When 2 Billion Phones Got Louder Than a Seismograph
Several months ago my wife and I happened to be in Bangkok when an earthquake hit. Nothing much got damaged, but it was still scary - the shock of it and not knowing what might come next were the worst parts.
Google just dropped the results of a huge project: from 2021 to 2024 they used the motion sensors in more than two billion Android phones to spot quakes. The highlights:
Logged 11,000+ earthquakes across 98 countries
Detection accuracy on par with pro-grade seismometers
Ten-fold growth since 2019 in the number of people who can get quake alerts
For big quakes, Google fires off an urgent “TakeAction” push to Android devices
The whole idea is “quantity beats quality” - a single phone isn’t as sensitive as lab gear, but billions of phones make up the difference.
During the devastating Turkey quakes in February 2023, the system blasted out about 4.5 million warnings. After some algorithm upgrades, Google’s review showed it could’ve sent even sharper alerts to ten million users.