12 ms·

Los Angeles Accuses Weather Channel App of Covertly Mining User Data

235 points by lnguyen 8y ago

freefal 8y ago
It's crazy the people download these ad-laden apps to simply get a weather forecast. https://mobile.weather.gov https://mobile.weather.gov is really nice lightweight website with no ads.
- wnevets 8y ago
  but the icons aren't as pretty
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    You're being sarcastic (I think), but the first thing I thought of when I looked at this site was "This could never be my go-to weather source, those icons are much too ugly."
    - wnevets 8y ago
      more facetious than sarcastic. A lot of people care about the icons
      - ascagnel_ 8y ago
        An API is available, so you could theoretically write your own app to consume the API and style it as you wish.
- unholythree 8y ago
  Funny you mention it, forecast.weather.gov is now the first link on my phone browser's start page. I made the switch after the wunderground app started refusing to update and otherwise glitched out constantly. The only downside is I have to actively think check the weather in the morning rather than just have it presented.
  - dawnerd 8y ago
    It sucks how badly wunderground has gotten. I run my own weather station and it only syncs to WU. Almost tempted to intercept the api calls and store the data locally...
    - Ice_cream_suit 8y ago
      Weather Underground is yet another IBM company. So is Weather Channel. "On October 28, 2015 IBM officially announced an agreement to acquire The Weather Company’s business-to-business, mobile and cloud-based web properties, including Weather Underground, WSI, weather.com, and also the Weather Company brand." IBM buys firms and then proceeds to eviscerate them. Value destruction is their strong suit.
      - mistrial9 8y ago
        I suspect that a company the size of IBM can do positive things, too.. so, lets not curse the situation, eh?
        bleriot 8y ago
        Well, as a patent troll and supplier to the Nazis, their positives would have to be pretty big to outweigh their negatives.
      - jrnichols 8y ago
        "Storm" used to be a GREAT weather app, until they basically just ruined it and then forced people over to the Wunderground app. Which is also pretty bad.
- computerex 8y ago
  Right, when I just ask Google what the weather is like.
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  Do they have an API? I'm surprised more apps don't plug into this. Most watch-faces on my Pebble required me to get a personal Weather Underground API key (and now have stopped working). :(
  - baroffoos 8y ago
    From what I understand pretty much all countries have a government run weather service and they all have an API. The problem is they are all different organizations that have different APIs so all the weather api services do is combine every single one of the apis in to one that only requires one api key.
    - flukus 8y ago
      I've found apps that use these global API's are inferior to local apps connecting directly to local API's, the data is a lot more current, more accurate and includes a lot of features like radar images. Not sure if it's an issue with some countries missing a lot of data that mine (Aus) offer or it's missing for some other reason. Phone OEM's always have to include a crappy global one for some reason.
      - baroffoos 8y ago
        Well that tends to be the case that generic interfaces to multiple APIs only provide the features that everyone provides.
  - niij 8y ago
    Yes NWS has an API with quite a lot of data in XML format. Weather Underground api was supposed to shut off on December 31, but has been extended to Feb 15th of this year. Good riddance, it was very flaky, would return occasional bad data, and all around a bad experience.
  - _trampeltier 8y ago
    Meteo API for Switzerland: https://opendata.swiss/de/organization/bundesamt-fur-meteorologie-und-klimatologie-meteoschweiz https://opendata.swiss/de/organization/bundesamt-fur-meteoro...
- sbr464 8y ago
  Thanks for sharing.
- tptacek 8y ago
  A pretty heft chunk of Michael Lewis's mini-book on corruption in the Trump administration centered on Accuweather's role at NOAA, and how companies like Accuweather do little more than repackage data generated by the federal government and pretend to be gatekeepers for it. Supposedly, companies like Accuweather have been working for years to eliminate government weather services that are readily usable by consumers.
  - metaphor 8y ago
