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Google Weather Service And GMail Improvements 346

Posted by Zonk from the good-money-after-good dept.
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."
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Google Weather Service And GMail Improvements More

Google Weather Service And GMail Improvements

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  • You misunderstand Google Weather (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:23AM (#11852018)
    Google isn't forecasting the weather, they're controlling it.

  • Coverage of New Gmail Feature (Score:5, Informative)

    by sammykrupa ( 828537 ) <sam@theplaceforitall.com> on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:25AM (#11852029) Homepage Journal
    Here is a link to screenshots and coverage of the new plain-html-only-view Gmail has gotten:

    http://www.theplaceforitall.com/2005/03/report-on- gmails-basic-html-view.html [theplaceforitall.com]

    • So how come these funky SMS numbers never work on my phone? I can send SMS to other phones just fine, but these 5 digit services never work, it always says "NUMBER NOT SUPPORTED". I use MetroPCS in Miami.

      Is this a special service outside the normal SMS that providers have to opt into, or what?

      -Z

    • Poor HTML coding (Score:3, Interesting)

      by neoform ( 551705 )
      i would have thought Google would have better HTML than that.. "" i got 40 errors with the W3 Validator.

      • Re:Poor HTML coding (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ceejayoz ( 567949 ) <cj@ceejayoz.com> on Saturday March 05, 2005 @01:23PM (#11853080) Homepage Journal
        Google has never shown much interest in validating code.

        Even the Firefox Start page they host doesn't validate [w3.org].

        They probably save untold gigabytes just by not putting a doctype, type attributes, alt tags, etc.

        • Re:Poor HTML coding (Score:3, Interesting)

          by JimDabell ( 42870 )

          They probably save untold gigabytes just by not putting a doctype, type attributes, alt tags, etc.

          Doubtful; last time I looked, there were plenty of other places they could save on bandwidth easily and they don't bother. Mistakes in HTML are usually due to ignorance or apathy, not bandwidth reduction. You don't have to look very far to find a prime example :).

        • Re:Poor HTML coding (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Reziac ( 43301 ) *
          And personally, I don't give a damn if it's "valid code" or not, so long as it works in every browser.

          I just checked GMail with my *preferred* Netscape 3.04 (js and images off) and it worked great, plus was much faster -- and considerably more *readable* (the JS version has some annoying width errors that force sidescrolling in Mozilla).

          I can now recommend GMail to my visually-impaired and hardware-challenged users, with every expectation that it will work fine for them.


      • i would have thought Google would have better HTML than that.. "" i got 40 errors with the W3 Validator.

        Tip:
        when you are critisizing some sites lack of HTML validator compliance first ensure your own piss poor (validation wise i mean) site [w3.org] is actually correct!

  • Looks nice (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nefele ( 654499 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:25AM (#11852031)
    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...

    • Re:Looks nice (Score:5, Informative)

      by WhatAmIDoingHere ( 742870 ) * <sexwithanimals@gmail.com> on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:29AM (#11852043) Homepage
      Yes, use google "Convert (degrees)F to C) and it converts it.
    • Sure - open up your phones calculator, subtract 32 and multiply the results by 5/9ths.

      Or to do it on your head - subract the accerleration of gravity and take 1/2 of the result - a good quick and dirty.
      • Or to do it on your head - subract the accerleration of gravity and take 1/2 of the result - a good quick and dirty.

        (100 - 9.8) / 2 = 45, which is nowhere near my blood temperature...

      • Re:Looks nice (Score:2, Interesting)

        by rbarreira ( 836272 )
        You managed to confuse me because of units again lol. In the units used by all physics, the acceleration of gravity is 9.8, commonly rounded to 10.

        So I had to google it and concluded you were using feet/second...

        On the other hand, a bonus to you americans for having a power of 2 as g's value :)
    • 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 th

      • Re:In-line signalling can be bad (Score:4, Insightful)

        by NeoSkandranon ( 515696 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @01:34PM (#11853198)
        If you're looking for historical climate data, "weather" is about the vaguest search term you could pick. No sympathy from me (or i suspect google) if you don't get what you were looking for.

        Google, if anyone, is in a position to say "hey when people search for 'weather' and a city they often want weather reports"
    • 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...

      Why is it such an abomination? Because you're not used to it? I use metric all the time (scientist) and live in the US. The Fahrenheit scale is the only imperial scale that doesn't annoy me. The only difference between it and centigrade is 1) the zero point, and 2) the increment density. Centigrade is based on water, whic

    • Re:Looks nice (Score:5, Funny)

      by spike2131 ( 468840 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @02:26PM (#11853595) Homepage
      Not everyone in the US knows how to interpret this horrible abomination that is the Fahrenheit scale...

