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You can now make 911 calls directly from Skype
Microsoft seems to have learned its lesson from the Teams disaster
Microsoft-owned Skype is out with a new app update on all of its platforms and it includes one feature that a few Android users might need to be wary about: emergency calling. Yes, the thing that Skype warned you not to do with Skype.
Here's a way to find out if 911 calls on your Android phone might fail
The bug-prone behavior found in Microsoft Teams could be in other apps, too
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Behaviors found in both Android and the Microsoft Teams app led to a frightening situation recently where someone was prevented from making a 911 call on their phone. While Microsoft has a patch for its app, Google won't have a fix on the OS level until January 4 at the earliest. In the meantime, it's entirely possible that another app may have the same faulty behavior that Microsoft Teams did, potentially preventing other Android users from reaching emergency services. If you're concerned about this possibility, there's a new app to help you check.
Back during the first Developer Preview for Android 12, a new iOS-like Emergency SOS feature was spotted that let you panic-smash your power button five times to make an emergency call. The feature disappeared from Settings in subsequent releases, but it's back as of Beta 1.
A hallmark feature of the Pixel 4 is its ability to detect car crashes and call 911 for you (only in the US). This smart option can potentially save many lives, but it's not enabled by default on the device. Here's how you can turn it on.
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- We've got the APK for the updated version of the Personal Safety app available for your downloading pleasure over on APK Mirror, but sadly the car crash detection functionality isn't live for us. One of our tipsters who previously saw it on his device reports that the option is now missing for him, so it may have been disabled.
Back in May, we reported on a possible feature coming to Pixel phones with Android 10: automatic car crash detection. Little was known about it at that early stage, but we reasoned it could offer to contact first responders and pre-defined emergency contacts in case of an accident. XDA Developers' Mishaal Rahman has received an update to the Emergency Information app on his Pixel 2 XL and noticed it has been renamed "Personal Safety." A description on the Play Store along with some screenshots outlines that the app will be responsible for car crash detection and automatic 911 calling.
We've already covered well over 200 changes in the public betas of Android Q, but many of those are smaller tweaks that aren't quite important enough to be covered in dedicated posts. Following our coverage of Beta 1, 2, and 3, here are all the minor changes in Android Q Beta 4.
The Android Q Betas have had a ton of major changes, both in the interface and in the APIs that applications use. However, there are some changes so minor that they aren't quite important enough for a dedicated post. We already covered the little changes in Beta 1 and 2, so now it's time to take a close look at Beta 3.
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There are quite a few new features (and some removed functionality) present in the first beta of Android Q — we've documented around 50 major changes already. There are also plenty of smaller tweaks that don't warrant separate coverage, so we're going over them here. Without further ado, here all of the smaller changes in Android Q Beta 1.
One of the major limitations of Google Voice since its inception is that you can't call 911 or other emergency service numbers. Most VoIP services share this problem, since it's usually impossible for responders to obtain your exact location. Google is working on addressing this, but not for regular users.
Safety is a major concern of ridesharing services such as Uber and Lyft. In an attempt to make its riders feel more secure, Uber has added a direct method to call 911 via its app in the US. The company has tested the function out in India, but it's now live for everyone stateside. Additionally, these 911 calls will come with location tracking in select markets. These are both part of new Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi's initiative to improve the company's safety record.
When you call 911 from a landline phone, that number is tied to a physical address. It's easy for emergency responders to get to the right place. However, cell phones can be anywhere, and the carrier-based location reports sent to call centers are not always good enough. Google is working on a system that would provide faster, more accurate locations to 911 operators, and its first test reportedly went well.
It's been a busy month so far for Asus, what with the launch of the myriad different phones in the ZenFone 4 family and the Project Tango equipped ZenFone AR going on sale. With the new products comes a new software skin nobody asked for, ZenUI 4.0, and one of its key features has been released as a standalone app.
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- Here's the APK file to manually grab the app if it's not available for your device or country.
Over the past couple of years, we've seen many iterations on the personal safety app, but the gist has always remained the same: choose a few persons you trust to share your location with all the time, or at least when you feel the need or they request it. Now Google is releasing its own official take on the matter, Trusted Contacts, and part of me is wishing this app or its functionality at least becomes integrated in all Android phones from now on.
EMERGENCY came to Android more than 3 years ago in March of 2013. Back then, the Xperia Z was the hottest phone on the block, the Galaxy S4 was starting its pre-orders, and Holo was the coolest design language we could imagine. But EMERGENCY was rather well received thanks to its replay value. With 13 disaster scenarios and 18 units under your command, you could manage your resources differently to try to save as much lives and fight as many terrorists as you could, and thus control the situation better and faster.
You may be wary of making your location available to apps and services on Android, but that uneasiness goes away in an emergency situation. If you call emergency services, you want them to know exactly where you are, and now Android has the tools to make that happen. Well, if you live in the UK or Estonia. Those are the first two countries with support for the new Emergency Location Service.
Apparently if you call an emergency number from your Android device, you can't block calls for the next 48 hours.
Shortly after ISIS-affiliated gunmen killed over a hundred people in multiple attacks in Paris on Friday evening, Google allowed users of its Hangouts chat platform to make free VOIP calls to France from anywhere. Later this weekend American telecom companies have followed suit. Carriers Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint are allowing their customers to call French telephone numbers without incurring international calling charges, and Skype is allowing free SkypeOut (VOIP-to-standard phone number) calls into France.
After a series of shootings and explosions occurred in Paris Friday evening, Google has made calls to France via its Hangouts service temporarily free. Callers can use the Hangouts app on Android, iOS, and the web to place calls to the country without incurring the normal international charges. The Google+ post making the announcement did not specify any particular countries, so presumably free calls are available from any location where Hangouts can be used. It's not clear if Google Voice users are also being given free calls.
This feature has taken us a long time to confirm, readers - sorry about that. Testing it would have required us to call 9-1-1 for the sole purpose of testing out a neat new tool on a smartphone, and aside from being extremely illegal, none of us wanted to explain to a hard-working emergency dispatcher that we were using a vital service to write up a blog post. And on that note, please, please don't test out this feature on your own Android M preview build. We're only sharing a screenshot sent in to us by a reader which we assume was taken during an actual emergency.
Cheap USB car chargers are a dime a dozen, even ones with enough ports to charge two devices at once. But this dual-USB (2.1A + 1A) charger from Elivebuy stands out, and it's not because this is the fastest charger of the bunch. It caught our attention because it just might save your life, and it will do it for six bucks if you go to Amazon and enter the coupon code Q626JPAD at checkout.