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Google Weather Service And GMail Improvements
Philipp Lenssen writes "Google has added US-only weather forecasts to their web search. Type e.g. "weather palo alto, ca" (zip codes work too) and you get a small illustrated weather forecast on top of the search result. (Yahoo has been providing a similar service for quite a while.) You can also send your query as SMS to 46645 (GOOGL), as the official Google blog reports." Relatedly, Shachaf writes "Looking at my GMail account, I see that Google has added two new features: integration with Picasa and plain HTML support. Now you can 'Log in to Gmail directly from Picasa and send the photos from your Gmail account', and view your email from any web-browser."
Google isn't forecasting the weather, they're controlling it.
http://www.theplaceforitall.com/2005/03/report-on- gmails-basic-html-view.html
Dashboard Widgets
But does anyone know how to make it display the temperature in Celsius degrees? Not everyone in the US knows how to interpret this horrible abomination that is the Fahrenheit scale...
My area is currently blue in the satellite photo... with a combo box error shaped cloud passing over me.
http://www.sandstorming.com
I just found out about the new Gmail features yesterday, have'nt tried them yet, but they seem like nice features. Remember to check out the link below for more news.
Bits of News Giving you the latest bits.
The National Weather Service at noaa.gov is excellent. Detailed local forecasts with NO ads.
Does this mean the command line is making a big come back?
I mean, those retro Windows and Apple fans would be clicking on a spinning a globe and zooming into to a graphics presentation of "rain early, clearing later".
haven't seen the interface for *months*. Try Thunderbird or Evolution (hell, mutt too) with gmail's pop/smtp service (secure as well if you like). Enjoy the mail interface you wish :)
Not living in the US, all these wonderful google features are toally useless, woo google map of... the US, weather information for... the US.
Meanwhile MSN are putting on TV adverts here for there new search engine.
it's just becoming an other portal
...it you could log into GMail without being logged into to Google.... and if only the introduced folders and got of their weird no folder notion.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Just in case you need it...
Clickie!
... for the Fahrenheit scale because it is a German invention. If you're going to blame the U.S. for something, blame them for being idiots for not adopting the Metric system.
This should be even more interesting when they integrate it with Google Maps :)
Am I the only one who dislikes having to do a search to get some information? Of course it can be bookmarked but it just feels a little weird. Maybe it's just a matter of habit...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Yahoo has been providing a similar service for quite a while.)
Here we go again, Google innovating and everybody else copying them and claiming to be innovative. As usual.
It would be useful if Google had an option to log into gmail with a non-encrypted connection - a lot of email devices are left out in the cold by gmail including most POP3-capable mobile phones.
That said,I can see why their present system is advantageous in terms of security. If they did it it would have to be an option "allow insecure POP3 on this account" rather than default behaviour.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Looks like zip codes work as well. Nice.
Here's mine, 64119.
I love you Google.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
...does it work for the US, it also works for selected cities in the Socialist Peoples' Republic of Canada.
As Dave Letterman might say: pray your city has been selected!
I am happy that Gmail/Google have listened and added support for the Konqueror. Or, is it that the KDE programmers have added support for Gmail? I say this because I am now using KDE's latest Konqueror release candidate (3.4rc1) which works on Gmail just like other browsers do. Any Slashdotter sees this as positive I know.
I just sent a suggestion that they make "wx" interchangeable with "weather" as in "wx 02134" or "wx boston, ma"
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I don't like the method of well-meaning interference with a search. When you enter "weather east podunk, NY" they first give you the current weather - with very little knowledge that this is what you are looking for. It's just as likely you are looking for historical climate data, or your friend Karl Weather living in Podunk. This clutters up search results, and adds another kind of meaning to the search words. It has all the disadvantages of in-band signalling, and the signalling isn't even defined for the user.
What keeps me going is my inertia.
...or is Google becoming a jack-of-all-trades and master of none? Remember when Google focused on their search engine? Yeah, me neither.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
I realize that the weather feature was just announced, but I think Google should be smart enough to give weather for the query " weather in palo alto, ca " but it doesn't- only if there are no extraneous words.
