[dry_soup]

Japan has had this for years, but California's app for this is still in beta IIRC.

It's funny to me that one of the world's tech capitals has taken so long to get this rolling. To be fair, California doesn't have earthquakes as regularly as Japan (at least not of the same magnitude). I guess this is another symptom of our crumbling institutions in the US, we only get services quickly if there's a profit to be made. In the popular imagination, innovation is only the domain of private companies.

[s1artibartfast]

I for one hope they never make the obnoxious amber alerts impossible to disable.

[hot_gril]

Technical detail, amber alerts refer specifically to missing children. The other ones aren't amber alerts. But seemingly all of them trigger a loud sound.

[s1artibartfast]

Actual Amber Alerts are the ones that bother me. If I'm in my office or eating dinner, I don't want to know about a missing child last seen 20 miles away

[hot_gril]

Yeah, same. Wouldn't mind a silent alert, but the blaring alarm meant it got disabled.

[ksaj]

If it was actually localized, the volume would be okay. But I live in Toronto and sometimes get amber alerts from Hamilton for parental custody disputes. That's definitely not how that system should be conducted.