    In support of the parent's remark, I highly recommend everyone read this excellent Bloomberg article[1] from last year which elaborates on the finer points. It surely made my blood boil at first blush. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-14/trump-s-pick-to-lead-weather-agency-spent-30-years-fighting-it https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-14/trump-s-p...
    - floatingatoll 8y ago
      Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15464755 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15464755
  - pnathan 8y ago
    Talking to people who had worked at higher levels of the weather world in government and academia, this is a generally common view of that kind of company.
  - tk75x 8y ago
    Companies like Intuit have been working for years to prevent the government from having easy to use tax filing services. What else is new?
- metaphor 8y ago
  Not entire crazy given popular perception of mobile as being an app-driven platform. And not at all coincidental given former CEO of AccuWeather Barry Myer's direct involvement in crafting policy which prohibits NOAA from developing mobile apps[1]: In 2008, AccuWeather named Conrad Lautenbacher, a recently departed NOAA administrator appointed by President George W. Bush, to its board. Myers was soon appointed to a NOAA working group that gave him a role in shaping policy. He helped fashion one in 2012 that restricted the organization’s ability to develop mobile apps for the public. This is the same guy nominated by the Trump adminstration and currently awaiting Senate confirmation as the head honcho of NOAA. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-14/trump-s-pick-to-lead-weather-agency-spent-30-years-fighting-it https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-14/trump-s-p...
- firebones 8y ago
  I love this 3-day graph the best: https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=<your https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=<your latitude goes here>&lon=-<your longitude goes here>&unit=0&lg=english&FcstType=graphical is my favorite. Just substitute your XX.XXXX latitude and your YY.YYYY longitude (negative from 0 if you're in the US) for the <> and their contents as variables. There's also a tabular form of this. Very dense in terms of hourly forecasts. I tend to plug in various lat/long changes to figure out when a storm is going to blow into the kid's sporting event clear across town. Each degree of latitude or longitude is 68.3 miles, so you can usually just adjust the URL to get a pinpoint forecast...which is useful in metro areas where you might be traveling 40-45 miles to an event.
  - plopz 8y ago
    > Each degree of latitude or longitude is 68.3 miles That's only for latitude, longitude depends on latitude, so lon = cosine(lat) * 69.172
- ergothus 8y ago
  I am clearly a minority (based on incidents ranging from this, to how weather bug was the first killer app of the web, or how my grandfathers tv was permanently on the weather channel), but I've never understood the attraction of weather info. I mean, the forecast isn't accurate far enough in advance to make most plans, and the weather today is usually obvious from any window, at least as far as I can actually use the info (which is how warmly to dress), but realistically I never pay attention and just dress for the season and it never seems like the difference day-to-day matters. I definitely value forecasting hurricanes/blizzards/tornadoes, but that doesnt seem to be the general attraction.
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    > I mean, the forecast isn't accurate far enough in advance to make most plans. This isn't the case for me in NYC. Anything within the next two days is fairly accurate. I use the day's temperature info to decide what to wear in the morning. I use the UV index to decide if I need sunscreen. And while I don't use umbrella's, I know coworkers use the weather to decide if they should bring an umbrella.
    - ergothus 8y ago
      > Anything within the next two days is fairly accurate. Plans that involve the outdoors rarely involve only two days notice for me - plans are either spontaneous or in more than a week. Then again, my plans rarely involve the outdoors. > UV index to decide if I need sunscreen My skin tone is known as "fish belly", so I always need sunblock, but unless I'm planning to be outside at length (which I largely dont do) I dont really do so. > decide what to wear in the morning I may be odd, but my day to day wear doesn't really vary other than by season. When I lived in Pennsylvania and Virginia the weather changed dramatically enough over the day that dressing lighter or warmer was an invitation for problems. Now that I'm in Seattle, the weather is fairly consistent over the day, but I've never found myself wishing I had known the forecast when I dressed. > I don't use umbrella's Mostly the same, particularly here in Seattle. Before, if it was raining hard the need was obvious, and if it wasn't I didn't want to carry around something is just lose before I needed it. I'm not trying to poop on your feedback (really!), it's just these are largely the arguments I've heard that dont seem to apply to me. Do people really spend that much more time outside than I do? Am I some sort of sky-avoiding freak?
