iPhone 14 Crash Detection false positives are now a problem in Japan:
False positives by the Crash Detection system in the iPhone 14 series is causing problems in Japan, with fire departments near skiing areas dealing with more emergency call-outs than normal due to the automated calls.
The Fire and Disaster Management Agency of the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry has put out a call for smartphone owners to be cautious about crash detection features in smartphones and other devices, due to an influx of automated attempts to call for help in situations when it's not needed.
The problem has been an issue for the Fire Department of Kita-Alps Nagano, which covers five municipalities in Nagano Prefecture, reports the Yomiuri Shimbun on Sunday. Between December 16 and January 23, 919 emergency calls were made, but 134 were false calls, with most triggered by Crash Detection within a skiing area.
Gujo City Fire Department in Gifu Prefecture had 351 emergency calls from January 1 to January 23, but 135 of the calls were similarly false alarms.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02, @02:59AM (7 children)
That's... a clear cut case of "You're holding it wrong", don't blame Apple.
As all crashes happened on skiing grounds, just close them down in winter.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday February 02, @03:44AM (2 children)
Apple sure has taken a lot of flack for something Steve didn't say. 🤷♂️
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Thursday February 02, @04:21AM (1 child)
"Apple sure has taken a lot of flack for something Steve didn't say."
They have rightly taken the flack for it, Saint Jobs never said anything, it was the company who put out that asshole statement and blamed their users for a problem their design created.
https://uxdesign.cc/youre-holding-it-wrong-how-to-blame-the-user-6ebfd36f5664?gi=22daa447c2c6 [uxdesign.cc]
For this problem easy solution, for every time a false alarm that is caused send the bill for the response to Apple, and as with people who abuse the emergency system criminal charges if they persist then ignore fixing the issue.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday February 02, @04:57AM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Thursday February 02, @12:34PM (3 children)
This entire thing so so ass backwards, they probably would seriously consider doing that.
The entire problem is that smart phones are entirely the WRONG TOOL for this job. They CAN NOT detect cashes reliably, even if they can do it some of the time. This has made it look like it is possible "any day now, just a few more tweaks and updates, and buy the next greatest model $$$!, it will work much better, we promise!". No it won't. It's stupid, just give it up and find another way to do it if you really need such an insane level of over-automation.
But, but, but everyone loves their stupid toy cell phones so much, they won't recognize the problems with them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by helel on Thursday February 02, @03:40PM (1 child)
I don't think you're conceiving of the problem quite right. This is really like the question of whether autonomous cars should place higher value on the lives of their passengers or nearby pedestrians. Obviously it's better for society if the car places the highest value on pedestrians but anyone purchasing a car will be sorry tempted by the car that'll kill others to save them.
The iPhone's the same way. It's bad for society if there are a bunch of false calls for EMS but if you're the owner of the phone and get in a crash that doesn't matter to you nearly as much as getting the fastest assistance to save your life, even if you've been incapacitated and can't make a call yourself.
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday February 04, @06:33AM
Just make phone owners pay the cost caused by the false calls, and people will consider that when deciding whether to buy the phone.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 03, @01:17PM
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday February 02, @04:46AM
The results are often awful. If you don't believe me, try to get support from Youtube or Facebook - or your telco, or your insurance company: there are no humans doing support there anymore. Requests are processed by algorithms, and the results are more often than not infuriatingly stupid and useless.
So why would an algorithm to determine when to call for help on a phone be any different? Of course it'll make infuriatingly stupid decisions. That's because it's not a human being deciding to call for help.
You might think fine, better false positives than false negatives. But in fact it's worse: if the damn phones cry wolf often enough, then the responders will not even bother to show up anymore if it's not a real human making the call - meaning when I press the "call for help" button on my cellphone, because I'm not able to explain I'm in danger but I'l still able to press the button, nobody will come. Thanks Apple...
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Thursday February 02, @04:51AM
I didn't know that iPhones crash so often that you need a crash detection system. Maybe they should improve the software quality instead. :-)
Yeah, when reading the summary, I quickly realized that this is not about software crashes. But on reading the title, I was genuinely confused.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by NetNed on Thursday February 02, @04:11PM
So something we don't need on a phone is screwing up? Geee, how "sad"