Amber Alert Freeze Up?!?!?

[Bighouse]

Ok, this never happened on my S2 or S1- but last night an Amber Alert flashed on my screen and my remote was utterly useless. Couldn't change channels, couldn't get to the program guide, nothing. The only button that did anything was the mute button, and that's because it shut down the volume on my amp.

Is this a new "feature" of an S3 or something to do with the Cablecards and the FCC?

Is there any way to disable it?

It makes NO sense whatsoever to me to broadcast information about missing children and the car the abductor might be driving to people who are at home watching tv and probably aren't out on the road for the night. What do they think, we're all going to drop what we're doing, jump into our cars and play "police"?

[davecramer74]

actually they put it on in hopes that you might recognize the car or maybe saw on the way home from work. I take it you dont have any children? What would you want done if your kid was kidnapped? Sorry for the inconvenience. But you should be smacked up along side the head a few times.

[jmoak]

Your cable company is treating the Amber Alerts as Emergency Alerts.

When a EAS (Emergency Alert System) message is broadcast, all cable boxes are forced tuned to the channel carrying the EAS information for the duration of the alert. While participation in national EAS alerts is mandatory for these providers, state and local EAS participation is currently voluntary.

The FCC's Emergency Alert System (EAS) info page (http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/eas.html)

[PRMan]

What's even more upsetting is that most Amber Alerts are actually custody disputes in which the child is in no actual danger:


A Scripps Howard study of the 233 AMBER Alerts issued in the United States in 2004 found that most issued alerts did not meet the Department of Justice's criteria. Fully 50% (117 alerts) were categorized by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children as being "family abductions," very often a parent involved in a custody dispute. There were 48 alerts for children who had not been abducted at all, but were lost, ran away, involved in family misunderstandings (for instance, two instances where the child was with grandparents), or as the result of hoaxes. Another 23 alerts were issued in cases where police didn't know the name of the allegedly abducted child, often as the result of misunderstandings by witnesses who reported an abduction.

Only 70 of the 233 AMBER Alerts issued in 2004 (30%) were actually children taken by strangers or who were unlawfully traveling with adults other than their legal guardians.

If only the 30% of ACTUAL abductions caused an interruption in TV, that would be important and useful. But the misuse of the system has made it a joke and a complete disservice to children who are actually abducted by strangers.

What better way to get back at your ex- than to agree to a tradeoff and then sick the cops, the national media and the public on him for "abducting" the children?

[Bighouse]

actually they put it on in hopes that you might recognize the car or maybe saw on the way home from work. I take it you dont have any children? What would you want done if your kid was kidnapped? Sorry for the inconvenience. But you should be smacked up along side the head a few times.

Well, EVERY single Amber Alert I've ever seen on my tv turned out to be false. (As the one yesterday was.) I'm TOTALLY in favor of them on the radio, when you're DRIVING around and you may see something, or on highway signs, etc...but to broadcast them at night and interrupt what may be an important program to me, doesn't make me want to pay much attention to it.

I wonder how many AMBER ALERTS have actually resulted in ANY captured/convicted kidnappers? And, of those how many of them were the results of someone watching an Amber Alert on their tv the night before?

I'm all in favor of methods of helping kids keep safe and of catching the bad guys (or gals), but it should be done in an effective way.

And, for what it's worth, don't hit me. Violence, against kids or against me, is a bad thing.

[davecramer74]

How many captures or recoveries? This is just for California....

There were 17 AMBER Alerts and 21 recovered children in 2002

There were 29 AMBER Alerts and 43 recovered children in 2003

There were 20 AMBER Alerts and 25 recovered children in 2004


There were 20 AMBER Alerts and 23 recovered children in 2005

There have been 7 AMBER Alerts and 8 recovered children so far this year.

Your tv watching is meaningless compared to the life of a little one. why dont you be a little more selfish, hehe, sheesh.

[Bighouse]

How many captures or recoveries? This is just for California....

There were 17 AMBER Alerts and 21 recovered children in 2002

There were 29 AMBER Alerts and 43 recovered children in 2003

There were 20 AMBER Alerts and 25 recovered children in 2004


There were 20 AMBER Alerts and 23 recovered children in 2005

There have been 7 AMBER Alerts and 8 recovered children so far this year.

Your tv watching is meaningless compared to the life of a little one. why dont you be a little more selfish, hehe, sheesh.

Dave, those numbers are very misleading. Notice that in all cases the number of Amber Alerts was LESS THAN the number of recovered children. That should immediately tell someone that the two numbers are not correlated to each other directly.

I read the page you directed me to. It never indicates that the arrests/recoveries were the DIRECT result of someone having watched an Amber Alert on TV. In fact, it seems that CalTrans workers need extra kudos for spotting more than any other group of people...and I doubt they're watching TV while doing their jobs.