- kevin_b_er 8y ago
  If you like it, do understand the Republican Party just last year nominated and voted in Berry Myers, the co-owner of AccuWeather, who spent years trying to prevent the NWS from publishing forecasts to you and the rest of the public, to head the agency in change of the NWS. Your favored website may soon enough be taken down in order to enrich the Myers family, but it will be packaged as reducing costs or not "competing with industry" aka AccuWeather.
  - red_phone 8y ago
    If it gets taken down, he'll probably be able to find another one.
    - abootstrapper 8y ago
      Accuweather perhaps?
  - vvanders 8y ago
    Damn, I had no idea that happened. Stuff like this and the shenanigans at the FCC w/ Net Neutrality really makes me rethink the concept of these types appointments not having more public involvement.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - drited 8y ago
      There's a great Audible original piece on this topic written by Michael Lewis called 'The coming storm':
- H1Supreme 8y ago
  OMG, they have a mobile version?! Man, I've been using the regular one and just pinching and zooming everywhere to find things. But, honestly, I love weather.gov. The local forecast (at least for the Pittsburgh area) is plain text, easy to understand (if you read the definitions), and updated multiple times per day. Plus, it has in depth forecasting for rain/snow/etc. I stopped using weather.com because it would routinely crash my mobile browser. I suspect because it ran out of memory.
- subraizada3 8y ago
  I really like the NWS's hourly forecast charts, and use those as my primary weather source. You can see an example here (scroll right if on mobile): https://subraizada.com/weather/kmdw https://subraizada.com/weather/kmdw (A previous version used to show the normal weather forecast in an iframe to the left of the charts, too) It's just a single HTML page, I've put a script to make them over here: https://bitbucket.org/subraizada3/weather-generator/src https://bitbucket.org/subraizada3/weather-generator/src
- briandear 8y ago
  The damned weather app in iOS is pretty useful too.
jtl999 8y ago
I miss Weather Underground before they got acquired. :(
- fourthark 8y ago
  Presumably it has the same policy because it's also owned by IBM. I wondered why they wanted it...
  - dawnerd 8y ago
    I used to think it was all the weather station data points but that became clear it wasn’t a priority considering how much their apis error out and how slow they are to fix. I think we just got our answer though.
- ams6110 8y ago
  I like dark sky. https://darksky.net https://darksky.net They have an app also but I just use the website.
  - konschubert 8y ago
    It can’t be downloaded on iOS in Germany it seems.
    - awiesenhofer 8y ago
      You get all the features on their website too. I found a simple homescreen-link perfectly enough for my weather needs.
  - jtl999 8y ago
    Not as good as a layout as WU was, but I'll take it :)
- bleriot 8y ago
  They also took down a great little website they bought called Weatherbonk and never ended up using the site’s best features. I wonder if they were just buying up competition.
walterbell 8y ago
The default weather app on Apple iPhones is IBM's Weather Channel, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207492 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207492 > The weather data used in the Weather app comes from The Weather Channel. If you have issues getting accurate weather information, tap the icon in the lower-left corner to go directly to the weather source. If you have an iPhone and are in the US, a home screen shortcut to mobile.weather.gov is much safer. Avoid putting the site in web browser new tab Favorites, which will be pinged by Safari even if you don't visit the site. This can be seen with Charles Proxy.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  Does the stock iOS app forward to IBM the same data the Weather Channel app does?
  - floatingatoll 8y ago
