Billions of phones can notice and warn about nearby earthquakes

Your phone will be one of the billions of devices around the world serving as a warning system in many countries.

Since the launch of 2020, the Android System of Google’s earthquake is increasing to maintain 2.3 billion users of the Seapressiid, according to a new sources from other sources from other resources to researchers in Google. But phones don’t just deliver warnings – their sensors also help those found earthquakes.

“Billion Android devices are working together and act as mini-seicometer to make the world’s largest getection network,” as Richard Allen At the University of California, Berkeley, which is also a researcher researcher in Google.

The system developed by Allen and his companions analyzing vibrations found in accelerometers on Android and smartwatches. Join, this network of sensors can indicate how large an earthquake is and which phone users are sufficient to reach a warning message.

The Google system announced people when it finds an earthquake with a large 4.5 or so. But the system “does not notice all earthquakes” because it requires that a large number of phones can be close to earthquake, as Allen. For example, it does not find earthquakes that come from major ridges in the middle of the sea, even if it can determine the seismic events that come with hundreds of kilometers.

One of the greatest challenges can easily and accurately identify the size of each seismic event. The researchers have improved the system’s earthquake-detection algorithm over the years by developing regional models to better represent local tectonic movements and accounting for varying sensor sensitivities among different android phones.

Google’s Google system is currently accurate shakealert system consisting of US West Coast and the Japanese War Meteorological Warning Program, Allen says. He designed that Google’s project was intended to increase, instead of replacing, seismometer-based systems like this – delivering Shakealert’s warning for people on the West Coast. “But the fact is that many earthquake regions do not apply regional seismic networks necessary to provide warnings,” Allen says.

Google’s system provides a “unique source of information” for countries with no earthquake warning systems, as Katsu Gotaa Western University in Canada, not included in the initiative. It also reaches a lot of people in general, even if other country alert systems or regional use, he said.

The system now provides alerts to 98 countries and territoriesincluding the US but not the UK. “We mainly focus on countries with a larger risk of historic seismic while no one has a devil warning solution,” as Rooking in Marc to google.

According to the new study, analyzing the performance and accuracy of the program, the system issued alerts for 1279 seismic events on March 2024, with only three false alerts. Two of the wrong alerts involved storms and one triggered with unrelated mass notice to flow through many phones. The team has since been updated the scale algorithm to avoid false triggers.

Most Android devices are selected to participate in the phone-based network and receive alerts about adjacent earthquakes by changing both of these settings. In a Google User Survey, more than one third of the system participants received the phone alert before they felt any shaking – and most of the people who got them were very helpful.

If Android phone users remained enrolled for alerts, it will come to two species. The more urgent action alerts are designed to attract people to take care of actions, such as “drop, covering”. But they often give a few seconds worth of early warning because they don’t go out until the system predicts strong shaking. In contrast, less authentication known alerts, which give more general information, can come about ten seconds before feeling an earthquake over the phone.

“The physics of earthquakes dictated to have less warning before the stronger shaking than weak shaking,” as Stuganitis. “But we continue to investigate our alert strategy to improve warning times of future earthquakes.”