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Re: Wildfires: Reminder smart devices don't include emergency warnings while streaming


From: Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com>
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2020 23:11:21 -0400 (EDT)

On Fri, 11 Sep 2020, Matt Erculiani wrote:
Linking relevant past thread about devices that don't alert for
emergencies and, of course, a heated debate on if they should:
https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2019-March/199721.html


Yep. I'm not naive. I keep saying something, because one day it will matter, when the CEOs claim no one said anything.

I fully expect the CEOs of Alphabet, Amazon and Apple in some future congressional hearing, after a major disaster, will follow the same script as previous CEOs from automotive, tobacco, chemical, etc. industries; that they are shocked and saddened, but no one ever said something. Later, in past cases, it will turn out someone did say something but were ignored.

True, about 100 clear-channel 50,000 watt AM radio stations still carry emergency alerts. But its not the 1950s anymore. That's not where most people spend their attention span. People are using streaming devices now.


There are cases, usually as a result of individual engineer's bad experience during a crisis, such as Google's SOS Alerts product for people already aware and actively looking for more information about a crisis.

https://blog.google/products/search/mapping-wildfires-with-satellite-data/

  "Ten years ago, I was inside the Google office in Haifa, Israel when the
  devastating Carmel Mountain fire started blazing not far from us. The
  team started searching the web to learn more. And while we did find
  some details confirming what we already knew—a large fire was taking
  place outside of our door—we experienced a potentially life-impacting
  information gap. "


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