    In current location mode, Apple's Weather.app transmits over HTTPS latitude/longitude twice, once for general weather and once for air quality, both in the GET url. No other information about you or your device is provided anywhere in the request url or headers. No other requests were made to api.weather.com during "check the weather" testing. ://api.weather.com/v1/geocode/... ://api.weather.com/v2/globalairquality?...
    - walterbell 8y ago
      Since IBM has IP address of the request, they can map this to WiFi locations via geolocation. If IBM infers your home WiFI street address, this can be correlated with other data sets (e.g. credit card history) for further analysis, even if Apple does not send additional data in the API request to IBM's weather API endpoint.
      - riffic 8y ago
        As far as I know (and please correct me if I am wrong), geolocation is not quite that magical. At best they can infer who your ISP is and the region your IP block was assigned to.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> An IBM spokesman, Saswato Das, said, “The Weather Company has always been transparent with use of location data; the disclosures are fully appropriate, and we will defend them vigorously.” Why say something so stupid instead of issuing a simple “no comment”?
fuddle 8y ago
The Daily has a good podcast episode where they go into more details with the reporters who wrote the NYT article: https://nyti.ms/2G7NcWH https://nyti.ms/2G7NcWH
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  In case anyone else just wants to just download the MP3 of this episode: https://content.production.cdn.art19.com/episodes/4f87f227-39ae-4623-be33-869c97a76e59/c134e299a9436a36bc3a8538f1131a679db2c57aae8c7617459243432883f4ee797bbefaec7a028eb18a0c590ae8bfa77a4f9bb9fda8c4bea51b6f8dd9dd1501/20181210%20TD%20MASTER%20SUBMIX%20CW%20MIX.mp3 https://content.production.cdn.art19.com/episodes/4f87f227-3... This took me approx. two minutes longer to find than it should have.
tqkxzugoaupvwqr 8y ago
iOS’ Weather app uses The Weather Channel as data source. Does anybody know if Apple acts as a proxy and obscures personally identifiable information?
- floatingatoll 8y ago
  Apple does not act as a proxy. Their app transmits lat/long to api.weather.com. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18822350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18822350
  - matthewdgreen 8y ago
    This still leaves two open questions: 1. Does Apple’s contract with TWC allow them to market individual-level data to advertisers in the same way that TWC can with their own app? It would be shocking if the answer was “yes”. 2. To what level of resolution is the default Weather app lat/long data, compared to third party apps?
SilverSlash 8y ago
You can just type "current temperature" in google and it'll give you the weather forecast for the week. At least with google, they already have all your data.
- xster 8y ago
  If you're gonna type into Google, "weather" is shorter to type. "temp" even shorter. And on iOS, a weather app + dashboard widget and a single right swipe even faster. And on Android, a weather app + home screen widget and zero action even faster still. And we're back full circle.
modzu 8y ago
true weather is open source: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.conceptualspace.trueweather&pcampaignid=MKT-Other-global-all-co-prtnr-py-PartBadge-Mar2515-1 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.conceptual... and love for those who still use desktops too: https://conceptualspace.net/trueweather/ https://conceptualspace.net/trueweather/
Animats 8y ago
If we want to stop location tracking, someone needs to get lots of location tracking for Washington DC and start correlating meetups between elected officials and K street lobbyists. That would focus attention on the problem. Even if the location info is "anonymous", you can probably detect members of Congress from the movement pattern.
- noir_lord 8y ago
  > you can probably detect members of Congress from the movement pattern. The rolling over when a lobbiest walks in?
  - dgzl 8y ago
    Lobbying isn't inherently bad, you know. Congress needs experts for information.
    - Y_Y 8y ago
      Plagues aren't inherently bad, you know. Christendom needs God's wrath to learn its sinfulness.
      - ryacko 8y ago
        What are you, a crazy millenarian? Wouldn't God want Christendom to repent?
    - endymi0n 8y ago
      If you hire someone and pay them lots of money for their expertise, that's the definition of an expert. If you consult someone for their expertise and they pay you (or your party/campaign) lots of money, that's the definition of a lobbyist. I'm still at loss how that form of corruption is not just legal but apparently completely accepted in the US.
