disaster
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Turkey is reportedly blocking access to Twitter following devastating earthquakes
Twitter users in Turkey seem to have trouble accessing the service two days after catastrophic earthquakes struck the area.
What you’ll need to survive the California wildfires this summer
Gear and strategies to help you ride out this summer’s fire season. Good luck.
Alphabet’s Loon and AT&T will tackle global crises with internet balloons
AT&T's global roaming partners have integrated with Alphabet's balloon-powered internet project.
AT&T's giant blimp will provide network coverage to first responders
FirstNet, the nationwide broadband network for first responders being built with AT&T, just added a giant blimp to its arsenal. The 55-foot aerostat, dubbed FirstNet One, is meant to hover over disaster sites and provide wireless communication for first responders. AT&T says it will provide better coverage than FirstNet's other assets and be able to remain in the air for longer.
Lyft outlines its disaster response strategy
Lyft just illustrated how it will respond in the middle of a crisis. The company has introduced a Disaster Relief Access Program that promises support for people in affected areas. In situations when the roads are safe, the ridesharing firm will typically hand out free codes both through its own social network avenues as well as local news outlets, non-profits and Facebook's Crisis Response Hub. It'll also honor emergency declarations that affect road closures and pricing, including caps on Prime Time (read: surge pricing).
Texas bill would make it illegal to throttle data in disaster areas
The revelation that Verizon (Engadget's parent company) throttled California firefighters' data is prompting new legislation... in Texas. State Representative Bobby Guerra has submitted a bill that would make it illegal for wireless carriers to "impair or degrade" mobile data in declared disaster areas. In other words, a provider couldn't throttle any service in crisis-struck regions, for emergency crews or otherwise. It wouldn't preclude throttling in normal circumstances.
'Aftermath' is a 360-degree walkthrough of the Camp Fire devastation
Camp Fire, the tragedy that killed at least 85 victims and destroyed around 14,000 homes across Paradise, California, continues to torment as residents start returning to the ruin as of yesterday. News channels around the world have been offering a sober look at what little is left behind the walls of fire, but not long after disaster struck, former Lytro exec Steve Cooper already sensed the need to capture a proper first-hand account of this unprecedented catastrophic event. With help from his firefighter friend at the scene plus CAL FIRE's media team, the filmmaker eventually arrived in Paradise on November 13th -- day five of Camp Fire -- with his SUV and 360 camera to commence his two-day shoot. The result was the aptly named Aftermath, a seven-minute 8K 360 video documentary now available on YouTube.
Uber pledges to cap trip pricing during major emergencies
Today, Uber outlined a new set of guidelines regarding how the company will respond in the event of a crisis, such as a natural disaster or terrorist attack. The company's Global Security Center (GSC) monitors conditions in every area that Uber operates, around the clock. Once it detects that there is a problem, there are a few actions that Uber can take.
Microsoft’s AI tech will aid humanitarian efforts
Microsoft is offering up its AI technology to those working on humanitarian efforts around the world. Over the next five years, its AI for Humanitarian Action program will put $40 million towards initiatives focused on four priorities -- disaster response, needs of children, refugees and displaced people and human rights. "We believe that technology, like artificial intelligence combined with cloud technology, can be a game changer, helping save more lives, alleviate suffering and restore human dignity by changing the way frontline relief organizations anticipate, predict and better target response efforts," Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a blog post.
'Building-scale' VR is helping inform disaster simulations
Scaling up VR to areas larger than your living room is a focus for a number of game developers right now, but other researchers are working on expanding the size capabilities of the tech for a much more important reason: disaster management. In a lecture hosted by Microsoft, professor Katashi Nagao from the Graduate School of Informatics at Japan's Nagoya University explains how his team is reconstructing entire buildings in a VR sphere, to help occupants learn how to act in disaster scenarios such as earthquakes or flooding.
Japan's disaster alerts will work with all Android 8.1 phones
Japan gets a lot of natural disasters. Combine the threat of earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons (however mild), and it's easy to see why the Japanese government offers alerts across TV, radio and your mobile phone. Those smartphone alerts were usually baked in by carriers, which means if you had an unlocked phone, or a phone that's running on one of several MVNO phone carriers, you would miss out on the potentially lifesaving heads-up.
Recommended Reading: Is 'Stranger Things' really that popular?