All I'm saying is that someone should be able to "opt-out" of such alerts- and I was hoping there was a code to allow me to do so with my S3. I don't pay attention to the types of vehicles on the road when I'm driving and as soon as an Amber Alert comes on, because I've heard "WOLF!" too many times already, I just tune it out. I would probably pay MORE attention if I heard it WHILE on the road in my car on a radio...not when I'm home in the late evenings. I'm glad someone, anyone, can and does spot these people in their cars, but I don't think this kind of "big brother in your living room" telling us what we have to be "on the lookout for" is right. It's a free country...why can't we be a little more free to determine how we spend our free time?

[ah30k]

Dave, those numbers are very misleading. Notice that in all cases the number of Amber Alerts was LESS THAN the number of recovered children. There could easily be multiple children with a single alert.

I just don't get why anyone would complain about an amber alert on their TV. Good luck gaining any sympathy for your position.

[Bighouse]

I'm not looking for sympathy, I'm just looking to see if there's a way to disable it from happening on my S3. But, I apprecaite the well-wishes. ;)

Look, don't get me wrong. I like kids, I've got a lot of nephews and neices who love me and I love them all. I like pets, I like people, etc. etc...I just think sometimes these alerts are a nuisance and eventually, with enough false ones like the one yesterday, they also become meaningless and simply ignored...

[pallen4215]

surely this wasn't during primetime was it? Couldn't local stations play this during commercial instead of interupting a program?

[ah30k]

surely this wasn't during primetime was it? Couldn't local stations play this during commercial instead of interupting a program?Ethics or business aside, emergency alerts are generated from a central EAS server in the local headend and then each tuner is forced-tuned to that EAS. There would be no way of knowing which of the hundred channels are in program versus in commercial.

[moyekj]

I'd like to know what happens when there are scheduled recordings on both tuners and an EAS alert kicks in? For my cable co. box both tuners are force tuned to the EAS alert and any ongoing recordings are canceled, but what's worse is the recordings don't resume once the EAS alert terminates. Hopefully the S3 will at least resume recording? Anyone know what the behavior is for the S3 with ongoing recordings?

[TexasAg]

Unfortunately, I don't think the S3 continues recordings when the EAS stops. My old Motorola did. You think the S3 would be smart enough to do this.

[phox_mulder]

Ethics or business aside, emergency alerts are generated from a central EAS server in the local headend and then each tuner is forced-tuned to that EAS. There would be no way of knowing which of the hundred channels are in program versus in commercial.

We've been fighting with Comcast over this for a couple years.
We do our own Amber Alerts, Weather Alerts and Weekly/Monthly EAS tests.
We do these with crawls over programming or News Interrupts over commercials.
No programming is lost or interrupted (most of the time, depends on the "emergency")

We don't need our programming interrupted by Comcast doing their own alerts and tests, particularly when they accidently redo the tests 3 times in an hour program.
They do a full screen graphic, losing the program video and audio entirely, upsetting more than a few viewers who then call us and complain.

I can see the need for them to do this over "cable" programming, but leave the broadcast channels alone, we can take care of ourselves.


phox

[Bighouse]

I'd like to know what happens when there are scheduled recordings on both tuners and an EAS alert kicks in?

I don't have a clue...was watching Live TV at the time. But, there are going to be a lot of upset recorders out there if Amber alerts start being sent during one-run prime time shows! I suspect my S3 would have just recorded the EAS into the recording, but I don't know for sure...anyone? Hope I don't have to find out.

(People: PLEASE, KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON YOUR CHILDREN & STAY OUT OF NASTY CONTESTED DIVORCES!)

[moyekj]

Unfortunately, I don't think the S3 continues recordings when the EAS stops. My old Motorola did. You think the S3 would be smart enough to do this. Well maybe this can help explain some of the partial recordings some people have been having. I realize that some of the partial recording problems are tuner related, but this is another source of partial recordings problems - and I'm sure there are no messages or anything indicating when an EAS alert occured right?

[ah30k]

We've been fighting with Comcast over this for a couple years.
We do our own Amber Alerts, Weather Alerts and Weekly/Monthly EAS tests.
We do these with crawls over programming or News Interrupts over commercials.
No programming is lost or interrupted (most of the time, depends on the "emergency")

We don't need our programming interrupted by Comcast doing their own alerts and tests, particularly when they accidently redo the tests 3 times in an hour program.
They do a full screen graphic, losing the program video and audio entirely, upsetting more than a few viewers who then call us and complain.

I can see the need for them to do this over "cable" programming, but leave the broadcast channels alone, we can take care of ourselves.


phox
I'm curious who "we" is. There are cheap ways to do EAS (quick and dirty force-tune) and more expensive ways (digitally adding an EAS crawl to all existing RF transmissions). There is a minimum requirement and more elaborate and where companies choose to fall in the spectrum is up to them.

For MSOs to differentiate between cable transmission of OTA and cable transmission of national broadcasts might be more trouble than its worth.

[phox_mulder]

I'm curious who "we" is. There are cheap ways to do EAS (quick and dirty force-tune) and more expensive ways (digitally adding an EAS crawl to all existing RF transmissions). There is a minimum requirement and more elaborate and where companies choose to fall in the spectrum is up to them.