      - andrewla 8y ago
tyfon 8y ago
NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation like the BBC) and the Norwegian Meteorological Institute has made yr.no (webside [1], apps and open api [2]). It's government owned so no data collection. I'm not sure how useful it is outside of Norway but I have used it successfully when visiting other countries in EU. I think it also worked in Mexico but I can't really remember. [1] https://www.yr.no/?spr=eng https://www.yr.no/?spr=eng [2] https://hjelp.yr.no/hc/en-us/articles/360009342833-XML-weather-forecasts https://hjelp.yr.no/hc/en-us/articles/360009342833-XML-weath...
- reaperducer 8y ago
  For those who need it, U.S. National Weather Service API: https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api
- notatoad 8y ago
  >I'm not sure how useful it is outside of Norway Yr pretty popular here in Canada, it tends to be better than Environment Canada or TheWeatherNetwork.com at predicting precipitation, and similar for temperature.
- colechristensen 8y ago
  It even automatically switches to English and recognizes US zip codes. I'm particularly impressed.
- Klover 8y ago
  I, and others, have been using Yr.no for many years across the world. It’s only really failed me once, when other weather providers also failed. I dislike the iOS app, the Android app is a beauty. Just using the website is fine though, because it’s super fast.
- flurdy 8y ago
  Yr is very good and was my main weather app for years. I still use it but my main app is now BBC Weather [1] and its apps [2][3]. I trust it for the same reasons I trust YR as they are backed by non-commercial organisations that I in general trust with my data. And both seem to have accurate enough weather forecasts, probably mostly sourced from the same metrology organisations across the world. Both have a very nice UI and easy to use. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather [2] https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/bbc-weather/id649420946 https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/bbc-weather/id649420946 [3] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bbc.mobile.weather&hl=en_US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bbc.mobile.wea...
Rebelgecko 8y ago
I think this is a little bit ironic. The city of LA just released an app called ShakeAlertLA, which works with the USGS early warning system to let you know when there's an earthquake in LA. The app TOS imply that your personal information is only used locally and not uploaded, but if you look at the app's source (to their credit, it's easily available), your location is continuously sent to an AWS server.
- choward 8y ago
  > look at the app's source (to their credit, it's easily available) Care to link to where this "easily available" source code is? I tried searching for it and couldn't find it.
  - Rebelgecko 8y ago
    Wow, it looks like they took down the repo today. I take back my kudos to Los Angeles. The Android version of the app used to be at https://github.com/CityOfLosAngeles/ShakeAlertLA-android https://github.com/CityOfLosAngeles/ShakeAlertLA-android. The backend code that seems to handle the REST call with user's lat/lon is still available[1]. Fortunately I cloned the Android repo locally. If you're interested I can reupload it somewhere. It's Apache licensed and I paid for a fraction of its development, so I think I'd be legally and morally in the clear to share it. [1]: https://github.com/CityOfLosAngeles/ShakeAlertLA-message-gateway/blob/master/Code/LaWebApi/src/com/la/webapi/MySql.java https://github.com/CityOfLosAngeles/ShakeAlertLA-message-gat...
    - wikibob 8y ago
      Yes please do reupload it!
      - Rebelgecko 8y ago
        hopefully this works: https://ufile.io/yrmrx https://ufile.io/yrmrx
- mark212 8y ago
mlthoughts2018 8y ago
Whatever you think of the problem of this location tracking, we still need to step back and take notice of the great hypocrisy of NYT on this kind of shit... e.g. “Project Feels” in which NYT predicts your emotional state while reading articles and attempts to sell ad inventory based on the ad’s connection to your emotional state. https://digiday.com/media/project-feels-usa-today-espn-new-york-times-targeting-ads-mood/ https://digiday.com/media/project-feels-usa-today-espn-new-y...
mark212 8y ago
The really ironic part in my view is that the native, Apple-made weather app on iOS used data from the Weather Channel. So there is literally no need to download the WC app. (To be clear, the complaint is centered around android and not the iOS app anyway.)

