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Smartphones May Soon Provide Earthquake Warnings (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: When it comes to an earthquake, just a few seconds' warning could make the difference between life and death. But many earthquake-prone countries lack the seismic networks that would give their citizens the lead time to find cover or shut down critical utilities. Now, a group of enterprising engineers is looking at a substitute network: smartphones. Using smartphones' built-in accelerometers, researchers have invented an app, released today, that they say can detect strong earthquakes seconds before the damaging seismic waves arrive. MyShake, as the app is called, could become the basis for an earthquake warning system for the world's most vulnerable regions.
I actually wouldn't mind buying a usb doohickey that has an accelerometer that sends info to a centralized place to detect and report quakes. I dont, however, think I want to spend battery-life on my phone for it. I mean, wouldn't it need to frequently check the GPS?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Most of the public buildings in Mexico have had "alerta sísmica" for well over five years already (don't remember how long). Last year, a large-scale rollout was made so there are audible alert boxes all over the city. Of course, we are lucky to be ~500Km away from most of the tectonically active locations in our region, while unlucky enough to be sitting atop one of the most "interesting" soils for seismic activity amplification... So it's a very unique combination!
Let's strip a smartphone down and attach it to the animals that go squirrely before an earthquake. Ground motion detection enhanced with animal senses -- bears further investigation, I bet.
obligatory xkcd reference: https://xkcd.com/723/
This is nothing new. There apps that already do this. For instance, this one does it and it's not called MyShake. And I bet there are many more apps that do exactly the same thing if you just look for them.
Every 3 or 4 months
I do my best to avoid places with earthquakes, but if I ever go to an earthquake zone, what the fuck am I gonna do with those "few seconds" warning that this app would provide me? Unless I can somehow use those seconds to board a hot air balloon, what can I possibly do with a few seconds if the earth is about to open up, besides take the opportunity to plant a big wet goodbye kiss on my own ass?
I admit that I've been fortifying myself with spirits in order to work up the courage to go out into the cold to walk the dog, so maybe I'm missing something.
You are welcome on my lawn.
We get alerts on our cell phones with at most a couple of seconds' warning. In theory that gives you time to duck under a desk or into a doorway. In practice it's always been: Beep! What the fuck is that? Earthquake!
My wife was at the conference where this was unveiled and she came home excited about it. When we went to install it on our phones, though, we discovered it requested a surprising array of permissions that you wouldn't think it would need, like information about your contacts list. I think I'll hold off till they scale that back to something more reasonable.
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
Hey, the Amber alert system is really useful. If you kidnap a kid, you know you're golden until you see the alerts.