Name me one benefit of the Fahrenheit scale.
One thing I submitted a while ago was the ability to import your POP3 box (say from Outlook, or Apple Mail), thus make that transition to webmail and still have all your stuff which seems to be a real focus for google.
It seems that nobody really has solved the email transferal problem have they? (please correct me if I'm wrong) And while I'm biased, it would be an interesting marketing ploy for those who wanted to switch, one that Apple has used with Apple Mail.
We don't need an "overrated" so much as we need a "you completely missed the parent's point, dumbass..."
technically just because everyone is supposed to speak english in the united states doesnt mean they have to. congress never signed into law that English is the official language. oops!
but i also agree it should display both F/C. Sooner or later, if you like it or not, the US will be metric country as well.
...Opera 8.0, which actually supported all those fancy dongles is also downgraded to the htmlview... thing. It`s possible to get around it by using ``gmail.google.com/gmail/?nocheckbrowser", but it`s still rather annoying. Hope they get around fixing it. Arf, arf.
That's what i'd like to see. Your default google.com page would display your weather, and a check box for a local.google search. I mean you can save your location preference in local.google already. And how hard would a link to gmail be? And news? Why not display the top headline for categories that you choose? Why not put everything you want together? Put some settings in our preferences, and call it what it's becoming - a Portal.
Then again, i don't consider google a "portal". Wired just had an article about google vs. Yahoo!. It's quite an interesting read.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
This is quite cool, but I still prefer the ForecastFox extension for now.
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
You can also use a web browser and send your queries to google by visiting them at http://466453.com/
(GOOGLE on the telephone)
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
... or am I the only one who's been logging into gmail through Picasa and sending pics? If I understood correctly, this particular feature has been offered ever since Picasa 2 came out.
I also noticed with the enahancements that I have like 50 invites. So, for $DIETY's sake, if you want a GMail account, shoot me an email at my username at gmail dot com. I'll send them out this evening.
Random Musings
Is God working for google now?
When is Google going to "release" Gmail to the public? I know that for all intents and purposes anyone that wants to can get an account, but I won't consider it open until I see a link on their homepage. It's not like they couldn't have a beta and a released Gmail.
On an aside, I have a feeling that they will have to redesign their homepage soon as it's starting to get crowded.
Google's competency is searching and effective indexing.
Google maps, Google suggest, Google local, Google movies, Gmail, Google weather - all of that is just searching their indexes and getting results in a more customized template.
Google hasn't strayed so far from their original aim. Remember they said they wanted to index the entire internet? Well, they are.
It's interesting that Google is taking the CLI approach, which gives a lot of functionality without adding clutter to the interface.
Slashdot users, as a whole, might be more comfortable with that approach than the GUI approach, like Yahoo.
At what point does Google make a Yahoo-style frontend for the "newbie" users, just as an option, of course.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't learn English before coming here. If you don't, you won't be able to communicate with an overwhelming majority of people here.
Seriously, this isn't a troll. Why are such trivial features of google search such a big deal that they make the front page of slashdot? The poster even points out that Yahoo! already has this feature.
OMG it even works with links Links should be the new compatability standard.
I've just noticed something interesting. I'm at a public computer and was browsing google when all of a sudden some text appeared below the searchbox asking me if I'd like a GMail account. When I clicked it, it brought me to a page which mentioned that google was expanding their GMail services and was offering accounts to a "random percentage" of their visitors. Between this and my neverending supply of invites (50 now, 50 before, 50 forever!) I'm starting to think that Google might be going public with GMail pretty soon. Thoughts?
PS: Is this a new feature too?
My Systems
You forgot another unique thing about the U.S. government: They will bomb any country you want. Just send a request to U.S. Army. They've been looking for some serious action. They would prefer to bomb a developed country, the food is better. It's really a drag going to places like Afghanistan and Iraq and Vietnam and Cambodia and Somalia. Also, requests to bomb a country with deep water ports are especially respected, because the U.S. Navy wants action, too.