235 points by lnguyen 8y ago

It's crazy the people download these ad-laden apps to simply get a weather forecast. https://mobile.weather.gov https://mobile.weather.gov is really nice lightweight website with no ads.

wnevets 8y ago
but the icons aren't as pretty
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  You're being sarcastic (I think), but the first thing I thought of when I looked at this site was "This could never be my go-to weather source, those icons are much too ugly."
  - wnevets 8y ago
    more facetious than sarcastic. A lot of people care about the icons
    - ascagnel_ 8y ago
      An API is available, so you could theoretically write your own app to consume the API and style it as you wish.
unholythree 8y ago
Funny you mention it, forecast.weather.gov is now the first link on my phone browser's start page. I made the switch after the wunderground app started refusing to update and otherwise glitched out constantly. The only downside is I have to actively think check the weather in the morning rather than just have it presented.
- dawnerd 8y ago
  It sucks how badly wunderground has gotten. I run my own weather station and it only syncs to WU. Almost tempted to intercept the api calls and store the data locally...
  - Ice_cream_suit 8y ago
    Weather Underground is yet another IBM company. So is Weather Channel. "On October 28, 2015 IBM officially announced an agreement to acquire The Weather Company’s business-to-business, mobile and cloud-based web properties, including Weather Underground, WSI, weather.com, and also the Weather Company brand." IBM buys firms and then proceeds to eviscerate them. Value destruction is their strong suit.
    - mistrial9 8y ago
      I suspect that a company the size of IBM can do positive things, too.. so, lets not curse the situation, eh?
      - bleriot 8y ago
        Well, as a patent troll and supplier to the Nazis, their positives would have to be pretty big to outweigh their negatives.
    - jrnichols 8y ago
      "Storm" used to be a GREAT weather app, until they basically just ruined it and then forced people over to the Wunderground app. Which is also pretty bad.
computerex 8y ago
Right, when I just ask Google what the weather is like.
Wowfunhappy 8y ago
Do they have an API? I'm surprised more apps don't plug into this. Most watch-faces on my Pebble required me to get a personal Weather Underground API key (and now have stopped working). :(
- baroffoos 8y ago
  From what I understand pretty much all countries have a government run weather service and they all have an API. The problem is they are all different organizations that have different APIs so all the weather api services do is combine every single one of the apis in to one that only requires one api key.
  - flukus 8y ago
    I've found apps that use these global API's are inferior to local apps connecting directly to local API's, the data is a lot more current, more accurate and includes a lot of features like radar images. Not sure if it's an issue with some countries missing a lot of data that mine (Aus) offer or it's missing for some other reason. Phone OEM's always have to include a crappy global one for some reason.
    - baroffoos 8y ago
      Well that tends to be the case that generic interfaces to multiple APIs only provide the features that everyone provides.
- niij 8y ago
  Yes NWS has an API with quite a lot of data in XML format. Weather Underground api was supposed to shut off on December 31, but has been extended to Feb 15th of this year. Good riddance, it was very flaky, would return occasional bad data, and all around a bad experience.
- _trampeltier 8y ago
  Meteo API for Switzerland: https://opendata.swiss/de/organization/bundesamt-fur-meteorologie-und-klimatologie-meteoschweiz https://opendata.swiss/de/organization/bundesamt-fur-meteoro...
sbr464 8y ago
Thanks for sharing.
tptacek 8y ago
A pretty heft chunk of Michael Lewis's mini-book on corruption in the Trump administration centered on Accuweather's role at NOAA, and how companies like Accuweather do little more than repackage data generated by the federal government and pretend to be gatekeepers for it. Supposedly, companies like Accuweather have been working for years to eliminate government weather services that are readily usable by consumers.
- metaphor 8y ago
  In support of the parent's remark, I highly recommend everyone read this excellent Bloomberg article[1] from last year which elaborates on the finer points. It surely made my blood boil at first blush. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-14/trump-s-pick-to-lead-weather-agency-spent-30-years-fighting-it https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-14/trump-s-p...
  - floatingatoll 8y ago
    Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15464755 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15464755
- pnathan 8y ago
  Talking to people who had worked at higher levels of the weather world in government and academia, this is a generally common view of that kind of company.
- tk75x 8y ago
  Companies like Intuit have been working for years to prevent the government from having easy to use tax filing services. What else is new?
metaphor 8y ago
Not entire crazy given popular perception of mobile as being an app-driven platform. And not at all coincidental given former CEO of AccuWeather Barry Myer's direct involvement in crafting policy which prohibits NOAA from developing mobile apps[1]: In 2008, AccuWeather named Conrad Lautenbacher, a recently departed NOAA administrator appointed by President George W. Bush, to its board. Myers was soon appointed to a NOAA working group that gave him a role in shaping policy. He helped fashion one in 2012 that restricted the organization’s ability to develop mobile apps for the public. This is the same guy nominated by the Trump adminstration and currently awaiting Senate confirmation as the head honcho of NOAA. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-14/trump-s-pick-to-lead-weather-agency-spent-30-years-fighting-it https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-14/trump-s-p...
