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This is the last in a series of 4 reports on the recent National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Convention held April 9-14 in Las Vegas, NV.
All of us are familiar with the recent switch of all U.S. TV stations to Digital TV (DTV), now offering us a clearer widescreen TV picture at home. A follow-on to that DTV transition is an additional specification called Mobile DTV (mDTV). The mDTV transmissions come from your local TV stations just like the DTV signal you view at home, but mDTV is a separate signal meant strictly for mobile reception. Mobile DTV is being rolled out by commercial TV stations in 20 markets this year. In addition, $2M in funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) will assist Public TV stations in 20 markets to launch mDTV. Manufacturers such as LG, RCA and Samsung are already making dedicated mDTV receivers with three- to five-inch screens, as well as portable DVD players with embedded mDTV tuners. Adapters for mDTV are also hitting the market for use on laptops, tablet computers, and the iPhone and iPad. Of course the “killer app” will be mDTV on cell phones. LG is leading the way on that effort, having already developed the needed chip for cellular handset integration. Handset makers are now in the process of finding real estate within their handsets for the chip and we should be seeing mDTV-enabled cellular handsets soon. Some of the cool new mDTV features shown at the NAB Show included 3D TV without glasses, interacting with the show you are watching via Tweet-TV, on-demand shows using NRT (non-real-time) technology, and virtual coupons you can scan at a local store right from your smart phone.
Great, but what does all this have to do with Alerts & Warnings? Well, in an NAB session I sat in on there was a lengthy discussion by guest speakers from Japan on how well Mobile DTV worked in their country during the recent earthquake and tsunami. When citizens felt the shaking and opened up their cell phones for information, they found that cellular service was down – but Mobile DTV was up and running, since the signal comes from local TV stations not the cellular towers. The public could watch real time video of the happenings in the affected area, getting current information on demand. At the end of this convincing session, Public Broadcasting System (PBS) Chief Technology Officer John McCoskey announced that PBS will be participating in a year-long pilot program to deliver emergency alerts using audio, video, text and graphics via Mobile DTV. PBS will partner with LG Electronics, and its R&D lab Zenith, which will develop mDTV devices and will fund the project. Also, CPB will provide matching grants to local public TV stations for the mDTV transmission equipment. This new system will be different, and in addition to, the Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) which delivers only text messages via the cellular network infrastructure (referenced in my previous NAB reports). The pilot messages will be CAP-compliant and will be integrated with the FEMA IPAWS system.
Link to the PBS Press Release: www.pbs.org/about/news/archive/2011/mobile-dtv-eas/
A different session at NAB highlighted yet another warning method used in Japan for emergencies, DTV Datacasting. This is data that is delivered to your home TV, and then displayed on your TV screen. A demonstration was shown of the system in action during the earthquake; the normal program picture reduced to one-quarter-size and the rest of the screen was emergency data such as evacuation routes or shelter locations. During non-emergency times, the system is used by local officials on a daily basis for routine community announcements to increase public awareness of the system. While this system would be another excellent example to follow in the U.S., it was disappointing to hear that the data is based on Japan’s own TV Common Markup Language (TVCML), not the worldwide standard Common Alerting Protocol (CAP).
We hope you’ve enjoyed our NAB 2011 Reports on AWARE – see you next year.
The following is a synopsis of the OGC document Sensor Web Enablement Application for Debris Flow Monitoring System in Taiwan.
Debris flows are a major issue in Taiwan. A debris flow is a fast moving mass of unconsolidated, saturated debris that looks like flowing concrete. They differentiate from a mudflow by terms of the viscosity of the flow. Flows can carry debris ranging in size from clay particles to very large boulders. A debris flow can be extremely destructive to life and property.
There are two reasons for the occurrence of debris flow after a strong earthquake. One is that the land collapses after earthquake and the soil gets mixed with groundwater or surface runoff. The second reason is that many crevices are formed in the earth surface after earthquake and hence, when the groundwater level increases or surface runoff concentrates, the land collapses and debris flow occurs.
Since 2002, the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau, which is responsible for the conservation and administrative management of hillside in Taiwan, has been cooperated with Feng Chia University. Together, they have successively carried out the establishment and maintenance of 13 fixed debris flow monitoring stations over the island and 2 mobile debris flow monitoring stations.