In Netflix's Upside Down Reality, 'Stranger Things' Is a Hit Before It Even Premieres Victor Luckerson, The Ringer The excitement around Stranger Things season 2 has been building for months. We've seen soundtracks, merchandise and all kinds of promo tie-ins with other companies along the way. As the show returns this week, the buzz is already so high that reviews probably won't even matter -- people will binge it anyway. It also helps that the first season was both really good and seemed to be really popular, despite the company not releasing any numbers. The Ringer takes a look at how Netflix creates the feeling of must-see TV even though we might not ever find out how popular its shows really are.
Apps and gadgets for the 'Blade Runner' future we didn’t ask for
Punks, monks and Harrison Ford running scared through a poisonous cityscape were just a few of the details that made the original Blade Runner feel like its environment was a standalone character in the film. It felt as alien and familiar as the way we live today, with an environment turning against us, a government that couldn't care less and a corporate ruling class that would make the Tyrell Corporation jealous. The dystopian world of Blade Runner felt like it had naturally come to be. Unlike the version of Blade Runner we seem to be living in now, which feels like someone threw a switch at New Year's, and surprise, we're living in hell. Suddenly we have to catch up to living in dystopian fiction really fast, lest we die from fires, hurricanes, connected Nazis or nuclear war. So it's probably best that we use every bit of tech to our advantage so we make it to the next noodle bar, as it were.
Facebook's 'Crisis Response' provides info during a disaster
Last year, it was reported that Facebook was working on an always-ready crisis hub that would bring together its Safety Check feature with posts and videos relating to an ongoing emergency. Today, it announced that the tool is going live.
Your solar panels could power the neighborhood during a blackout
A new set of algorithms could make it possible for renewable energy-generating homes to not only access their power reserves during outages, but share their resources with their neighbours -- a move which could play a significant role in disaster relief efforts. Self-sufficiency is an attractive factor when it comes to domestic renewable energy, but even though it's the sun generating electricity, owners of solar panels are still beholden to the grid. During an outage, their equipment powers down for safety reasons, and it's impossible to draw on the renewably-generated electricity that's waiting to be used. We've seen companies produce kit to overcome this before -- Tesla's Powerwall home battery system can untether a home from the grid for a few hours, for example -- but researchers from the University of California San Diego want to scale up the technology to have a wider and more meaningful impact.
ICYMI: Surviving an island disaster and self-bagging stores
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: The National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo created a game called Everscape to both study and teach people in a gamified world who are trying to escape a tsunami following an earthquake. The goal is to use the gamers' playing style to figure out how people will try to survive similar events in real life. Meanwhile, the Panasonic and Lawson store team up in Japan should roll out machines that can determine what products are in a shopping basket, then automatically bag them for an easy check-out experience. If you're looking for the propane soap bubbles video, that's here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Samsung ends production of the Galaxy Note 7 for good
Samsung has "permanently discontinued" production of the Galaxy Note 7, the company told Engadget in a short statement. Sales of the flagship phone were halted yesterday because replacements for the original, recalled model were still catching fire and exploding. Shortly after it started doing exchanges, the updated models were involved in several serious fires, causing the evacuation of a Southwest Airlines flight and a fire that sent a Kentucky owner to hospital with smoke inhalation.
Italian earthquake victims asked to disable WiFi passwords
Early Wednesday a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck central Italy, killing at least 120 people and trapping countless others under debris. To help ease communications for search and recovery, multiple disaster relief institutions are urging locals to temporarily remove their WiFi passwords.
NASA to honor crews of doomed Apollo 1 and Challenger missions
Every year, NASA holds a Day of Remembrance to honor the memory of the astronauts who lost their lives in the pursuit of space exploration. The space agency is holding 2016's ceremonies on January 28th, exactly 30 years since the space shuttle Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds after take off. Challenger fell apart off the coast of Cape Canaveral in 1986, causing the deaths of its seven passengers, including Christa McAuliffe who was slated to film "teacher in space" videos for kids. The space shuttle was supposed to launch the Comet Halley Active Monitoring Program and to rendezvous with and capture the satellite Spartan.
Toshiba's wrecking-bot will dismantle Fukushima
The Japanese government plans to begin disassembling parts of the Fukushima-Daiichi power plant next year, beginning with the removal of some 566 fuel rods from the crippled number 3 reactor. But rather than send human technicians into the radiation-soaked reactor (and certain death), Toshiba unveiled on Monday a remote controlled robot that will do it for us.
