With all the natural disasters this past year, Japan isn't taking any chances. As one of the highest risk areas for earthquakes, the country's Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry is looking to develop an emergency broadcast system that would be able to turn on your cell phone and send a warning alarm and other information via text messaging. The system would use a digital terrestrial television broadcasting signal and would receive data, including information about disasters and evacuation instructions and routes. The plan is to use a new broadcasting system called One Seg that will be used to play TV shows on cellphones—due out in April of next year.

Quake-alarm cell phone to be tested [Yomiuri]

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