Sorry, "We" are the local CBS affiliate in Salt Lake City, and we do a pretty bang up job of handling EAS on our own, we don't need Comcast handling it for us.

We've even gone as far as trudging over to the local Comcast office with the FCC "bible" showing them the subpart that states it is a Broadcaster responsibility, not the "re-broadcaster".


phox

[davecramer74]

:D so, to sum it up bighouse, no, your fooked. No disabling them for you!

And i was just giving you ****. I get annoyed by them emergency broadcasts sometimes as well. But theres a reason they interrupt everything. If a tornado was about to blow through your house, would you like to know about it, or would you like to continue watching the game? hehe. You can whine it up, but it doesnt change the fact that they are there for a reason and work how they work for a reason. I'm assuming its on a higher level then the cable company. Its prolly the FCC that makes the rule about when these go out, etc.

[JDguy]

Bear in mind that cable operators also have local franchise requirements that must be satisfied. In many cases these local (city) franchise requirements include local EAS alert requirements that are above and beyond the national (FCC) requirements. Your best bet to have these things removed is not to complain to your cable operator, but to complain to your city council or franchise authority.

[dagap]

If a tornado was about to blow through your house, would you like to know about it, or would you like to continue watching the game? hehe.Surely we can do more to protect people. I mean, what about those weirdo families that actually turn off the TV and eat dinner at a table in the kitchen? Those poor folks are in serious danger as they're going to miss the news regarding the tornado bearing down on them.

We could save some lives, including children, by requiring televisions to automatically turn themselves on whenever there's an alert. Surely the inconvenience is worth it if we only save one child.

Of course, they may not hear the TV if they've gone to bed, so it'd probably be a good idea to automatically crank the volume way up so we can be sure they're awakened. Remember we're trying to save children here.

[Bighouse]

Surely we can do more to protect people.

Agreed. How about we make safety a REQUIREMENT not just a good idea...mandatory safety belts in all cars to be worn at all times...consumer warnings on possilbly abusive consumables that might cause impairment and harm...helmets for all motorcyclists...etc, etc, etc....

How the heck is Evolution supposed to work if we're allowing goverment to protect us instead of just THINKING for ourselves?!?!? Sure, it's protecting those who can't protect themselves, but it's harming the gene pool at large...

[Pab Sungenis]

:D so, to sum it up bighouse, no, your fooked. No disabling them for you!

The really annoying thing is that the EAS was designed to allow systems to ignore irrelevant information (for example, a station in Cape May County, NJ, wouldn't broadcast tornado or flood warnings for Camden County, on the other side of the state) or set minimum thresholds for which data they would provide.

In other words, except for national emergencies, an EAS receiver is supposed to be programmable to disregard what you don't want to be warned about.

Cable force-tuning boxes except for the highest level emergencies is overkill. And I'm sorry, but Amber Alerts do not rise to EAS status if you ask me. Like Megan's Law, John's Law, and every other thing named after someone instead of being desciptively named, it's overkill that, honestly, would not have helped in the situation that "inspired" it.

[MichaelK]

Surely we can do more to protect people. I mean, what about those weirdo families that actually turn off the TV and eat dinner at a table in the kitchen? Those poor folks are in serious danger as they're going to miss the news regarding the tornado bearing down on them.....

actually I just read today the fcc is working with the cell phone companies to set up a system so that every cell ohone in a geographic area gets a text message.

Some cool ideas there.

Tornado- text everyone in the warning zone?

tsunami- text everyone withine 5 miles of the shore.

amber alert on I5- text everyone along I5.

neat idea...

[Bighouse]

I think you make a good point...an EMERGENCY is something that could effect LOTS of people...an abduction/kidnapping/custody-dispute doesn't seem to be in the same league as "Hey, there's a tornado heading through your state!"

Personally, I think Amber Alerts belong on the radio, on APB's for cops, highway signs for drivers and Caltrans workers, school memos, bus driver memos, library kiosks, gas station windows, public workplaces maybe...but not in our homes if we don't want it there.

[Bighouse]

actually I just read today the fcc is working with the cell phone companies to set up a system so that every cell ohone in a geographic area gets a text message.
neat idea...

That's fine...I keep my cell phone in my car and it rarely follows me into my house. So, am I expected to answer or look at my message for the Amber Alert while driving?

[Shawn95GT]

Cox in Phoenix does the emergency alerts right.

I get a banner at the top of the screen that is overlayed by the Tivo instead of changing the channel and such. I just hit 'clear' to make it go away.

I havent' seen an amber alert yet but I have seen two tests of the emergency broadcast system.

On my old cable provider (Qwest VDSL) all channels tuned to a 'this is a test' powerpoint slide and disrupted whatever you were recording for a couple minutes.

[MichaelK]

That's fine...I keep my cell phone in my car and it rarely follows me into my house. So, am I expected to answer or look at my message for the Amber Alert while driving?


ignore it if you want but if you driving along the pacific coast highway and the tsunami alert comes accorss maybe you wantto check it.

Kidding aside- whats to be so negative for? Ignore it if you want, it gives the government another way to communicate in an emergency. I dont recall anyone requiring anyone to repond to the EAS system. There are times and places it could be very usefull. Maybe in Kansas if they had a system for tornado's then people wouldn't need to worry about having the tv off at dinner time. And they could charge their phones on their nightstands and get a warning in the middle of the night so whole towns dont get wiped out anymore because everyone is asleep.

I'm not sure what I think about amber alerts on the current system or any new system but i think the eas and any updates to include DBS, Sat Radio, cell phone, pagers, IM clients, whatever is a good idea.

[MichaelK]

Cox in Phoenix does the emergency alerts right.

I get a banner at the top of the screen that is overlayed by the Tivo instead of changing the channel and such. I just hit 'clear' to make it go away.

I havent' seen an amber alert yet but I have seen two tests of the emergency broadcast system.

On my old cable provider (Qwest VDSL) all channels tuned to a 'this is a test' powerpoint slide and disrupted whatever you were recording for a couple minutes.


wow- so the tivo paints a banner with it's OSD system?

I've had directv so long I dont cant remember the last time I saw an alert.

[Shawn95GT]

It looks almost exactly like the channel banner when you do 'test channels' in the cablecard menu.

[HiDefGator]

Before I had children of my own I might have been annoyed by this too. If someday you have children of your own you will understand the importance of it.

[Bighouse]

ignore it if you want but if you driving along the pacific coast highway and the tsunami alert comes accorss maybe you wantto check it.

Kidding aside- whats to be so negative for? Ignore it if you want, it gives the government another way to communicate in an emergency....

Well maybe that's part of the problem here. As pointed out by an earlier post by someone else here, an Amber Alert isn't really an "emergency" that really effects anyone other then the parties directly involved...Why not have Amber Alerts for burglaries, rapes, murders, drunk drivers, etc...?

I just think it's a needless intrusion into or private lives that doesn't need to be there and accomplishes absolutely nothing being broadcasted on my home tv system. I live in the middle of nowhere, not likely I'll be seeing the car identified driving through my small remote town. I'm sure I'm not alone. Sure, notify me if a tornado's heading into my town, but I dont' need to know (and quite likely could do nothing about) an angry spouse having gone through a divorce who takes the kid away without permission. Even if it's an abduction I'm not so sure whipping up the masses really accomplishes much...and know that it won't with me given my remote situation and basic statistics.

Catching criminals- That's what the police and "America's Most Wanted" is for- and I don't want to feel like I'm being forced to watch it.

[JDguy]

If you want to understand how this emergency alert signalling works, you can download the full standard here: ANSI/SCTE18-2002 (http://www.scte.org/documents/pdf/SCTE182002ANSIJSTD042DVS208.pdf)

It explains several different methods for the alerts including force-tuning to another channel for an alert, or using an on-screen text banner.

I heard this standard was recently updated and a newer version should be available soon, but I'm not sure how significant the changes are or if it would affect Tivo's implementation in any way.

It is also known as: ANSI J-STD-042-2002 (A Joint Standard Developed by EIA and SCTE) If you're having trouble sleeping tonight, you might enjoy the reading.

[Roderigo]

It explains several different methods for the alerts including force-tuning to another channel for an alert, or using an on-screen text banner.

In addition to this, it's a requirement to recieve Cablelabs cablecard certification. So, the S3 is required to follow this spec.

[sthor]

If EAS Amber Alert is such a good idea for tv why not take it a step further and have it apply to every ISP's internet connection too. Wouldn't that be great?

[dswallow]

This is absolutely absurd; it's this abusive use of emergency systems that eventually drowns out any useful messages the system might be designed for.

It's bad enough that the Amber Alert system exists at all; but at least I'd always thought it limited to roadway signage (which is pretty much wasted for anuy other use, anyway) and perhaps terrestrial radio stations.

But to utilize facilities like that to interrupt programming across entire cable systems... that'd be reason enough to blacklist that cable company forever.

[dswallow]

In addition to this, it's a requirement to recieve Cablelabs cablecard certification. So, the S3 is required to follow this spec.
Does the spec prohibit a configuration option from existing that would turn off this functionality or alter it to something non-intrusive?

[sjcbulldog]

Quoting an ealier post by PRMAN, who was quoting an article on Wikipedia, "Only 70 of the 233 AMBER Alerts issued in 2004 (30%) were actually children taken by strangers or who were unlawfully traveling with adults other than their legal guardians."

I know people will disagree, I see that already on this topic, but if exactly one of these 70 children were brought safely back home because of an amber alert playing over the TV cable in the local area where the abduction happened, then it is worth it. I will miss an episode of my favorite show if I know the alert leads to a child that was abducted being returned back home.

If my 6 year old was abducted, I would want the police, the FBI, the cast of all of the CSI shows, Criminal Minds and all of the Law and Order shows all going door to door to all 2.5 million people in the Portland OR area asking them about where my daughter was. I would want road blocks on all roads, including the interstates until she was found. Not very realistic, but as a parent that is what I would want. I can deal with my cable shows being interrupted.

Just my $0.02 worth
Sjcbulldog

[dswallow]

I know people will disagree, I see that already on this topic, but if exactly one of these 70 children were brought safely back home because of an amber alert playing over the TV cable in the local area where the abduction happened, then it is worth it. I will miss an episode of my favorite show if I know the alert leads to a child that was abducted being returned back home.
If that's really true then if there were a missing children channel, you'd watch it every waking hour instead of any other programming?

I don't care if you have the choice to watch such things, but I want the choice to never see them.

[moyekj]

I have kids and still think it's utterly useless especially for a household who don't watch anything live anyway... totally agree there should be an opt out choice.

[IceStorm]

The Series 3 generates the video banner seen during an Emergency Broadcast Systm test. The banner is markedly different than the one seen on my SA 8300HD, so either Cablevision ripped off the TiVo translucent banner or the TiVo's doing the banner. The actual message is white on a red background in both cases, but I'm pretty sure the one on the TiVo used a different font.

During the broadcast, you can't do anything with the TiVo (you just get the Bong! sound), but I don't recall the TiVo forcing a channel change. That may simply be due to how Cablevision implements the message, though. It apparently comes in over all channels at once. I don't know if it's stored as part of the recorded stream or not. I get the feeling it isn't in my case as the TiVo's generating the message.

[hospadam]

I think an important thing to note here is this:

The people that would turn this sort of alert off, are the people who aren't going to care to look in the first place?

I think "you both" have good points. If one child is saved, I too believe it was worth the hassle it caused the rest of us. But, if you believe that you don't want to see this sort of alert, I think that should be ok too... because, if you're the kind of person who goes "dangit, another one of these dumb amber alerts" you're not the kind of person who runs through their mind and tries to remember if they saw anything that night.

However, I too agree that this is not on the same level of a tornado, flash flood, or some other 'iminent' crisis. Why don't we have these kinds of alerts for everyone? When are we going to start alerting on TV that there was a bad accident? I mean, you could take this sort of thing to the extreme.

Finally... I think that a happy medium would just be a creep? Technologically, it can't be that hard for your cable company to just overlay something over every channel? I mean, maybe it is... who knows.

In anycase... I think you both have points...

[SteveInNC]

I think "you both" have good points. If one child is saved, I too believe it was worth the hassle it caused the rest of us. But, if you believe that you don't want to see this sort of alert, I think that should be ok too... because, if you're the kind of person who goes "dangit, another one of these dumb amber alerts" you're not the kind of person who runs through their mind and tries to remember if they saw anything that night.
As has been mentioned previously, the problem with TV alerts for this is inappropriate media - in all cases of the Amber alerts I've seen locally, they were invariably of the form "suspect is driving a XXX presumed headed south on I-XX". Regardless of the message type, I am not likely to remember any particular car I saw even ten minutes ago, unless it was on fire or doing doughnuts in the middle of the highway. Am I going to remember the license and description if I leave the house after seeing a TV alert? Probably not.

When I see the highway signs broadcasting an Amber alert, I do look around at the cars in the immediate vicinity, but that is an example of appropriate placement of the alert.

As to having everyones' cell phones receive an SMS, oh - my - gawd! The last thing I want in rush hour traffic on an eight lane highway is to have 40K people simultaneously look away from their driving to read a message on their phones or to answer an automated call. Studies like this one (http://news.com.com/2061-10801_3-6090342.html) have shown that messing with a cellphone is roughly as disruptive as DWI. So the solution to the need for an alert is to instantly convert the highway to a gallery of drunk-like drivers?

[Bighouse]

...but as a parent that is what I would want...


Well, I want to win the Lottery. Doesn't mean I get to. I understand the emotions involved, but still think there should be a way to "opt out" of Amber Alerts for those who, realistically, don't or can't help in any situation. Doesn't make a lot of sense, for instance, for a bed-ridden elderly person who can't leave the house to have to see an Amber Alert. Doesn't make sense for someone, like myself, who lives in a remote section of the state to have to know that there's a possible abduction that's occured 150 miles away and the perp is heading AWAY from me. I think this is an example of "mob vigilante-ism" that just helps add to the edge of terror state that we already seem to want to live in. I sympathize with those who've had kids abducted, but feel that there are more focussed, better ways to use the Amber Alert and that blanket broadcasts across entire regions is counter-productive in the end. Put license plate recognition cameras on highways, I'd be fine with that. Use terrestrial radios more for that. Install more Amber Alert signs along roads. You can only "cry wolf" so many times before people in general will start turning off the message, or wanting to shoot the messenger! For those who think it's so essential I have the following questions for you:

1. Do you always buy milk cartons with missing children on them so you can "do your vigilant" part in helping to find them?
2. Do you watch faithfully "America's Most Wanted" and write down and remember the criminals being hunted for?
3. Do you always read the Adam Walsh website to find missing children?
4. Do you live your life always looking for ways to help find missing children when there are missing kids around (and there ALWAYS are missing children)?

So, I think so much of the "Oh let's keep it going the way it is, it's for the children" is essentially lip-service.

One doesn't have to be a parent to realize the importance of keeping kids safe. We were ALL kids at one point in our lives. We ALL have kids in our lives in one way or another. I'm not saying that it's not important to do what we can when a child is abducted, I'm just saying that the current implementation of the Amber Alert sytem is counter-productive for many.

[dagap]

If one child is saved, I too believe it was worth the hassle it caused the rest of us.And we could save thousands of lives, including many children, by setting a maximum speed limit of 25 MPH.

Why isn't that worth the hassle to the rest of us?

[Bighouse]

Why isn't that worth the hassle to the rest of us?

Well, now you're just sacraficing other people's sacred cows.

[Amnesia]

actually I just read today the fcc is working with the cell phone companies to set up a system so that every cell ohone in a geographic area gets a text message.(...)neat idea...I hope you're kidding about it being a "neat" idea. Perhaps if you choose to subscribe to such a service. I'm still upset about the FCC forcing me to have a GPS chip on my cell phone...

[MichaelK]

Well maybe that's part of the problem here. As pointed out by an earlier post by someone else here, an Amber Alert isn't really an "emergency" that really effects anyone other then the parties directly involved...Why not have Amber Alerts for burglaries, rapes, murders, drunk drivers, etc...?

I just think it's a needless intrusion into or private lives that doesn't need to be there and accomplishes absolutely nothing being broadcasted on my home tv system. I live in the middle of nowhere, not likely I'll be seeing the car identified driving through my small remote town. I'm sure I'm not alone. Sure, notify me if a tornado's heading into my town, but I dont' need to know (and quite likely could do nothing about) an angry spouse having gone through a divorce who takes the kid away without permission. Even if it's an abduction I'm not so sure whipping up the masses really accomplishes much...and know that it won't with me given my remote situation and basic statistics.

Catching criminals- That's what the police and "America's Most Wanted" is for- and I don't want to feel like I'm being forced to watch it.


There is nothing wrong with teh technology- you have a beef with how they use it. WHy throw the whole system out? Talk to your representatives to get teh system fixed. Watch the fcc website - they just formed a new unit to update the system to include things like the cell phone text messsages. Find out when they want comments and make your opinion known.

But there's no reason to throw the whole concept out the window when it has the possibility of being able to save lives on a grand scale.

[MichaelK]

I hope you're kidding about it being a "neat" idea. Perhaps if you choose to subscribe to such a service. I'm still upset about the FCC forcing me to have a GPS chip on my cell phone...


I think it's friggin GENIUS and the inventor should win the nobel prize.

what do you think of them apples?

As has been posted in theis thread umpteen times- using it wrongly would be stupid. But use it correctly and it's a great tool.

-Text a town in the way of a tornado.
-Text people in NYC if god forbid there is another terrorist attack with which way people in any given area should evactuate.
-Text the people within 5 miles of the sure if there is a tsunami. There are parts of the third world were wireless phones are more prevelent then wired lines- maybe tens of thousands of people in indonesia could have been saved had such a system been in place there.
-TExt people near forrest fires which way to evacuate.

Sure get the government under control so they dont sent me messages that are stupid. But the technology has the ability to be very usefull.


you can sit there and type that a system to text a whole sleeping town in kansas that is about to be wiped off the fact of the earth by a tornado is a bad thing?

[Amnesia]

you can sit there and type that a system to text a whole sleeping town in kansas that is about to be wiped off the fact of the earth by a tornado is a bad thing?Definitely. Without question.

First of all, how many sleeping Kansasians will be woken up by a new text message on their cell phone?

Secondly, what if they already know about the tornado and they are trying to call someone (911?) and the incoming text message interrupts them? Or uses the last of their battery?

As long as systems like this are opt-in, then fine. If someone chooses to sign up for this (or Amber alerts on their TV), then I have no problem. If you are trying to decide for me, then forget it.

[dswallow]

GSM phones already have the concept of broadcast messages and classes/categories of messages to display/receive. All that has to happen to support this is the infrastructure of the cell phone companies needs to be set up to broadcast such messages from local towers and someone has to decide that mesage type XXX means Amber Alert (or whatever).

GPS info isn't needed at all since the message transmission locations would be determined by the carrier addressing tower by tower.

But that's probably not good enough for the Amber Alarmists who want the messages to be mandatory.

[Amnesia]

I hope that even "Amber Alertists" wouldn't really want people's cell phones to automatically receive these kinds of messages.

Amber alerts are most useful to those driving---"keep an eye out for a Tan Civic with the following plate number"---and drivers are precisely the people who shouldn't get distracted by having their phone ring while they are driving.

The people who won't be distracted---those at home or walking around---won't be much help in tracking down a potential abductor's car.

[dswallow]

I hope that even "Amber Alertists" wouldn't really want people's cell phones to automatically receive these kinds of messages.
No no... Amber "Alarmists" do. Amber Alertists aren't nearly as psychotic. :)

[snathanb]

I think it's friggin GENIUS and the inventor should win the nobel prize.

what do you think of them apples?

As has been posted in theis thread umpteen times- using it wrongly would be stupid. But use it correctly and it's a great tool.

-Text a town in the way of a tornado.
-Text people in NYC if god forbid there is another terrorist attack with which way people in any given area should evactuate.
-Text the people within 5 miles of the sure if there is a tsunami. There are parts of the third world were wireless phones are more prevelent then wired lines- maybe tens of thousands of people in indonesia could have been saved had such a system been in place there.
-TExt people near forrest fires which way to evacuate.

Sure get the government under control so they dont sent me messages that are stupid. But the technology has the ability to be very usefull.


you can sit there and type that a system to text a whole sleeping town in kansas that is about to be wiped off the fact of the earth by a tornado is a bad thing?

Just a natural extension of the reverse 911 system that has been around for years, for the same purpose.

[MichaelK]

Just a natural extension of the reverse 911 system that has been around for years, for the same purpose.


EXACTLY-

instead of getting a phone call on a landline you get a text on your cell phone. But it's a bit "smarter" to be location aware and can follow me so if i travel to Kansas my cell phone also gets hit with the message. Also reverse 911 doesn't help me if I'm in the car- this would.

What's to dislike?

We have reverse 911- the authorites seem so far not to be stupid with that and dont amber alert whole towns. The technology isn't bad and can be very helpful.

[MichaelK]

Definitely. Without question.

First of all, how many sleeping Kansasians will be woken up by a new text message on their cell phone?

Secondly, what if they already know about the tornado and they are trying to call someone (911?) and the incoming text message interrupts them? Or uses the last of their battery?

As long as systems like this are opt-in, then fine. If someone chooses to sign up for this (or Amber alerts on their TV), then I have no problem. If you are trying to decide for me, then forget it.


will they answer the phone if revers 911 calls them? IF they dont wake up for the ring then who did it harm that the last thing their cell phone did before it got destroyed was display a text warning?

Last I checked my phone gets text messages without hanging up any calls in progress. And tha't's CDMA whcih from what i understand is inferior to GSM in that regard. GSM can apparently even suspend IP traffic to get the call through.

If receiving a 160 character text message kills the battery- you probabaly couldn't even dial 911 wihtout killing it also.

I understand your beef about opt-in, and maybe that's a good idea. If you want to get killed by a tornado then that's your choice I suppose.

[Leon WIlkinson]

I think TiVo should have a way to download Amber Alerts, then force the Amber Alert to play with the first remote Command.

Also, it might be nice to have a missing persons Showcase.

[Bighouse]

Wow, this thread got hijacked somewhere...all I wanted to do was to find a way to Opt-Out of Amber Alerts!

[hookbill]

Wow, this thread got hijacked somewhere...all I wanted to do was to find a way to Opt-Out of Amber Alerts!

See what you started. Troublemaker! :D

[Amnesia]

will they answer the phone if revers 911 calls them?There's no such thing as "reverse 911". Real 911 is you manually calling a number in an emergency and talking directly to someone who can help you (or at least a human who can direct someone to help you).

Reverse 911 would be a human calling me if there was an emergency that was definitely going to affect me. Perhaps a neighbor saw a burglar enter my house. A reverse 911 system would call me to warn me of the emergency.

That's not what the so-called reverse 911 system does. Instead, it is used to automatically dial area phones with a generalized message that may or may not pertain to the person called. For example, that a child is missing or a snow storm is approaching. How would real 911 operators feel if an automated system called them about an issue which may or may not be of interest to emergency response teams? Luckily, my phone system is smart enough to filter out these types of annoyances so that my phone doesn't even ring.

The creators of "reverse 911" are being deliberately misleading with the name. It in no way has anything to do with real 911.

[MichaelK]

There's no such thing as "reverse 911". Real 911 is you manually calling a number in an emergency and talking directly to someone who can help you (or at least a human who can direct someone to help you).

Reverse 911 would be a human calling me if there was an emergency that was definitely going to affect me. Perhaps a neighbor saw a burglar enter my house. A reverse 911 system would call me to warn me of the emergency.

That's not what the so-called reverse 911 system does. Instead, it is used to automatically dial area phones with a generalized message that may or may not pertain to the person called. For example, that a child is missing or a snow storm is approaching. How would real 911 operators feel if an automated system called them about an issue which may or may not be of interest to emergency response teams? Luckily, my phone system is smart enough to filter out these types of annoyances so that my phone doesn't even ring.

The creators of "reverse 911" are being deliberately misleading with the name. It in no way has anything to do with real 911.


wow - you really are pissed with EVERYTHIGN the governement does to disseminate emergency information.

[dswallow]

wow - you really are pissed with EVERYTHIGN the governement does to disseminate emergency information.
I think there's simply a severe disconnect between what we think is an "emergency" and what others think is an "emergency."

[Bodshal]

Government should stop trying to govern my daily life. That's not its job and it should have better things to do.

I often (very often) don't read SMS messages for days. If there's an alert, how does that help anyone?
I often (very often) don't watch what TiVo records for days. Or weeks. If there's a forced alert, how does that help anyone?
I doubt I am unique in these respects.

Nobody is saying that real alerts shouldn't be sent (false-alerts notwithstanding, etc). But they should be done in a more managable, time sensitive fashion.

Out-of-band data that is overlayed in real-time only by the TiVo makes sense. Using the existing localised transient messaging function of GSM makes sense (though it's not used in the US and its backwards mobile phone systems).

Chris.

[MichaelK]

I think there's simply a severe disconnect between what we think is an "emergency" and what others think is an "emergency."

that i think is the problem here in a nut shell that this thread unearthed. Different people define it different ways.

All I can say is people should get involved in the FCC proceeding to change the whole system. Apparently they jsut created the department and they think they want to have the new system ready in one year. So people better find out how to pipe up now.

[srothkin]

emergency alerts are generated from a central EAS server in the local headend and then each tuner is forced-tuned to that EAS.

So, is that only for tuners that are being viewed live, or is it for tuners that are recording as well. I hope scheduled recordings are not automatically switched to the EAS. It would be both useless and very annoying to find that a program recorded several days (or even weeks) earlier was partially obliterated by an alert (one that's pretty useless on playback of the recording).

[Shawn95GT]

I happened to grab a pic of what it looks like on my S3:

http://www.shawnz.com/TCF/S3EmergencyBanner.jpg

[Boot]

I happened to grab a pic of what it looks like on my S3:

http://www.shawnz.com/TCF/S3EmergencyBanner.jpg
I've been getting these "tests" pretty frequently over the past few weeks. One even ran every 4 minutes for an hour and a half. So far, every one of them has been a test. And I've been forced to sit there for two minutes while the entire test message is cycled. Whatever I've been watching or recording gets canceled, and I have to manually restart it.

The messages state that the test is being issued by Charter. And they tell me to tune to channel 16 - which is C-Span2 and doesn't actually display any more information. Although, TiVo prevents me from tuning to it while the message is being displayed.

If it's a real alert, then I'm fine with the interruption. But, really, how many tests should I be forced to watch?

[blackcat77]

I appreciate that amber alerts are important, but this stuff has gone too far. Not only does the cable company interrupt programming for these alerts -- even for abductions hundreds of miles away -- but they also set off my weather radio alert. Several times the radio has gone off in the middle of the night and scared us half to death since we have it set to only sound the alarm for really severe weather, but amber alerts are classified as "civil emergencies" and you cannot turn those off.

For all the sympathy I have for this situation, I really doubt that any kidnapped children will be in my living room, so maybe we need to restrict this sort of notification to "bugs" in the corners of the programming on local channels and notifications on highways electronic signage where they can actually do some good.

[phototrek]

Politics of amber alerts aside, why does the recording stop? The recording is on a schedule, be it manual or via season pass, from hour X to hour Y. It's one thing to have an annoying chirp and a few minutes of some baby pictures in your recording, but missing the ending is a whole different story. It's not that otherwise the TiVo is waiting to get some sort of "end marker"; it turns off when the time is up.

[MichaelK]

I'm struck by how some places have so many of these things.

I've had the S3 for about 6 weeks I guess (got one the monday after they were out) and I have yet to have seen any of this on my cable system. My box is usually recording something most all the time so I think i would have seen it.

weird....


also I do agree woth phototrek- the tivo should handle the interuptions better if it's nuking the recordings.

maybe some of the partial recordings that people get come becasue these alerts interupt there things?

It's all so screwy.

[wdave]

actually I just read today the fcc is working with the cell phone companies to set up a system so that every cell ohone in a geographic area gets a text message.
...
amber alert on I5- text everyone along I5.
....

Imagine what's going to happen when EVERYONE on the highway gets distracted by a phone call / text alert at exactly the same time.

[phototrek]

Imagine what's going to happen when EVERYONE on the highway gets distracted by a phone call / text alert at exactly the same time.
That's actually hillarious to think about :)

[MichaelK]

IF (and that's the big if) they do it right, I think it could be helpfull. If they are really location aware and use some intelligence. (but that seems unlikley based upon the number of interuptions some folks are getting just using their dvr...)

Instead of sending messages to millions or radio listeners and tv viewers in a DMA- wouldn't it be wiser to just text everyone within 3 miles of the abduction location as soon as the call hits 911?

If a couple hundred are too dumb to receive a text messsage and drive into a big concrete noise barrier then so be it. Darwin at work and the commute will be a little less heavy the next day.... (toungue firmly in cheek- as I'm getting the sense the government is too stupid to use it effectively.)

I'm thinking you folks in these places that do this non stop are likely immune to them at this point -huh?

the first week everyone would be checking their text messages- 2 weeks later no one would bother...