Tag: 14’s
How to Use the iPhone 14’s Emergency Satellite SOS
Final Fantasy 14’s perfect steamed bun animation puts its blocky grapes to shame
Final Fantasy XIV‘s latest Patch 6.3 “Gods Revel, Lands Tremble” features new main scenario quests, a 24-player alliance raid dungeon, amongst many other tweaks and additions to the MMO. Really, though, it should be called “Baos Split, Tummies Rumble” as players have discovered the real highlight: a bao bun animation that’ll leave your salivary glands twitching. It’s beautiful. Magnificent. Almost NSFW.
iPhone 14’s Car Crash Detection Still Triggering False 911 Calls, Forcing Dispatchers to Reallocate Resources Away From Real Emergencies
The iPhone 14’s Car Crash Detection feature uses an array of sensors on the device to call emergency services if it thinks a user has been involved in a car crash. Since the feature launched with the new iPhones and Apple Watch models in September, 911 and emergency dispatchers across the United States have noted an influx of calls from iPhone 14 devices that accidentally triggered Car Crash Detection, even though no car crash has occurred.
Amid reports of false calls, Apple released iOS 16.1.2 in November, which it said made “Crash Detection optimizations,” without specifying what the changes were any further. Despite the update’s optimizations, the issue continues to be a problem faced by law enforcement. As reported this week by local news outlet The Colorado Sun, 911 dispatch centers in counties across the state have been witnessing an increase in 911 calls from skiers after their iPhone 14 and newer Apple Watch models misinterpreted ski falls as car crashes.
Last weekend the dispatchers at the Summit County 911 Center fielded 71 automated crash notifications from skiers’ iPhones and Apple watches at the county’s four ski areas. None of them involved an emergency.
Dispatch operators in Grand, Eagle, Pitkin, Routt and Summit counties — home to 12 very busy ski hills — are fielding record numbers of the automated calls from skiers’ Apple phones and watches, tying up emergency response resources. When a 911 call comes in, each call is handled in the order it arrives, so an automated call from a skier’s phone could delay response to a 911 caller with a real emergency.
911 dispatchers are not trained to ignore a call, meaning even accidental calls caused by the iPhone 14’s feature have to be dealt with and resources allocated towards, said Trina Dummer, the interim director of the 911 center in Summit County. “These calls involve a tremendous amount of resources, from dispatchers to deputies to ski patrollers. And I don’t think we’ve ever had an actual emergency event,” Dummer continued.
The accidental calls are putting a strain on emergency centers which have to reallocate resources away from genuine emergencies, especially since 911 calls are taken in order and after each other. “We are absolutely diverting essential resources away from people who need it toward a feature on a phone,” Dummer noted. In Pitkin County, the 911 center is receiving up to 20 of these accidental calls caused by the iPhone 14’s Car Crash Detection feature a day, according to the county’s director.
The Pitkin County 911 Center gets about 15 to 20 of these automated calls a day from the county’s four ski areas. Dispatchers try to return every call, but oftentimes a call to a skier with their phone deep in their pockets goes unanswered, said Brett Loeb, the director of the Pitkin County 911 Center.
Loeb usually has one or two operators taking 911 calls and existing emergency calls can be put on hold to field incoming calls from iPhones. While his team has helped fallen hikers and residents whose watches have notified emergency services when they have fallen and need help, so far there have not been any real emergencies from the automated calls coming from the ski slopes.
In one instance at the Vail Police Department in Vail, Colorado, the iPhone 14’s Car Crash Detection successfully called 911 for a real car crash, noted Marc Wentworth, the director of the Vail Public Safety Communications Center, highlighting the feature does have potential to save lives.
In Summit County, the iOS 16.1.2 update did little, if nothing, to address the issue, according to the county’s director. “But we have not seen our numbers change. We are seeing as many as 20 a day, and it’s a tremendous drain on our resources,” said County Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons.
FitzSimons notes he has shared his concerns with Apple with reported responses that the company is aware of the issue, still though, FitzSimons says more is needed. We are communicating with Apple to get them to pay more attention to this, but it feels like we are trying to turn a battleship in a bathtub.”
Car Crash Detection is available on all iPhone 14 models and the Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch Ultra, and second-generation Apple Watch SE.
This article, “iPhone 14’s Car Crash Detection Still Triggering False 911 Calls, Forcing Dispatchers to Reallocate Resources Away From Real Emergencies” first appeared on MacRumors.com
Discuss this article in our forums
Final Fantasy 14’s big 6.3 patch adds new deep dungeon and main story this winter
‘Gods Revel, Lands Tremble’ is planned for early January 2023
Apple’s life-saving satellite feature could arrive in your iPhone 14’s next update
The New Apple TV 4K Has HDR10+ and the iPhone 14’s Chip
Apple unveiled its newest iPads today, with the new lineup comprising the 10th-generation iPad and the new M2-equipped iPad Pro. But those weren’t the only Apple announcements today. Apple also unveiled a new, supercharged model of the Apple TV 4K.
