Recent comments in /f/gadgets

mtcwby t1_itwjmix wrote

Reply to comment by BellerophonM in Android phones offered early US quake warning, beating iPhones to the punch | Google's earthquake detection network turns Android phones into seismometers, and it paid off yesterday. by chrisdh79

I've got a Pixel 5a and it appeared to be Google's service that came rather than a USGS one. I was about 25 miles away and the jolt was very short So short that I wondered if we had just had a quake and looked at some hanging blind cords to see if they were swinging. They weren't but the confirmation of a quake came a couple of minutes later.

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DaoFerret t1_itwhoij wrote

Reply to comment by ducklingkwak in Android phones offered early US quake warning, beating iPhones to the punch | Google's earthquake detection network turns Android phones into seismometers, and it paid off yesterday. by chrisdh79

One and only earthquake I experienced was the 2011 quake that originated in DC and was felt as far as NYC.

I was working at home in my apartment and on a conference call.

Suddenly the TV in the living room was rocking side to side. Took me a few seconds to realize it was an earthquake.

Looked over at the dog on the couch. She looked back at me, put her head down and went back to sleep.

I decided, if the dog thinks we’re fine, that’s good enough for me and I’m not going to worry about it.

Still weird to remember the building literally swaying back and forth.

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other_usernames_gone t1_itwhl8s wrote

Reply to comment by saulblarf in Android phones offered early US quake warning, beating iPhones to the punch | Google's earthquake detection network turns Android phones into seismometers, and it paid off yesterday. by chrisdh79

Not really, the comment I replied to seemed to treat it as a given.

But like how we don't need to wait for it to rain to predict it might rain we might not need to wait for an earthquake to start to predict it's likely to happen.

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saulblarf t1_itwg2jd wrote

Reply to comment by other_usernames_gone in Android phones offered early US quake warning, beating iPhones to the punch | Google's earthquake detection network turns Android phones into seismometers, and it paid off yesterday. by chrisdh79

>if we understood and had the technology >we might be able to

Sounds like the comment you replied to is exactly correct.

We don’t have the tech or knowledge to meaningfully predict earthquakes and we won’t for a while.

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Doomgloomya t1_itw7b33 wrote

Reply to comment by inferno006 in Android phones offered early US quake warning, beating iPhones to the punch | Google's earthquake detection network turns Android phones into seismometers, and it paid off yesterday. by chrisdh79

What i'm assuming is that each device is already a min computer in of itself and how we build supercomputers is linking a bunch of computers together in a network to increase computing power. Now each smartwatch is constantly keeping track of everything we do from elevation we walk, steps, and heart rate. This means these are very sensitive devices able to differentiate different movements.

This is just a wild assumption based off what we know smart watches can do but because they are casting such a wide net the watches are able to sense differences in the environment and if several are sensing the same movement then it'll set off the alert system.

The simplest answer would just be google just has its own private seismometer thats is just better lmao.

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BellerophonM t1_itw753a wrote

Reply to comment by JohannesOliver in Android phones offered early US quake warning, beating iPhones to the punch | Google's earthquake detection network turns Android phones into seismometers, and it paid off yesterday. by chrisdh79

Participating Android phones are hooked into two different alert systems. One is ShakeAlert, but that wasn't the one that offered advance warning here. The other is that phones that have opted into the Android Earthquake Alerts System use mass collective data from their accelerometers to form a rudimentary real-time seismology dataset. The scale of the network is used to filter the seismology readings from the everyday movement noise. It's the data from that which was able to trigger the alert so rapidly and beat the shockwave, which is why this is discussing Android phones in particular.

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JohnJD1302 t1_itw5ueu wrote

Reply to comment by IamRasters in Android phones offered early US quake warning, beating iPhones to the punch | Google's earthquake detection network turns Android phones into seismometers, and it paid off yesterday. by chrisdh79

I read that supposedly the USGS had discussed with Apple about integrating ShakeAlert into iOS as well, but it seems like it didn't went through...

Apple HQ at Cupertino must've felt it and even got warnings, so I hope they could consider it this time... but I doubt it.

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Moonkai2k t1_itw5f63 wrote

Reply to comment by Financial_Nebula in Android phones offered early US quake warning, beating iPhones to the punch | Google's earthquake detection network turns Android phones into seismometers, and it paid off yesterday. by chrisdh79

First off, "often" is not always. Usually it means about half the time.

Second, common sense says if I feel a small one, a bigger one may be coming. That isn't exactly stellar praise for the existing detection network.

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inferno006 t1_itw3zvc wrote

Reply to comment by Doomgloomya in Android phones offered early US quake warning, beating iPhones to the punch | Google's earthquake detection network turns Android phones into seismometers, and it paid off yesterday. by chrisdh79

I work in emergency services. Any advanced warning is better than none or little advanced warning.

But my first thought upon reading this headline with my years of emergency services is: I wonder how this is being used to investigate bombings and pinpointing epicenters of incidents like that?

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