Google has implemented earthquake notifications within Android for the past few years and they’ve worked well in many cases, but those precious few seconds of warning apparently failed ahead of the devastating earthquake in Turkey early this year.
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Yesterday afternoon a magnitude 5.1 earthquake hit the San Francisco area, the largest in the area in the better part of a decade. But for those carrying an Android phone, there was an early warning to the earthquake for residents of San Francisco and the nearby areas.
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Last month, Google rolled out the Android Earthquake Alerts System to seven more countries ahead of a global launch over the next year. The Philippines is one of those places with earthquake warnings enabled, and Android users yesterday benefited from such a heads-up.
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Back in April, Google activated the Android Earthquake Alerts System in Greece and New Zealand. This Google Play services-powered mechanism is now live in seven more nations as the global launch gets underway.
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Back in August, Google announced that it would turn your Android phone into a seismometer to form the “world’s largest earthquake detection network.” The Android Earthquake Alerts System will now start sending warning notifications in Greece and New Zealand.
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The Android Earthquake Alerts System turns phones running the mobile operating system into mini seismometers. Following last night’s earthquake in Los Angeles, Google shared an interesting visualization of what Android phones detected.
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Today’s earthquake warning systems leverage seismometers that are often costly and time consuming to deploy. Google wants to leverage the reach of its mobile operating system to provide an alternative and today announced the Android Earthquake Alerts System.
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