      What, did you skip that day in the third grade?

    • Re:Looks nice (Score:3, Funny)

      by MMMDI ( 815272 )
      0F = It's freezing cold outside. Good think you're sitting on your computer with the heater cranked up.

      50F = It's quite nice outside (though you may want to wear a light jacket), but you don't know such since you're sitting on the computer reading /..

      100F = You could fry an egg on the sidewalk. Thankfully, you're inside on the computer with the A/C cranked up.

      There, we now have a foolproof conversion chart.
  • My area is currently blue in the satellite photo... with a combo box error shaped cloud passing over me.

  • yes but it pales in comparision to NOAA (Score:5, Informative)

    by bsdpanix ( 170144 ) <bsd@panix.com> on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:28AM (#11852039) Homepage
    The National Weather Service at noaa.gov is excellent. Detailed local forecasts with NO ads.
  • 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

    • Re:so what? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Nuclear Elephant ( 700938 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:36AM (#11852080) Homepage
      I don't think that's quite true. You log into a portal and all that crap is surrounding what it is you really want to get accomplished. Google, on the other hand, is a simple and elegant interface where you only get what you ask for. If you're not looking for the weather, it's not going to clutter your screen with it. Now if only they could make my weather report accurate (it says we're having thunderstorms all day, but it's sunny and clear - typical forecast).
  • ...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.

  • Here's a cache (Score:5, Funny)

    by imag0 ( 605684 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:33AM (#11852053) Homepage
    Just in case you need it...

    Clickie! [64.233.167.104]

  • Google maps (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rbarreira ( 836272 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:34AM (#11852062) Homepage
    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...
    • Don't want to search, don't want to use bookmarks. The only thing I could think of that might satisfy you is to set it to your homepage, or you could memorize the url, and type it in manually. I must say that you have some very odd specifications. I have never found bookmarks to feel weird, just convenient. Anyway, hope one of these suggestions helps.
      ????

  • Yahoo copying Google again! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:34AM (#11852064)
    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.
    • 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.

  • Google weather: zip codes work (Score:4, Informative)

    by imag0 ( 605684 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:35AM (#11852069) Homepage
    Looks like zip codes work as well. Nice.

    Here's mine, 64119 [google.com].

  • Konqueror (Score:4, Informative)

    by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:40AM (#11852099)
    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.
    • Doesn't Safari use the same engine as Konqueror? That would explain the support--they want the default Apple browser to work, so they only have to do a little extra validation to get Konqueror listed as supported.
    • It's the second. As of right now, I know of two browsers that work with GMail and aren't officially recognized by it, Konqueror 3.4 and Opera 8 -- neither have final versions released yet* (Konq's coming in a week or two, Opera WIR as usual), which is most likely why. This can be rather troublesome, however, when GMail forces you to the basic HTML view because of it. You can override this by using gmail.google.com/gmail?nocheckbrowser, but I had to look in their newgroup thingy to find this, they could at l

  • lazy cuss that I am... (Score:3, Funny)

    by jpellino ( 202698 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:42AM (#11852106)
    I just sent a suggestion that they make "wx" interchangeable with "weather" as in "wx 02134" or "wx boston, ma"

  • Is it just me... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Chess_the_cat ( 653159 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:46AM (#11852132) Homepage
    ...or is Google becoming a jack-of-all-trades and master of none? Remember when Google focused on their search engine? Yeah, me neither.
    • 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.
      • *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.*

        really? you'd think they need a bit more than that for gmail(and groups too.. and picasa.. and....).
        • Not really. The biggest benefit of Gmail is the ability to search, not organize. Same with Groups.

          And Picasa indexes your photos.

          All Google projects tend to make it more practical to search than to organize.
    • becoming a jack-of-all-trades and master of none?

      Yup, ignorance is a bliss, unless it is blushingly embarassing.

      What I would like to see from Google is maybe a dictionary or an encyclopedia or something like that. They can search, they do, so let them rule everything that is search-related. Good ideas, good service and speed. Yup, we need that.

    • In my estimatino, they are becoming a jack of all trades, and a master of all trades. Every time they come out with a new feature, it kicks ass. Their old features continue to kick ass.

      May I ask which search engine you use? I'd like to try it out.
    • "Remember when Google focused on their search engine?"
      Yeah. They just had a major update, which basically got rid of most spam results when searching for stuff. Try searching for graphics cards. You used to get lots of "buy from..." links. Now, the results show actual reviews and useful information.