Read This Article on How-To Geek ›
iPhone 14’s Car Crash Detection Feature is Calling 911 About Roller Coaster Rides
This was quite the read over the weekend: the Wall Street Journal reported that the car crash detection feature built into the new iPhone 14/14 Pro and Apple Watches is sensitive enough to be set off by a roller coaster.
Apple Executives Offer Closer Look at iPhone 14’s Crash Detection
During the interview with TechCrunch‘s Brian Heater, Apple’s vice president of worldwide iPhone product marketing, Kaiann Drance, and the company’s vice president of sensing and connectivity, Ron Huang, shed some light on the technical aspects of how the latest iPhone and Apple Watch models actually detect a car crash.
The latest devices include updated sensors that can detect sudden changes in motion and pressure, along with other data types from the iPhone, to trigger an alert. The updated accelerometer in the latest iPhone models can measure G-force measurements of up to 256Gs. As Apple was developing the feature, it required a “fundamental understanding of what is experienced during a crash,” said Huang in the interview. “In these crashes, you see impact forces over 100Gs. We started around 256Gs. Any time you try to increase that range, there are trade-offs, in terms of precision at the higher range and the power costs. It took the team a lot of work to build the sensors in this way.”
Alongside data from the gyroscope and accelerometer, the iPhone uses multiple other variables to understand if a user is moving in a car and if they’ve been involved in an accident. “There’s no silver bullet, in terms of activating crash detection,” said Huang, adding that there is no set number of factors that must be present before Crash Detection is triggered and emergency services are contacted.
It’s hard to say how many of these things have to trigger, because it’s not a straight equation. Depending how fast the traveling speed was earlier, determines what signals we have to see later on, as well. Your speed change, combined with the impact force, combined with the pressure change, combined with the sound level, it’s all a pretty dynamic algorithm.
There are some car accidents in which the iPhone 14 or newer Apple Watch models may deliberately not contact emergency services. “I actually had a rear-end fender bender when I was in New York earlier. My crash detection did not go off,” Drance said. “It’s just one of those minor things where you just get out of your car and keep going. That’s part of the sensor fusion and accuracy, because we don’t want to be doing a lot of false calls to 9-1-1 when they’re not necessary.”
Despite Apple’s efforts to reduce false calls to emergency services, reports have emerged that iPhone 14 devices are calling emergency services when users are riding a roller coaster. The false alarm calls are likely a result of the iPhone 14’s sensors falsely interpreting the sudden braking and movement of the ride as a collision with another vehicle. Other factors the iPhone uses include noise, such as engine or road noise, as well as Wi-Fi routers near an iPhone rapidly changing as a result of being in a moving vehicle.
Huang also touched on how Apple tested Crash Detection, noting the company placed the iPhone in many places around a car, equipped with cameras to analyze the impact. Apple also looked at data from the Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to understand what types of accidents are the leading causes of injuries.
We put iPhones in many different places throughout the car — on the dummies and the car itself and mounts and so forth. And then we collect all of the raw sensor data coming from these devices during such a crash. We put cameras inside and outside the cars, as well, so from the footage, you can time the actual impact, what the pressure sensors see when the airbag goes off in slow motion. We’re able to look at data in high fidelity. We also look at DATA from the Department of Transportation or the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) to understand what kinds of crashes are the leading causes of injuries.
Crash Detection is available on the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Pro, Apple Watch SE, Apple Watch Series 8, and Apple Watch Ultra.
This article, “Apple Executives Offer Closer Look at iPhone 14’s Crash Detection” first appeared on MacRumors.com
Discuss this article in our forums
The iPhone 14’s ‘Crash Detection’ Keeps Calling 911 on Rollercoasters
“It dials 911 on rollercoasters.”
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the feature has had law enforcement sent to amusement parks on numerous occasions after mistaking a thrill ride’s twists, turns, and hard braking for a real emergency….
If the sensors detect that you’ve been in an accident, your iPhone will display an alert and call emergency services if you don’t dismiss it within 20 seconds. When it calls law enforcement, it will play an audio message that alerts authorities you’ve been in a crash, and also provides them with your location….
[WSJ reporter Joanna Stern] says Warren County, where Kings Island is located, received six emergency calls triggered by park rides since the iPhone 14’s release. She also points out that other users have experienced similar issues in amusement parks across the country.
“My time on the crash-detection beat has proven that the feature can absolutely save a life,” Stern acknowledged on Twitter. “There’s already proof of it helping in real crashes. But there are situations where it works and it shouldn’t and others where it doesn’t work and it should.
“Such is the story of technology!”
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the story.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.