There’s nothing quite like being in an emergency situation and not knowing exactly which number to call. I know — I’ve been there recently, and it was terrifying and mind-opening. In a world filled with smartphones capable of holding 80 billion numbers and where any restaurant’s phone number is a Googling away, gone are the days where every house has emergency numbers on the fridge and a copy of the Yellow Pages in the pantry.
Google’s realized this (probably from the spike in searches for “OH GOD MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE”), and has taken steps to shave a few precious seconds off the emergency-number-getting process. When you search for emergency terms (like “poison control”, or “police department”) on Google from your mobile, it’ll now spit out a Click-To-Call phone number as the first result. If your handset’s browser has GPS functionality, it’ll even localize the number automatically (that’s great for if you’re traveling and don’t know the local equivalent to 911.)
Just don’t Click-to-call accidentally. As it turns out, the poison control ladies don’t like when you call just to say “Hi!”