All I did was swipe to wake-up … and my paperwhite Kindle presented this ominous message in plain Courier-like type:
“Collecting information. May take a min…Will restart when done…Please wait…”
As I waited (more than a minute), I started a search: <Kindle collecting information restart wait>.
Of course it’s a bit self-serving, but Google recently released data on mobile search. One conclusion is intriguing: most mobile phone searches happen while we are in our homes. Not on-the-go. Not at work. In our homes.
Is this because the phone is in our hands and we are looking to go “out” for dinner, for example? Is it because we’re watching TV and want to know more info about an actor or director? Is it because we are bored? (All of the above.)
In an exchange captured by Buzzfeed, Mark Zuckerberg’s sister and former marketing director Randi Zuckerberg posted a candid family photo on Facebook about “the family’s reaction to the site’s new ‘Poke’ app.”
Vox Media’s Callie Schweitzer saw the photo in her Facebook newsfeed and tweeted it. Zuckerberg objected.
“This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System! This is only a test….”
For almost 50 years, television and radio stations have broadcast this test message (“broadcast” was replaced with “alert” in 1997). But alerts are now coming straight to our smartphones via the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) or Personal Localized Alerting Network (PLAN).
[C]ustomers who own an enabled mobile device [will] receive geographically-targeted, text-like messages alerting them of imminent threats to safety in their area. The new technology ensures that emergency alerts will not get stuck in highly congested user areas, which can happen with standard mobile voice and texting services. [The Commercial Mobile Alert System] CMAS was established pursuant to the Warning, Alert and Response Network (WARN) Act.
[...]
CMAS alerts are transmitted using a new technology that is separate and different from voice calls and SMS text messages. This new technology ensures that emergency alerts will not get stuck in highly congested user areas, which can happen with standard mobile voice and texting services.
…. and it seems too weird to be true. What do you do?
You ask on Facebook and Twitter.
And if you’re me, you start poking around, looking for an explanation.
It seems that the where-the-heck-did-that-come-from alerts are provider-specific: there are reports from iPhone customers on Verizon and T-Mobile but no reports (yet) on AT&T. I have AT&T service but have not received an alert that I had not knowingly signed up for.
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