Google's latest changes to Gmail include the introduction of a "basic HTML view" for people who's browsers cannot display the default view properly. This includes MSIE 4.0+ (pre 5.5), Netscape 4.07+ (pre 7.1), and Opera 6.03+, which previously couldn't be used to access Gmail.
Unfortunately, the new browser detection code they are now using seems to have been put together in a rather sloppy manner, which means (amongst others) Opera 8.0 users are forced to this "basic HTML view" when the fully-featured default view works perfectly well with that version of Opera. (Indeed, one of the many new features of Opera 8.0 is XMLHttpRequest support, which allows Gmail to work in full.)
Any Opera 8.0 user who logs into Gmail as usual will no longer be able to do some basic things, including create filters, amend their settings, check spelling, access keyboard shortcuts and autocomplete addresses. Fortunately, there is a workaround, which is to use the URL http://gmail.google.com/gmail?nocheckbrowser, which solves the issue.
This issue doesn't only affect Opera 8.0 users: users of MSIE 6.x, Camino and other browsers have reported the same problem on the relevant Google group. I don't use any of those browsers but I'm fairly sure that the same workaround will work for them too.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
No we won't. It's not that there's anything wrong with metric, it's just that Carter tried to do it. If a useful president had tried, we'd be done by now.
While looking through all of the recent services Google has added, it occured to me that they really haven't come up with anything original - I mean, all these new services, weather included, have already been nearly mastered by Yahoo! It almost seems like Google is playing catch-up with Yahoo!. The question is, are they taking away resources from their foundamental goal of building a simple, powerful search engine, in order to create these fairly unnecessary additions? Google Advisor
I noticed the other day that they have also integrated Google Maps in this way.
:o)
search times square, nyc, ny
Its a mixture of Google Local and Google Maps.
Very nice !!
i would have thought Google would have better HTML than that.. "" i got 40 errors with the W3 Validator.
MABASPLOOM!
You get different results by searching for "weather 99503" & "weather 99517", two ZIP codes that are side-by-side to eachother in the real world, yet the forcast for 99503 for the next two days is overcast & sunny while 99517 is snowing.
I wonder where they pull their data from...
We need more companies/devices to use security no matter what. Far too many have been insecure in the name of convience. MS is by far the worse (that and their incompetience), but many groups and companies have contributed to it. KDE recently allowed the wallet to not have passwords.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Canada has been the closest friend that USA has had except possible Britain. They object to the lunatic desicions of one of America's most fasicists leaders, and suddenly Canada is Red?
Actually, we're already a metric country in any way that matters. Does miles per hour on a highway sign or measuring a recipe in cups and tablespoons really matter all that much. HELL NO!. What matters is machine tools, and they've been converting over for quite a while now. What matters is that a transmission manufactured in Detroit can be mated to an engine block manufactured in Japan.
I tried looking up the weather for Niagara, since I'm leaving for there monday, no dice.
There is a google section.
Go to preferences. Click it away if you don't want to see it. Just like everything else, and just like you've done with BSD, because BSD is dead.
That is all.
You may like Opera's built in e-mail client "M2", then. Gmail was actually modeled after the way M2 works. Gmail is kind of the web equivalent of M2 in a way.
Clever signature text goes here.
Brilliant, you've made my day. Thanks a bunch!
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
So yeah, I remember when Google focused on their search engine. My short term memory isn't that bad.
I guess your short term memory is terrible, then?
Clever signature text goes here.
You haven't been listening to the European propaganda enough. Your data is a lie from the Bush Administration, and until we use metric for EVERYTHING, we are evil scum that needs to be purged from the Earth. (sarcasm, in case you're seeing this mrak and swepe)
Unfortunately their weather service is far from complete. It does not work for my town, any neighboring towns, nor the previous town I lived in or any of it's neighboring towns. I tried with both zip codes and "town, state". It looks like it's only large towns and cities so far.
Even kweather can check weather from the nearest "report location", in the next town over.
