from the Google-knows-where-your-phone-is-better-than-the-phone-company-does dept.
Google conducts test to help 911 accurately locate callers
Google has conducted a trial to test the efficiency of using its technology to help 911 operators more accurately figure out the location of cellphone callers. The test included tens of thousands of 911 calls over the span of two months in several states, and had encouraging results, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The test was done in conjunction with two companies that have connections into 911 centers, West Corp. and RapidSOS. Under the current 911 system, wireless carriers are normally responsible for providing location information, but it isn't very accurate. RapidSOS says that using Google's technology, about 80 percent of the 911 calls had more accurate location data within the first 30 seconds. Google's data also dramatically shrunk the estimated radius of a call's location, from 522 feet down to 121 feet and arrived faster than carrier data.
Also at Engadget.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2018, @03:46AM (7 children)
Google does government better than government. And for Google's next trick, elections are canceled. If you want to vote, buy Google stock. If you can't afford to buy Google stock, you don't deserve a vote.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2018, @04:15AM (4 children)
If we're not allowed to vote, then we... oh fuck, who votes anyway? Give the damn job to whoever wins "America's Got Talent", can't make it any worse..
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday February 19 2018, @05:05AM
Wanna bet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Monday February 19 2018, @06:19AM (2 children)
You could select your president among art school rejects.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday February 19 2018, @06:51AM
To explain his reply:
Hitler was rejected from art school.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday February 19 2018, @07:08AM
Not talent ahow hosts?
Or beauty pagent comperes?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday February 19 2018, @06:56AM (1 child)
The story addresses wireless 911 calls only.
Google has tower info plus gps info plus nearby wifi router info to work with all reported directly from the phone.
Traditional 911 only had tower and coverage lobe (antenna). Because that's all there was. Google and Apple built the rest, an they did it AFTER the 911 specs wewe written.
Not too hard to do better than the government mandate when you get to write your own rules, build your own tools, and track every single phone all day long.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by chromas on Monday February 19 2018, @08:24AM
Google and Apple added Wi-Fi location but E-911 was a thing long before they were doing phones and includes tower triangulation- and GPS-based location data.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2018, @06:24AM (3 children)
War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2018, @06:46AM (1 child)
If you are calling 911, and you want to mislead who and where you are, maybe you are the criminal?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2018, @07:38AM
Yeah, if you buy into the idea that this will only be used when people call 911. That's very foolish.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 19 2018, @02:19PM
I clicked the link, to say very much the same thing.
Back in the mists of time, like, the prehistoric days before computers and internet, there was no 911. In fact, there were no paramedics, no EMT's. All there was, were the police, the fire department, and an ambulance service. Most towns couldn't even conceive of having an air rescue unit - that was a military concept. Maybe some large cities had helicopters for medevac, but we certainly didn't hear about them in my neck of the woods. Ambulance - remember, that's an ambulance without paramedics or EMT's. About all an ambulance attendant did, back in those days, was to slap a pressure bandage, or a tourniquet on badly bleeding patients. Some services were better than others, but there was no nationwide standard that those ambulance services had to adhere to.
Back then, if a kid, or a spouse, needed to "disappear" from life, it was pretty easily done. You've all heard the song, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4xoHjNjxus [youtube.com] Maybe you need to get away from a job, or the bos himself, or maybe even the mob.
Today? Those ubiquitous telephones are already giveaways. Wait for another few years (ten? twenty?) when the cellphose is embedded into some convenient place on your body. And, painful to remove. And, impossible to replace - having removed your telephone, you have broken any number of laws, and face prison.
Almost everyone regards the telephone as some kind of a godsend. Me? I see it as a dystopian tool of a dystopian government. Not to mention the dystopian society that is so very greedy for all the new shinies, offered by Apple, or anyone who can manage to build a working phone.
I need for Google and/or the police to be able to locate me within 100 feet like I need a lead suppository in my head.
"But, ohh, Runaway - what if you have a stroke, or a heart attack?!?!?!"
Big deal. No matter what I do, or don't do, I'm going to drop dead one day. Pardon me for not fearing death so much that I am willing to wear a leash. A cell phone may be a very long leash, but it is a leash. Anyone can track you down - former spouse, hostile drug pusher, the mob (alright, so the Mavia has gone mostly legal these days, in the US, but that doesn't mean they can't get pissed off at someone and make him/her disappear) or maybe even some soldiers from a drug cartel. Why do I want that?
Kids. I presume that Azumi Hazuki might weigh in with some horror stories. Sometimes a kid simply has to disappear - or someone is going to die. What, some of you still thought that my nickname was a joke? It's for real. I walked before I killed - and I mean that in the most literal way. Sometimes, a kid has got to go. And, government, Apple, Google, along with others are working hard to ensure that a kid cannot ever disappear. The alternative, in some cases, will be a body assuming ambient temperature.
As AC stated - spying is helping. Welcome to 1984, people. You're going to LOVE 2084. By then, telephone monitoring will have enabled the police to issue you a remote ticket for having farted in a crowd. An ambulance will come racing if you should happen to have a fit of uncontrollable hiccups.
Slip the leash, people. Stop accepting all of this "help" being offered to you. When you have finally discovered that the leash is attached to a choke chain, it's going to be a little late to object.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday February 19 2018, @06:50AM (1 child)
"Emergency Dispatch. What are you reporting?"
"I think I might be having a rhinoceros. Sorry, that should have been 'stroke'".
I was experiencing aphasia.
"Where are you?"
"At Blanchet's House of Hospitality."
"Can you give me a street address?"""
"No."
"How about a cross street?"
I wandered around outside in the darkness until I managed to locate the names of the streets Blanchet's is on.
I should not have had to do that. What if I really had a stroke? I would have been a dead man.
Another:
"Emergency dispatch. What are you reporting?"
"A man is wandering around on Interstate 5 next to the Janssen Beach Safeway."
"Where is Janssen Beach?"
In Portland to not know where Janssen Beach is is much the same as not knowing where your own nose is.
Even better:
"What state is it in?"
This led to my concluding that Portland 9-1-1 outsources its work to distant call centers.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday February 19 2018, @04:55PM
That's interesting. I was in a parking lot in a mall with my Father-in-Law and they knew where he was when he accidentally pocket dialed them. I think they hung up after a few minutes and called him back. They definitely knew where he was, though.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Monday February 19 2018, @02:55PM
I am reasonably confident that Google knows where I am better than I do.
In fact, I am quite sure I am not where I think I am.
Perhaps I should have some coffee.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!