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Google to introduce earthquake detection alerts to Android

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The company believes Android phones can act as mini seismometers.
Google has announced plans to introduce an earthquake alert system to Android devices globally. The system will rely on the accelerometers that are built into all smartphones to detect signals for earthquakes. If the phone detects an earthquake, it will send a signal to Google’s earthquake detection server, along with a course location of where the tremor occurred. The server will then combine the information it has received from multiple Android phones to figure out if an earthquake is happening. Eventually, if an earthquake is detected, the system will automatically send warning alerts to Android devices so people can find cover or safer ground. “Installing a ground network of seismometers, as California has done, may not be feasible in all impacted areas around the world. So we’re using the reach of Android’s platform to help detect earthquakes… this means your Android phone can be a mini seismometer, joining millions of other Android phones out there to form the world’s largest earthquake detection network,” Android principal software engineer Marc Stogaitis wrote in a blog post.

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