Japanese operators DoCoMo and KDDI have teamed up to develop “a system to notify customers of an imminent earthquake”, and Softbank is also working on a service. The systems will hook up with the Japanese meteorological society which has developed a way of detecting earthquakes serveral seconds before the main tremore strikes, reports AFP. The companies didn’t say what type of messaging would be used but said that e-mail would risk overwhelming their mobile networks…which is largely irrelevant, because if there is only a warning of several seconds any system that relies on users getting out their phones, opening the menu, navigating to the message is going to be almost useless. The size of the message sent doesn’t need to be very large because the “location” aspect can be handled by the base stations — so it’s just the size of the quake that needs to be reported. That, along with a high level of integration which will be needed to get the message out in time, suggests that the best way would involve a special application on the phone, which emits a distinctive audio warning. Apparently 20 percent of the world’s major tremors are in Japan.
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