Google will warn Android users worldwide seconds before an earthquake starts, so they can take cover. The feature was previously only available in the US, but now in more countries. The app also helps rescuers find people.
The earthquake warning is an extension of Android’s Emergency Help feature, warning users a few seconds before an earthquake to lie down, take cover, and stay there. The system makes use of regional earthquake systems.
The warning system was piloted by Google in 2020 in the US, initially in California, but later also in Washington state. To this end, the company has entered into a partnership with the United States Geological Survey. New Zealand and Australia followed in April, followed this summer by Turkey, the Philippines, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Next year, the warning should come to more countries. Priority is given to countries with a higher earthquake risk.
In addition to alerting users to earthquakes, the notification also uses the accelerometers in Android phones for early detection of seismic activity. If the phone detects vibrations that it suspects may be an earthquake, it sends a signal to Google’s earthquake detection server. That will be anonymized. The combined information from all the phones in an area can give an indication of the magnitude of an earthquake.
The earthquake warning isn’t the only update Android is getting this summer. Google has also added a few features to the Messages app. For example, the app has made end-to-end encryption possible for more users, messages can be bookmarked with a star and the Emoji Kitchen will offer contextual emojis.
In addition, more apps can use voice commands in Google Assistant on Android, Android Auto is expanded with a personalized launcher screen and manually adjustable dark mode and an improved scroll bar for faster scrolling through apps and Android Auto has support for more apps for loading electric cars, parking and navigation. From now on, users can also receive and send messages in WhatsApp and Messages from Android Auto.
Finally, a number of features have been added to Android for people with a motor disability. For example, Voice Access has been improved to only work when users are looking at the screen, and the password input for Voice Access has been improved, allowing it to better recognize whether a field is a password field, making it easy to enter numbers and symbols as well.