SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Wired is running a story about Andy Meira, a man who decided that there was a business opportunity producing earthquake detectors:
The morning of Good Friday 2014 found Andy Meira standing outside his apartment in Mexico City with his wife and baby, waiting for the shaking to begin. He was one of the few people in a city of 25 million who knew an earthquake was coming, thanks to an early warning alarm, called the Grillo (Spanish for “cricket”) he’d spent the last two years building. This was the first time the prototype had gone off. If everything went well, Meira knew he should have between 60 and 90 seconds before the quake hit the city.
As soon as the Grillo chirped, Meira hurried his family to the park across the street from their building. “It was so exciting, because it was the first time it had gone off,” Meira says. “Up until then it had all been maths and coding.” When the ground actually started swirling underneath his feet in what would be a 7.2 quake, Meira and his wife were actually smiling, standing amid scared neighbors who had rushed out of their buildings after the shaking had already started.
Even though the Good Friday quake didn’t do any damage in Mexico City, earthquakes are not something residents take lightly. An 8.0 temblor in 1985 killed as many as 30,000 people and destroyed hundreds of buildings, including a major hospital. But the ’85 earthquake also motivated Mexico City to take action. No one knows how to predict when or where an earthquake will strike, but it’s possible to get advance warning when one is on its way. Seismic waves ripple outward from a quake’s epicenter in two forms: the p-wave, which oscillates up and down, and the s-wave, which moves horizontally. P-waves are weaker and faster; sense p-waves and you can be pretty sure that more dangerous s-waves are coming.
[...]
A softball-sized black or white box with rounded corners, the Grillo fits the soothing aesthetic of alarms in our post-Nest age. The electronics inside come from China, and the plastic shell is from a small factory in the heart of Mexico City. For a few weeks now, Meira has spent his days helping to solder wires in place inside each Grillo, while other workers carefully fit the boxes together by hand—a process he and the factory owner, José Cappón Flores, hope to make more efficient just as soon as they raise enough money to invest in a better mold.
Meira initially hoped to sell the Grillo for 400 pesos, or about 26 dollars, though now that he’s deep into the the trials and tribulations of electronics manufacturing, he expects the finished product to cost twice that. As the next cheapest competitor costs around $1300, he may hold a more-than-competitive edge.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 25 2015, @02:18AM
From what I've read - yes, people in Mexico City are hooked on all of the modern contrivances that US citizens love so much. The Mexicans I work with all have their smart phones and gadgets. Why do you think Mexico is drastically different from the US in this respect? The richest man in Mexico made his money off of cell phones.
http://www.richestlifestyle.com/richest-people-in-mexico/5/ [richestlifestyle.com]
Also, the ninth richest person in Mexico made his money from telecoms.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 25 2015, @02:47AM
Not all of them.
Besides, compare the price of a "earthquake warning receiver" in TFA (double $26=$52) with the price of a smartphone (including service fees). Think that TFA also mentions using a smart-mobile app doesn't quite cut it when you have 60-90 seconds until the next big one hits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Thursday June 25 2015, @06:58AM
Why should it require a smartphone? The telcos could send a text message to all phones in the predicted areas, warning them of a potential disaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_Broadcast [wikipedia.org]
I'm pretty sure at least 50% of people in Mexico City that have phones that can receive such messages.
http://www.statista.com/statistics/183604/mobile-phone-user-penetration-in-mexico-since-2009/ [statista.com]
FWIW a high percentage have smartphones:
http://www.latinpost.com/articles/6946/20140206/mexico-tops-smartphone-mobile-market-latin-america-50-percent-growth.htm [latinpost.com]
I'm not going to shed tears over Governments forcing Telcos to spam people with warning messages.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 25 2015, @10:04AM
Keeping into account that:
I suspect enough inhabitants of Mexico City - or even at country side - don't have a habit of staying hooked to social media all the time.
Besides, SMS-es, Twitter and Facebook are used for heaps of other purposes, you are very likely to take a bit of time until you take a look; so until you do so most of the 60-90sec of reaction time will be gone. But... if you have a dedicated device that all it does is shouts when there's an Earthquake, I guarantee you you'll be hitting the door every time it beeps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 25 2015, @10:09AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @05:04AM
> The richest man in Mexico made his money off of cell phones.
Not really. Carlos Slim made his money by exploiting a telco monopoly.