An Emergency Broadcast System for the new era

"This is a test. For the next sixty seconds, this station will conduct a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. This is only a test."

[ATTENTION TONE]

"This has been a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. The broadcasters of your area in voluntary cooperation with the FCC and other authorities have developed this system to keep you informed in the event of an emergency.

"If this had been an actual emergency, you would have been instructed where to tune in your area for news and official information".

"This concludes this test of the Emergency Broadcast System."

If you're a child of the sixties, seventies, or eighties, chances are you grew up hearing those announcements on radio and television.

Well, now the Emergency Broadcast System (which was retired in the 90s and replaced with the Emergency Alert System) is going high-tech; the Feds are developing and testing a system that will allow them to send SMS text messages to all cell phones, and to broadcast emergency messages to all computers on the Internet (it'll be interesting to see how they implement that last one.)

Internet-linked computers will automatically switch on to a video message from the US Department of Homeland Security while downloading instructions prepared specifically from natural disasters, chemical and nuclear attacks, and other calamities.

US unveils emergency alert system for mobile phones, computers