locally owned, small-market, analog AM station will have someone there giving you needed information.
Radios are still available starting at around $10. More expensive models also have the VHF NOAA weather band - a big plus, as in many states, the weather service radio stations are also authorized to provide emergency information, weather related or not.