Google is using its huge Android Operating System (OS) to create a worldwide earthquake alert system. This will create the world’s biggest earthquake detection network.
If you sign up for the new initiative, your Android phone will become a mini-seismometer using the built-in accelerometer, and the system will eventually warn people of earthquakes.
Google is working with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) to send alerts to Android users in California. This new earthquake detection system is based upon the existing alert system that uses signals from 700 different seismometers.
“The public infrastructure to detect and alert everyone about an earthquake is costly to build and deploy. We saw an opportunity to use Android to provide people with timely, helpful earthquake information when they search, as well as a few seconds warning to get themselves and their loved ones to safety.”
Marc Stogaitis, the Software Engineer at Android
Google will gradually roll out earthquake alerts to more states in the US and then to other countries around the world. Since every smartphone has an accelerometer, they can detect signals that can indicate an imminent earthquake.
Once a phone detects an earthquake, it will send location data to Google to point out where the earthquake took place. Google will then use data from numerous devices to determine the epicentre of the earthquake. Google hopes to make its earthquake data more accurate and will eventually release it for Google Search as well when people look up earthquakes.
The update for earthquake detection will be rolled out using Google Mobile Services (GMS), meaning that a full OS update will not be required. It also means that phones without GMS such as Huawei phones will not receive the feature.