NOAA is the center of virtually all forcasting information. With a simple save of your locality's home page, you've got the forecast that everyone else (including Google) uses.
In an attempt to everything, some things will be better left undone.
befuddled (noun) 1. Unable to create a pithy sig
Seriously. It looks like iPhoto for the PC. Useful editing tools that will do anything my wife or I will need with an attractive interface. Oh, yeah; it's free too. Wow.
I put in my zipcode and it gave me the weather for the wrong town. It's not even a town that is next to mine, but the next incremental number. Bad Gooogle.
Well, I tried it for "weather windsor on" and it worked, but it displays the temperatures in fahrenheit. I can't seem to figure out how to make it display in celsius. Of course you can use google to say "36 degrees fahrenheit in celsius" and it tells you, but you think there'd be a way to switch to SI units or something.
Cool though.
I don't like the HTML version, there's a lot of layout problems and they disabled too many things.
All I want is a version with all the functions intact but with working Back/Forward buttons and ability to middle click a thread to rapid open into new tabs.
It pisses off the Europeans
They shouldn't be detecting the browser at all. It's fragile, it breaks with unusual browsers, and you have to keep updating the detection routines whenever a new browser comes out. It's Javascript straight out of the 1990s.
The proper way of doing it is to detect objects not browsers. If you need XMLHttpRequest, first check to see if XMLHttpRequest is defined. If so, use it. If not, try instantiating it the Microsoft way. If you get the object, use it. Otherwise, give the user the fallback plain HTML version. You don't need to worry about which browser is being used, so long as it supports the APIs you use, and new browsers, or browsers that you haven't heard of, work automatically without you having to alter your code to accommodate them.
Found it to be be better - seems to use various sources for its information.
Link: eLook.org Weather
No more "back button, click new message, back button, click new message, etc." for me!
Now if only Gmail would let you check other POP accounts, I would be in heaven!
Open Source Sushi
Weather Underground isn't bad. And their HTML isn't hard to parse for my MS Agent talking page reader.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
This is just one of Googles famous "20% projects". Google develepors can spend 20% of their time on self-assigned special projects (I think it might even be a requirement) and this would appear to be Ben Sigelman's. If you can find his email, send him a feature request.
Still can't get to gmail from my 7510, so its not too "plain text".
The company has something like doubled in size in the past year and raised zillions of dollars. There's no reason to think they're cutting the people and money devoted to search just because they're doing more stuff with the added resources.
Mod parent up... If enough FP attempts fail so miserably (and so humorously) maybe people will stop trying to make 'em... (Yes, in case you noticed, I learned my lesson too, on a later article.)
Prodigy did this back in like 1989. Google rocks
Next Google will rollout the next revolution: "keywords"
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
You misunderstand. I am not as dumb as I look, (even though it's called in-band, not in-line signalling), and I am not looking for sympathy, not from NeoSkandranon nor from google. I am simply saying that the query is interpreted partly as a keyword ("weather"), and partly as data ("east podunk"). This however is not know a-priori to the user. This makes it harder to construct queries. I would prefer to specify myself what is a keyword, or syntax, and what is plain uninterpreted data. And no, google is not in a position to tell me what I am looking for. I can think about that myself, thank you. Actually, I suspect that google is using the same technique here as for their advertisements. All that is missing is the identification of their weather service.
What keeps me going is my inertia.
I passed this feedback on the Gmail team. Thanks for mentioning this.
Interesting... I just tried your workaround link in NS3 (no js) and wound up at the plain HTML page (which is the one *I* want :) If you get that page and don't want it, following the preferences link might put you back on the js model, since it complains that setting preferences requires a js-enabled browser. Just a thought.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Previously, GMail complained about my use of Opera on the Zaurus (the only browser you can really use on the 6000L for now), and wouldn't let me login.
:) Still can't change my settings though - they require a "more-supported" browser for that to view GMail in "standard mode", but at least email-checking works.
Now I can check my email there.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
I logged in on January 30 to find that all of my inbox mail for the month of January was gone. It wasn't in my trashcan, etc.