      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?

  • 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.

  • New features and the final frontier (Score:4, Interesting)

    by saitoh ( 589746 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:54AM (#11852171) Homepage
    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.

  • Why can't they add it to my home Google? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Drunken_Jackass ( 325938 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:57AM (#11852183) Homepage
    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.
    • No no no no no.

      One of the reason google has stomped all over the competition is they keep their interfaces simple. Adding that stuff would multiply the size of the front page. Furthermore if you really wanted that feature, it would be pretty simple to hack up some php that use the google apis or just scrape the relevant pages for the data and format it however you want.

  • For Firefox users... (Score:4, Informative)

    by rbarreira ( 836272 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:58AM (#11852187) Homepage
    This is quite cool, but I still prefer the ForecastFox extension [mozdev.org] for now.

  • Not only SMS (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Hobo ( 783784 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:59AM (#11852193)
    You can also use a web browser and send your queries to google by visiting them at http://466453.com/ [466453.com]

    (GOOGLE on the telephone)

  • Is it just me... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by webcrawler ( 765242 )
    ... 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.
    • If I understood correctly, this particular feature has been offered ever since Picasa 2 came out.

      You understand correctly. The GMail (and Blogger, and Hello) integration was introduced w/ Picasa 2, and that's been out for months.

  • 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.
  • It's uncanny. It's like google can read all of our minds and somehow, by some magical insight beyond merely mortal, knows what we want... it's like they have some sort of vast complex engine that we can only just barely begin to imagine which is able to tell them everything before anyone else. It's astonishing, unsettling, and and inexplicable... unless... no, it can't be. But what other explanation could there be?

    Is God working for google now?

  • Gmail beta forever (Score:4, Interesting)

    by teslatug ( 543527 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @11:06AM (#11852222)
    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.
    • it's the "exclusive" "can't come" "insiders only" marketing scheme.
    • Google now provides financial information*, weather, news*, mail, product reviews*, movie reviews*, photo-hosting services, maps, directions, instant messaging, and discussion groups. They are rumored to be planning tons of new services, based on highly coagular reports from numerous blogs.

      I hear they're trying a new home page design. It's in beta now. You can find it here [yahoo.com].

      * By "provides" I mean "links to others' content about."

  • Google: GUI vs CLI (Score:5, Insightful)

    by malarkey ( 514857 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @11:10AM (#11852253)
    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.

  • Who cares? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by shawn.fox ( 461873 )
    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.
  • 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 GMa
    • Did it ocurr to you that Google has been public since it made invites available? It's a brilliant scheme to offer invites mainly via referrals. This allows Google to build a huge "degree of separation" database between people and use it for data mining. When Google knows who your friends are, and who their friends are, this becomes an extremely powerful markting and research tool.

  • Gmail's forced "basic HTML view" - and a solution (Score:5, Informative)

    by WIAKywbfatw ( 307557 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @11:33AM (#11852375) Journal
    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 [google.com], 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 [google.com]. I don't use any of those browsers but I'm fairly sure that the same workaround will work for them too.

    • Unfortunately, the new browser detection code they are now using seems to have been put together in a rather sloppy manner

      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.

  • 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 [googleadvisor.org]
  • 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...

  • How revolutionary! (Score:3, Funny)

    by duffbeer703 ( 177751 ) * on Saturday March 05, 2005 @03:02PM (#11853881)
    Prodigy did this back in like 1989. Google rocks

    Next Google will rollout the next revolution: "keywords"

  • Gmail lost all of my January email (Score:3, Interesting)

    by freelunch ( 258011 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @05:46PM (#11854850)
    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.

  • Works with Lynx!! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cytoman ( 792326 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @06:12PM (#11855009)
    Nobody seems to have noticed this... gmail now works with text-only browsers like Lynx ! :-).
    Now, that is COOL!

    Neither Yahoo nor Hotmail have this feature!

  • Beating spam the Gmail way (Score:4, Interesting)

    by NaDrew ( 561847 ) <nadrew@gmail.com> on Monday March 07, 2005 @04:46AM (#11863718) Journal
    I guess this is as good a thread as any to post about how I'm beating spam in my personal inbox using Gmail's powerful filtering, without changing my email address.

    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.
    1. Create a new Gmail account, using an invitation from one of my existing accounts.
    2. 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
    3. 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.
    4. Configure your email client (Here [seo4india.com] 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.

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