Re: Draft Charter of Emergency Information TF (was: Re: [DRAFT] Disaster Prevention and Response TF charter

This is a great discussion. It's not clear that the issue of emergency notification should be in the Web and TV IG or even the W3C at all, but it's also not clear it shouldn't.

A driving issue is: What should happen to broadcast TV emergency alert system and responsibilities as broadcast TV moves from traditional televisions to connected TVs, mobile devices and PCs?

Note: I'm addressing this from the POV of what is the right engineering answer, not what is the current legal requirement, which is not my domain.

The TV industry has a current responsibility for emergency alerts, based on traditional TVs. The EA is pushed to all TVs and is not optional by the user.

I agree with Giuseppe that the OS is in a better position on a device to present the EA, since you might not be watching TV on that device. But what should happen if you are watching TV on that device? Should any current EA be leveraged? And most importantly, if the TV industry is ready to pass off the EA responsibility to the device/OS industry, are they ready to catch it?

Finally, while the current broadcast EA infrastructure reflects the broadcast TV infrastructure, much more can be done with GPS in devices, etc. In fact, I subscribe to an iOS app (TWC MAX+) that push notified me of a tornado nearby when I was driving through North Carolina recently and not running the app. GPS was critically integrated. Are there web apps that can do the same today? Can a web app subscribe you to an OS push notification like a native app can?

mav

On Oct 4, 2011, at 7:40 PM, "Yosuke Funahashi" <yfuna@tomo-digi.co.jp> wrote:

> On Oct 4, 2011, at 10:33 PM, Giuseppe Pascale wrote:
>> On Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:13:36 +0200, Silvia Pfeiffer <silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> 2011/10/4 Giuseppe Pascale <giuseppep@opera.com>:
>>>> My understanding of this TF work is not to create new standards/protocols in
>>>> the area of emergency notification,
>>>> but to review the existing ones and see if anything needs to be done to
>>>> support such notifications in a web browsers.
>>>> 
>>>> One of the outcome could also be: nothing needs to be done.
>>>> 
>>>> My personal feeling on this is that notifications should not be handled at
>>>> web application level but at a UA level (for end user notifications, I
>>>> mean).
>>> 
>>> I wonder how this would work. Are you suggesting that every browser
>>> (UA) when it goes online registers with a national notification
>>> service from which it would get emergency notifications if there are
>>> any to be delivered?Seeing as the Web is fundamentally a
>>> pull-information based infrastructure, pushing information can only
>>> work if the UA allows it (e.g. RSS feed style). However, as soon as
>>> you make the information-push UA-dependent and not user-dependent, you
>>> run into all sorts of privacy issues.
>>> 
>>> For example, if all UAs in the US had to register with a US agency as
>>> soon as they go online, that single agency would know everything about
>>> when everyone in the US is going online, their IP addresses and their
>>> devices.
>>> 
>>> Why not just go with a Web application, such as an RSS feed to which
>>> you can subscribe that gives you emergency notifications to those
>>> channels that you usually communicate on (could, e.g. be twitter,
>>> facebook, google+, email, RSS reader etc)?
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> What I was trying to highlight is that if emergency notification is something that can save your life, having to rely on the application to timely show you a message or having it only for some type of content (e.g. video) doesn't feel safe.
>> 
>> To be honest, I'm wondering if this is something related to UA at all. What we are actually saying here is that when there is an emergency all possible channels (including Internet) should be used to notify about the emergency. Connection to a network (being it the Internet or any other network) is something in control of the OS. Also, visibility of application is something in control of the OS (you don't want to miss your earthquake notification just because your were watching a movie and not looking at (or not using at all) your browser.
>> I also think that most devices are connected to internet also when not browsing.
>> 
>> So it feels to me this is something to be handled at OS level, if it needs to be robust. And at a network protocol level, to make sure all networks you may connect to (broadband, DVB, others) provide this kind of functionalities (many already do).
> 
> I see your point, but I'm not sure for now that which layer is the best place to implement specific functions related to emergency information or disaster response. I think it would help us to clarify and classify use cases and requirements before discussing the layers. There may be something you and I were not aware in this area, and I am looking forward to hearing or finding something new I've not yet noticed even thought I'm an expert on Emergency Warning System through broadcasting (DVB, ISDB, etc).
> 
> My two cents.
> 
> Although the IG has currently strong focus on HTML5, HTML.next, or web browsers, its scope is not restricted to them as we described in the charter. Many other activities in W3C such as SemanticWeb, Voice Browser, MMI, eGov, Off-line Web, etc may be able to get benefit from the deliverables of the IG.
> 
> Yosuke
> 
> 
>> /g
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Giuseppe Pascale
>> TV & Connected Devices
>> Opera Software
>> 
> 
> --
> Yosuke Funahashi
> co-Chair, W3C Web and TV Interest Group
> Researcher, Keio University Research Institute at SFC
> Board Director, Tomo-Digi Corporation
> 
>

Received on Thursday, 6 October 2011 21:20:28 UTC