Refreshingly, iPhone apes HTC with AniWeather app
by Chris Ziegler 
posted Jan 7th 2009 @ 8:56PM
weather posts
NFL refs to carry Sprint devices on field for weather updates
by Chris Ziegler posted Sep 4th 2007 @ 12:01PM
Never mind the fact that these guys have to spend sixty-plus minutes every Sunday running up and down 100 yards of Astroturf, risking life and limb standing mere feet away from gigantic men pummeling one another for a little piece of inflated pigskin -- heading over to the sidelines to check the weather is apparently too much trouble for the men in the black and white stripes. Sprint has announced an agreement with the NFL to offer "wireless devices" of some sort to refs preloaded with a WeatherBug-driven alert app to warn them of incoming severe weather during games. You know, tornadoes and the like -- things that are liable to get a game postponed or canceled. That's cool and all, but if they get a Motorola Q9c before we do, we're gonna lose it.Verizon launches Local TV Video on V CAST
by Darren Murph posted Jun 25th 2007 @ 7:02PM
So, the Song ID application a bit too frivolous for your attention? If so, Verizon Wireless is hitting V CAST users up with a solid dose of local news, weather, and sports clips via the recently launched Local TV Video channel. Reportedly available to subscribers in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and nearly 50 markets across the country, the channel enables "select V CAST-enabled phones" (read: newer ones) to have easy access to news from local television station affiliates. Of course, we're sure you're eager to know if your handset is capable of tuning in, and moreover, if you're in a market where this is actually available, so be sure and hit the read link for the full skinny on the what's and where's.[Via mocoNews]
Cellphone towers beat radar at detecting rain, say researchers
by Evan Blass posted May 7th 2006 @ 4:00PM
Proving once again that wireless technology isn't all bad, researchers from the University of Tel Aviv have determined that cellphone towers are as good as, if not better than, traditional meteorological techniques at measuring rainfall patterns. The team took data already documented by the carriers about each tower's signal strength over time and compared it to information that had been collected by radar and rain gauges, and found that not only did the towers accurately detect the electromagnetic disturbances inherent to storms, but that the degree of change in signal strength was directly proportional to actual rainfall. While widespread utilization of this data could probably have an immediate effect on forecasting if combined with current methodology, the researchers have an even more ambitious goal of detecting signal variations from the end-user -- that is, on consumers' handsets -- for aggregation into even more precise and localized reports once weather-related changes can be teased out from among the many other signal strength variants.[Via Slashdot]