I exchanged emails at a Very slow rate with gmail staff. Mostly just responding to their form letters and taking whatever action they requested.
Not until nearly a month later, on Feb 24, did I receive the following pathetic response:
Hello,
Thank you for your reply.
We have completed a thorough investigation of your Gmail account, and can
confirm that a technical problem did not cause the behavior you reported.
We apologize for any inconvenience you might have experienced.
Sincerely,
The Gmail Team
I have never lost email on Yahoo or Hotmail.
The good news? I have 100 gmail invites.
This was the first browser I thought about checking in. Here you can see, Gmail running in Netscape 4.7.
Now, that is COOL!
Neither Yahoo nor Hotmail have this feature!
fahrenheit -> rankine
I think you misread my post. The workaround is designed to provide the fully-functional version of Gmail to users whose browsers support it but for whom the "basic HTML view" version of the service is appearing.
As Netscape 3 isn't capable of displaying the fully-functional version of Gmail, it's obvious that the workaround URL that I mentioned isn't going to help you or any other Netscape 3 user to access that version.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
If you're referring to 9/11, your number is off by 2000.
A small SMS search company out of the Bay Area, 4Info.net, has been providing weather over text messaging since 2004. Their service seems to be more powerful, with fewer syntax restrictions and better response times. They also offer more services that Google, including flight status, sports scores, local directory, and stock quotes.
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000640033887/
http://www.openwebmail.org
inconceivable!
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000640033887/
and check this out. For windows XP users only last I saw.
You can transfer files to and fro. Only I think 10 megs max, but still, it's pretty neat.
Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
Two things caused me to think this:
1) Your inbox is full... a full 1GB account!
2) You have a copy of Netscape 4.7 for MacOS laying around.
Good luck with the ladies, you'll need it.
http://www.fsckin.com/
Oh no, I understood -- I just found it interesting that the workaround still falls back to the plain HTML version if it encounters a non-JS browser.
:)
I *want* the plain-HTML version, so I was happy
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
As USUAL, this doesn't apply to Alaska. Dosent surprise me seeing that most americans think that Alaska isn't part of the US, much less part of the same continent.
(of note there was a big lawsuit against lower48 retailers who used to say free shipping (or similar) on the continent, but then refused Alaska)
Party at O'zorgnax's Pub! Buy me a Slurmtini aye?
Konqueror was affected by this too. Used to work fine a few days ago.
2 Things: 1) You might need to clear your cache for this to work (I had to) 2) Some users over on the Opera forums couldn't get this to work even with the cache cleared. In that case, useing the same link but with https seems to do the trick
Gmail now offers every member 50 invites. Millions of users and the power of a single spam database have made Gmail's spam filter one of the best. Gmail also offers POP3/SMTP access to the service. Combined, these provide a perfect method to utilize Gmail's powerful spam filtering on my primary email address--without the trouble and fuss of actually changing addresses. Here's how I did it.
- Create a new Gmail account, using an invitation from one of my existing accounts.
- In the "Forwarding and POP" tab of the "Settings" section, set the following:
- Disable forwarding (default)
- Enable POP for all mail
- When messages are accessed with POP, archive Gmail's copy
- Redirect your primary email account to your new Gmail account. Note that this usually requires administrative access to your mail server, or a friendly mail administrator.
- Configure your email client (Here are settings for Opera's M2 mail client).
Note that I am using my existing SMTP settings, and am only using Gmail for POP3.
Now mail coming in to your primary account is automatically bounced to your Gmail account, where the Gmail spam filters are applied. Then your mail client downloads your mail from Gmail to your local inbox, just like normal. Since you didn't change your outbound settings, replies and new mail are not affected.I set this up a couple of weeks ago and so far Gmail has filtered almost every spam message I would have received. That's spam I didn't download!
You'll want to log in to the new Gmail account once a week or once a month to check the spam folder. This is just to check for false positives--"good" messages which may have been filtered as spam. It won't happen often but it's worth checking once in a while to make sure.
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE