weather

How to see hour-by-hour weather on Android

Planning a good time to visit the beach, do some yard work, or stay inside and read are all heavily dependent on one factor: the weather. Choosing that ideal time during the day can save you from either freezing, sweating or getting soaked by rain and make the overall experience more pleasant. Here are three easy steps for finding the hour-by-hour forecast on your Android device:

1. Open the News & Weather app located in your app drawer. If you can't find it, open the Clock app and press on the current temperature.

Now that you have the main … Read more

Apple, others sued over privacy (again)

Apple, along with Pandora Media and The Weather Channel, have been named in a lawsuit alleging that the companies did not disclose the fact that personal data--specifically location--was being shared with third-party advertising networks.

The suit, filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court in Puerto Rico by Lymaris Rivera Diaz and picked up by The Loop, closely resembles an existing suit from December. That one targeted the same companies as well as other app makers for being able to trace an iPhone or iPad using the unique device identifier, or UDID, which is akin to a serial number in … Read more

Finally, a working weather gauge for your iPhone home screen!

I'm pretty sure icon badges (the little red numbers that appear in the corners of some apps) have been around since iPhone Day One, and yet Apple has never seen fit to add one to its Weather app. Which is strange, seeing as that would give you a convenient at-a-glance outdoor temperature reading.

As always, third-party developers to the rescue. New weather app Fahrenheit (also available as Celsius) works a lot like the countless other weather apps currently available, but with one tiny--yet major--difference: it displays the current temperature as an icon badge.

In other words, now you can … Read more

At just $4.99, watch the weather unfold on your computer screen with YoWindow! 50% savings.

Not sure if you need your rainboots or an umbrella today? Look no further than your computer screen and YoWindow will not only tell you the temperature, but it will show you what the weather is like outside. There are a ton of desktop weather apps, but YoWindow is a different kind of a weather app that is fun and useful at the same time.

Why? Here is a quick summary of what YoWindow does:

Watch the weather unfold in your city or anywhere around the world--see if it's rainy, sunny, hailing, or snowing outside your house or on … Read more

WeatherBill insures farmers from extreme weather

WeatherBill, a company that uses high-end computing to reduce risk in agriculture, yesterday said it raised $42 million from Khosla Ventures, Google's venture arm, and existing investors.

The San Francisco-based company, founded by two former Google employees, provides insurance plans to farmers to hedge against lost income due to extreme weather.

WeatherBill has built an application that continuously analyzes reams of weather-related data from multiple sources, including short-range forecasts, seasonal effects such as El Nino, and long-term trends. The same cloud-based platform is also used to provide insurance for travelers.

Vinod Khosla, which heads a green technology venture fund … Read more

The weather looks good

Desktop weather displays aren't as old as talking about the weather, but it sometimes seems that way. There's no shortage of online weather and forecast data to pull from, so they all do the job pretty well. What's left boils down to a combination of features and appearance, mostly appearance. That's certainly the case with MobilityFlow's Animated Weather Free, a desktop widget for Windows XP, Vista, and 7. It stands out by virtue of its realistic animated weather effects, which add a nice touch to current condition displays and forecasts as well as the quick … Read more

Get artsy weather on the iPhone

As avid weather stalkers, we can confirm that most of the programs and apps we turn to for our immediate climate information tend toward stale, overly detailed interfaces crammed full of information that the majority of people aren't terribly concerned with. Don't get us wrong, we're glad sites like Wunderground exist--the granularity is great--but the design is just so Web 1.0. Enter Weather Doodle, an arty iOS app with a creative and minimalistic interface with the ability to draw in even those who scoff at reports in favor of stepping outside.

What's great about Weather … Read more

Apple sued over privacy in iPhone, iPad apps

Apple is being sued for allegedly letting mobile apps on the iPhone and iPad send personal information to ad networks without the consent of users.

Jonathan Lalo, who filed the lawsuit on Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., alleges that Apple's iPhones and iPads let ad networks track which applications people download, how often they're used, and for how long, according to a Bloomberg article published today.

Specifically, the suit alleges that the ad networks are able to trace an iPhone or iPad using the unique device identifier, or UDID, which is a number … Read more

Protecting your gizmos from the cold

Much of the country's been in a deep freeze for the last few weeks. And that can put your electronic devices in jeopardy since, odds are, you don't leave home without your mini-computers, such as iPods and smartphones. What can you do to keep them out of harm's way?

CBS' "Early Show" Consumer Correspondent Susan Koeppen offered some advice today.

Cold temperatures can run down batteries. If you're traveling, make sure you bring a car charger in case you get stranded. AAA says 1.4 million drivers will be stranded between Christmas and New Year's. Also consider carrying a spare battery with you.

Phone screens can actually become brittle in cold temperatures and shatter, so:

Avoid leaving your phone in an outside pocket or backpack, or in the car overnight. The best place to carry your phone is an inside pocket where it will be nice and warm.

You can't dial or use the touch screen with regular gloves, so consider getting special gloves for your smartphone. There are several special ones for this purpose on the market. … Read more