The advanced monitoring instruments include rain gauges, wire sensors, geophones, and CCD cameras. A rain gauge is used to record on-site rainfall. At the moment, the warning model for the debris flow alert uses rainfall intensity and accumulated precipitation as warning indexes to determine whether rainfall has reached the threshold and thereby the application provides timely red and yellow alerts to high risk areas where debris flows are likely to occur. As a debris flow moves down the channel, the flow will then break wire sensors placed in the spillway of diversion dams, hence indicating the occurrence of debris flow. Further, when a debris flow occurs, the geophone can detect the ground vibration generated by the collision between boulders and channel bed. The result of wavelet transform analysis can then serve as references to determine the occurrence of debris flow. Finally through the CCD camera, the hydrological process of debris flow can be vividly recorded.
The physical architecture of the sensor networks used in the Taiwan debris flow application is as follows:
The application was designed and developed to incorporate a variety of standards from the OGC and OASIS.
| Standard Name | Version | Organization |
| Sensor Model Language | 1.0.0 | OGC |
| Observations and Measurements | 1.0 | OGC |
| Sensor Observation Service | 0.1.4 | OGC |
| Sensor Planning Service | 1.0 | OGC |
| Sensor Alert Service | 0.9.0 | OGC |
| Web Notification Service | 0.1.0 | OGC |
| Web Map Service | 1.3.0 | OGC |
| Web Feature Service | 1.1 | OGC |
| OGC KML | 2.2.0 | OGC |
| WS-BPEL | 2.0 | OASIS |
| WS-Trust | 1.3 | OASIS |
| WS-Security | 1.0 | OASIS |
Below is the high level abstract architecture for the debris flow monitoring system.
The OGC SPS interface standard is used to task sensors, controlling their sample rates, sample times, what observation information to return, and checking whether they are operating correctly. According to the task that is submitted to the SPS enabled application, the Debris Flow Monitoring System will controls the relevant sensors and their observing framework.
The OGC SOS interface standard provides a standard interface for requesting and receiving one or more observations, or data collection. The Debris Flow Monitoring System collects observation data from sensors which are then further processed in a variety of models. The response from an SOS is an Observations and Measurements payload.
The OGC SAS candidate standard is used to support subscription, publication, and transmission of alerts. The Debris Flow Monitoring System modeling application is used to decide whether debris flow will happen. If the answer is “Yes”, it will send an alert via the SAS enabled alerting application.
The debris flow monitoring system uses the OGC Sensor (SWE) standards. This enhancement has changed the way of collecting, fusing, and providing the debris flow data. Before implementation of the OGC sensor standards, observation data was burned to CD or utilized E-mail way to the user. In the future the user will use the SOS to retrieve the information data via debris flow monitoring system and receive alerts.
Non-profit social media expert Beth Kanter posted an interesting analysis of social media’s role in emergencies on her blog yesterday.
Indeed, the geo-platform Ushahidi, which allows users to crowdsource crisis information to be sent via mobile devices, assisted many survivors, aid workers, and organizations during the Haiti crisis (most would say it played a critical role). AWARE Forum did a spotlight on the crowdsourcing phenomenon back in June.
However, the question is whether or not social media is becoming a viable outlet for all sorts of other disasters, crises, or emergencies? Can the Ushahidi effect extend to our daily lives?
According to a new American Red Cross survey, 49 percent of web users would either “probably” or “definitely” use social media to “let loved ones know they are safe.” Also, 69 percent of web users expected emergency responders to be “monitoring social media sites” to send help; in fact, 74 percent expected help within an hour of their tweet or Facebook post.
This is a brand new phenomenon, and it’ll be interesting to see how emergency responders adapt within the next couple of years (especially in conjunction with traditional 9-1-1 calls). The rise of social media has given the general public a viable and extremely fast way of broadcasting their status—good or bad—to their family and friends, but there are few cases where such status updates have been used for such utilitarian purposes.
Twitter was originally started as a quick SMS service within small groups, to the great benefit of fire departments: now are they ready to listen outward?
For the original article on Beth’s blog, go here.
Let us know in the comments what you think: is social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) a viable option for emergencies updates and responses in your daily life?
