Early Alerts And Earthquake Detection, Now On Your Android Devices

Just now, Android has rolled out earthquake alerts as part of a specialized algorithm that is designed to detect earthquakes and then send warnings to everyone.

Google has just updated the Android platform and it rolled out a very interesting feature, an Android phone-powered alert system in case of earthquakes, worldwide! Even though it has been out for a minute now, not everyone knows about it, so it is worth looking into. The accelerometer in your Android joins one data point of billions of others, as soon as you opt in to this service, all as a part of an algorithm that is has been designed to early detect earthquakes and later send alerts and warnings to their users in the vicinity who could be affected by them.

Mind-blowing, is the proper description for this feature. This feature is only possible because of the insane number of Android phones that are out there and this is also a result of Googles use of their super algorithms on big data. Really, it just shows an example of the amazing innovative practices revealing device’s potential. Features like this are proving that phones can be used for more than just social media.

In order to pull this off, Google has teamed up with the Geological Survey (US) and the California Office of Emergency Services, thus enabling Google to send warnings or alerts to its users in California.

The big steps in Google’s plan to help with awareness on earthquakes, however, are powered with Android!

Based on data collected overtime from Android devices, localized results will show up in Google Searches for earthquakes.

The idea is that essentially if you are experiencing an earthquake, your phone will send data directly to Google. By doing so Google receives thousands of data from all the users in the epicenter of the quake and once Google is satisfied by all the data they receive, they will immediately start sending warning to people who live in the regions that are or could be affected. Special information will be shown even in Google Searches for people who live in the affected regions. Features like these have the potential to save millions of lives from earthquakes and other natural disasters.

This feature by Google is also capable to locate the epicenter of the earthquake and to determine its strength by using these phones. The key ting in this whole system is the fact that each device which is near to the earthquake will have the ability to help other people who are far away from the epicenter to be aware of the disaster and why not, potentially to get way just in time to avoid injury. Worth noting that earthquakes are very hard to detect before, they move incredibly fast so this means that Google’s Android based warning system will have to work super-fast at any point. Because it’s a matter of seconds to save other people’s lives.  

The possibilities with technology, well, they’re endless.

Author bio 

Frank Holman, 33 years old, from Norway is a Full-Stack developer with eight years of experience working alongside Fortune 500 companies’ tech teams.