firebones 8y ago
I love this 3-day graph the best: https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=<your https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=<your latitude goes here>&lon=-<your longitude goes here>&unit=0&lg=english&FcstType=graphical is my favorite. Just substitute your XX.XXXX latitude and your YY.YYYY longitude (negative from 0 if you're in the US) for the <> and their contents as variables. There's also a tabular form of this. Very dense in terms of hourly forecasts. I tend to plug in various lat/long changes to figure out when a storm is going to blow into the kid's sporting event clear across town. Each degree of latitude or longitude is 68.3 miles, so you can usually just adjust the URL to get a pinpoint forecast...which is useful in metro areas where you might be traveling 40-45 miles to an event.
- plopz 8y ago
  > Each degree of latitude or longitude is 68.3 miles That's only for latitude, longitude depends on latitude, so lon = cosine(lat) * 69.172
ergothus 8y ago
I am clearly a minority (based on incidents ranging from this, to how weather bug was the first killer app of the web, or how my grandfathers tv was permanently on the weather channel), but I've never understood the attraction of weather info. I mean, the forecast isn't accurate far enough in advance to make most plans, and the weather today is usually obvious from any window, at least as far as I can actually use the info (which is how warmly to dress), but realistically I never pay attention and just dress for the season and it never seems like the difference day-to-day matters. I definitely value forecasting hurricanes/blizzards/tornadoes, but that doesnt seem to be the general attraction.
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  > I mean, the forecast isn't accurate far enough in advance to make most plans. This isn't the case for me in NYC. Anything within the next two days is fairly accurate. I use the day's temperature info to decide what to wear in the morning. I use the UV index to decide if I need sunscreen. And while I don't use umbrella's, I know coworkers use the weather to decide if they should bring an umbrella.
  - ergothus 8y ago
    > Anything within the next two days is fairly accurate. Plans that involve the outdoors rarely involve only two days notice for me - plans are either spontaneous or in more than a week. Then again, my plans rarely involve the outdoors. > UV index to decide if I need sunscreen My skin tone is known as "fish belly", so I always need sunblock, but unless I'm planning to be outside at length (which I largely dont do) I dont really do so. > decide what to wear in the morning I may be odd, but my day to day wear doesn't really vary other than by season. When I lived in Pennsylvania and Virginia the weather changed dramatically enough over the day that dressing lighter or warmer was an invitation for problems. Now that I'm in Seattle, the weather is fairly consistent over the day, but I've never found myself wishing I had known the forecast when I dressed. > I don't use umbrella's Mostly the same, particularly here in Seattle. Before, if it was raining hard the need was obvious, and if it wasn't I didn't want to carry around something is just lose before I needed it. I'm not trying to poop on your feedback (really!), it's just these are largely the arguments I've heard that dont seem to apply to me. Do people really spend that much more time outside than I do? Am I some sort of sky-avoiding freak?
kevin_b_er 8y ago
If you like it, do understand the Republican Party just last year nominated and voted in Berry Myers, the co-owner of AccuWeather, who spent years trying to prevent the NWS from publishing forecasts to you and the rest of the public, to head the agency in change of the NWS. Your favored website may soon enough be taken down in order to enrich the Myers family, but it will be packaged as reducing costs or not "competing with industry" aka AccuWeather.
- red_phone 8y ago
  If it gets taken down, he'll probably be able to find another one.
  - abootstrapper 8y ago
    Accuweather perhaps?
- vvanders 8y ago
  Damn, I had no idea that happened. Stuff like this and the shenanigans at the FCC w/ Net Neutrality really makes me rethink the concept of these types appointments not having more public involvement.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - drited 8y ago
    There's a great Audible original piece on this topic written by Michael Lewis called 'The coming storm':
H1Supreme 8y ago
OMG, they have a mobile version?! Man, I've been using the regular one and just pinching and zooming everywhere to find things. But, honestly, I love weather.gov. The local forecast (at least for the Pittsburgh area) is plain text, easy to understand (if you read the definitions), and updated multiple times per day. Plus, it has in depth forecasting for rain/snow/etc. I stopped using weather.com because it would routinely crash my mobile browser. I suspect because it ran out of memory.
subraizada3 8y ago
I really like the NWS's hourly forecast charts, and use those as my primary weather source. You can see an example here (scroll right if on mobile): https://subraizada.com/weather/kmdw https://subraizada.com/weather/kmdw (A previous version used to show the normal weather forecast in an iframe to the left of the charts, too) It's just a single HTML page, I've put a script to make them over here: https://bitbucket.org/subraizada3/weather-generator/src https://bitbucket.org/subraizada3/weather-generator/src
briandear 8y ago
The damned weather app in iOS is pretty useful too.

