On Tuesday, 2.2 million Californians in the San Francisco Bay Area got phone alerts warning that an earthquake was coming before it hit, the first use of a new statewide warning system that goes straight to people’s smartphones.

There were no reports of damage or injuries from the 5.1 magnitude earthquake, which hit a suburb of San Jose, California, but the system still alerted residents up to 19 seconds before they felt tremors, according to a press release. The vast majority of alerts — 2.1 million — went directly to Android phones, as the state government had negotiated directly with Google to integrate the alert tech into the operating system.

About 95,000 other users, including iPhone users running iOS, received the alert through California’s official earthquake warning app, called MyShake, which received alerts from California’s Office of Emergency Services. The state has been in talks with Apple, but neither side has announced when or if this functionality will be included in its phone OS.

“The state and federal govt continue to work closely with technology partners and we remain hopeful of the technology being included across all operating systems in the near future, including iOS,” OES spokesperson Brian Ferguson told CNET.

The alerts are based on readings from ShakeAlert, which is operated by the US Geological Survey and OES to analyze seismic activity and predict which areas could be affected. If the system’s algorithm predicts an earthquake of 4.5 magnitude or greater, which is when earthquakes start to become

Over the last five years there has been, and to an extent continues to be, plenty of hype about what 5G will do. Driverless cars, remote surgery, the metaverse — all buzzwords that have yet to materialize in any real way.

One area where it has noticeably helped change our lives? It finally provides some long-overdue competition to cable companies for home broadband. I’ve been exploring whether 5G and technologies like it (known as “fixed wireless”) could replace traditional home broadband over the past year, testing out midband solutions from Verizon and T-Mobile, as well as millimeter-wave options like Honest Networks .

I ditched my Spectrum subscription and even switched my apartment to Honest, which provides gigabit upload and download speeds to our building for $50 per month. It was great for months, and I would’ve been happy to continue using it.

At least, until Spectrum came knocking.

Competition breeds deals

Since ditching Spectrum I got a flyer in the mail offering three months of free TV and internet if I switched back. There were no contracts or commitment strings attached either. The company seems to be hoping that once people sign up, they won’t leave again so quickly.

As an avid sports fan, the appeal of traditional cable was certainly enticing for the rest of the NFL and college football regular seasons, MLB postseason and the beginning of the NBA and NHL campaigns. Getting and

The Excellent Star Wars series Andor reached episode 8 on Disney Plus last Wednesdaycatching up with mercenary Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) in the wake of his being unjustly sentenced to six years in prison after a run-in with the wrong Imperial trooper. Turns out there’s just no escaping this terrible totalitarian regime.

Over on galactic capital Coruscant, rebel true believer Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay) has been tasked with killing Cassian so he can’t rat out recruiter Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgard). Vel doesn’t seem wild about her mission, especially since Cassian played an essential role in her mission to steal millions of credits from the Empire.

It also seems to run counter to the philosophy of Luther’s fellow rebel leader Sen. Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), who isn’t wild about his willingness to shed innocent blood in their shadowy war against the Empire.

Episode 9 will come to Disney Plus this Wednesday.

Andor occurs five years before Rogue Onewhich reveals the story immediately before the original Star Wars movie A New Hope. Let’s see how life in prison is treating Cassian, by checking out all those delicious episode 8 SPOILERS.

Shiny white hell

NARKINA 5 — Shipped to an ocean prison complex that looks a bit like the Raft in MarvelCassian continues to use the alias Keef Girgo as he adjusts to life within its stark white walls.

The guards have insulated boots while prisoners are forced

Uber is trial video recording during rides in an effort to improve safety features. Drivers will be able to use the front-facing camera on their phones to record video through Uber’s Driver app, it was announced Thursday.

The capability was built on top of Uber’s audio recording featurewhich allows riders and drivers to document their trip, with drivers being unable to access recordings unless they share it with Uber in a safety report.

The ride-sharing platform will test the feature with “select drivers” in New York City, Cincinnati and Louisville, as well as in Santos and João Pessoa, Brazil.

Uber is also expanding its audio recording capability to Cincinnati, Nashville, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Antonio and Tucson next month, saying it has already “seen many instances where this technology has helped us determine the best course of action after a safety incident .”

Uber announced its audio recording feature at the end of December 2021, bringing it to Louisville, Kansas City and Raleigh-Durham at the time. Audio recordings can be submitted by either drivers or riders — whoever begins recording the ride through the app — to Uber alongside safety reports. Files are encrypted and stored directly on the driver or rider’s device.

Other driver safety features announced Thursday by Uber include providing navigation routes with fewer left turns — citing National Highway Traffic Safety Administration research from 2010 that found 22% of crashes were caused by making a left turn at an intersection — and map messages

In the “expanded cinematic universe” age in which we currently reside, we take for granted just how hard it is to successfully tell a story that spans multiple generations and weaves disparate pieces into one grand narrative. Many have tried, many have floundered.

Anyone with such sprawling storytelling ambitions, however, could take a lesson from the horror anthology podcast Old Gods of Appalachia from Asheville, North Carolina’s DeepNerd Media. Launched in 2019, Old Gods is an engrossing and otherworldly saga, set in an alternate version of Appalachia, where the land is riddled with supernatural entities — so-called “haints” and whatnot — and the humans who often find themselves tangled up with them. After a friend recommended it, I powered through all available episodes in two weeks.

As of this writing, there are three seasons comprising more than 40 free episodes (with even more for Patreon subscribers). What starts out as the tale of a doomed coal town named Barlo, Kentucky, expands into a whole universe with narrative tentacles that reach back to 1756 and forward well into the 1900s. The podcast’s penchant for nonlinear storytelling zips you back and forth in time and gives you the sense there’s an infinite number of people, and creatures, to meet in every holler the show visits.

Maybe you spend three episodes with a small-town magistrate, or a young couple that make a bad deal, or a little boy whose family meets a grim fate. You might leave these characters behind for