Mobile Update

Your Phone Has an FM Chip. So Why Can’t You Listen to the Radio? Everyone carries the Internet in their pocket, yet radio and television remain the primary way people get information in an emergency. So when a disaster knocks out power and takes down cell service—along with those government emergency alerts—you’re going to need a radio to know what’s going on. A radio? Who owns a radio anymore? You do. Every smartphone in the world has an FM tuner built in. But here in the US, just one-third of them actually works, even though the Federal Emergency Management Agency says radio can save lives in an emergency. “We know that if Internet networks or cell phone networks go down, FM still works so long as you have a battery to turn the device on,” says agency spokesman Rafael Lemaitre. FM capability is baked into the Qualcomm LTE modem inside nearly every cellphone, including iPhones. Tuning in on a smartphone is common in the developing world, so it’s easier to deactivate the chip then install different modems for different markets, says Paul Brenner, CEO of NextRadio, a radio-tuner app for FM-enabled phones. Read why at http://ift.tt/29GiDqX