jtl999 8y ago

I miss Weather Underground before they got acquired. :(

fourthark 8y ago
Presumably it has the same policy because it's also owned by IBM. I wondered why they wanted it...
- dawnerd 8y ago
  I used to think it was all the weather station data points but that became clear it wasn’t a priority considering how much their apis error out and how slow they are to fix. I think we just got our answer though.
ams6110 8y ago
I like dark sky. https://darksky.net https://darksky.net They have an app also but I just use the website.
- konschubert 8y ago
  It can’t be downloaded on iOS in Germany it seems.
  - awiesenhofer 8y ago
    You get all the features on their website too. I found a simple homescreen-link perfectly enough for my weather needs.
- jtl999 8y ago
  Not as good as a layout as WU was, but I'll take it :)
bleriot 8y ago
They also took down a great little website they bought called Weatherbonk and never ended up using the site’s best features. I wonder if they were just buying up competition.

walterbell 8y ago

The default weather app on Apple iPhones is IBM's Weather Channel, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207492 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207492 > The weather data used in the Weather app comes from The Weather Channel. If you have issues getting accurate weather information, tap the icon in the lower-left corner to go directly to the weather source. If you have an iPhone and are in the US, a home screen shortcut to mobile.weather.gov is much safer. Avoid putting the site in web browser new tab Favorites, which will be pinged by Safari even if you don't visit the site. This can be seen with Charles Proxy.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
Does the stock iOS app forward to IBM the same data the Weather Channel app does?
- floatingatoll 8y ago
  In current location mode, Apple's Weather.app transmits over HTTPS latitude/longitude twice, once for general weather and once for air quality, both in the GET url. No other information about you or your device is provided anywhere in the request url or headers. No other requests were made to api.weather.com during "check the weather" testing. ://api.weather.com/v1/geocode/... ://api.weather.com/v2/globalairquality?...
  - walterbell 8y ago
    Since IBM has IP address of the request, they can map this to WiFi locations via geolocation. If IBM infers your home WiFI street address, this can be correlated with other data sets (e.g. credit card history) for further analysis, even if Apple does not send additional data in the API request to IBM's weather API endpoint.
    - riffic 8y ago
      As far as I know (and please correct me if I am wrong), geolocation is not quite that magical. At best they can infer who your ISP is and the region your IP block was assigned to.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> An IBM spokesman, Saswato Das, said, “The Weather Company has always been transparent with use of location data; the disclosures are fully appropriate, and we will defend them vigorously.” Why say something so stupid instead of issuing a simple “no comment”?

fuddle 8y ago

The Daily has a good podcast episode where they go into more details with the reporters who wrote the NYT article: https://nyti.ms/2G7NcWH https://nyti.ms/2G7NcWH

Wowfunhappy 8y ago
In case anyone else just wants to just download the MP3 of this episode: https://content.production.cdn.art19.com/episodes/4f87f227-39ae-4623-be33-869c97a76e59/c134e299a9436a36bc3a8538f1131a679db2c57aae8c7617459243432883f4ee797bbefaec7a028eb18a0c590ae8bfa77a4f9bb9fda8c4bea51b6f8dd9dd1501/20181210%20TD%20MASTER%20SUBMIX%20CW%20MIX.mp3 https://content.production.cdn.art19.com/episodes/4f87f227-3... This took me approx. two minutes longer to find than it should have.

tqkxzugoaupvwqr 8y ago

iOS’ Weather app uses The Weather Channel as data source. Does anybody know if Apple acts as a proxy and obscures personally identifiable information?

floatingatoll 8y ago
Apple does not act as a proxy. Their app transmits lat/long to api.weather.com. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18822350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18822350
- matthewdgreen 8y ago
  This still leaves two open questions: 1. Does Apple’s contract with TWC allow them to market individual-level data to advertisers in the same way that TWC can with their own app? It would be shocking if the answer was “yes”. 2. To what level of resolution is the default Weather app lat/long data, compared to third party apps?

SilverSlash 8y ago

You can just type "current temperature" in google and it'll give you the weather forecast for the week. At least with google, they already have all your data.

xster 8y ago
If you're gonna type into Google, "weather" is shorter to type. "temp" even shorter. And on iOS, a weather app + dashboard widget and a single right swipe even faster. And on Android, a weather app + home screen widget and zero action even faster still. And we're back full circle.

modzu 8y ago

true weather is open source: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.conceptualspace.trueweather&pcampaignid=MKT-Other-global-all-co-prtnr-py-PartBadge-Mar2515-1 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.conceptual... and love for those who still use desktops too: https://conceptualspace.net/trueweather/ https://conceptualspace.net/trueweather/

Animats 8y ago

If we want to stop location tracking, someone needs to get lots of location tracking for Washington DC and start correlating meetups between elected officials and K street lobbyists. That would focus attention on the problem. Even if the location info is "anonymous", you can probably detect members of Congress from the movement pattern.

noir_lord 8y ago
> you can probably detect members of Congress from the movement pattern. The rolling over when a lobbiest walks in?
- dgzl 8y ago
  Lobbying isn't inherently bad, you know. Congress needs experts for information.
  - Y_Y 8y ago
    Plagues aren't inherently bad, you know. Christendom needs God's wrath to learn its sinfulness.
    - ryacko 8y ago
      What are you, a crazy millenarian? Wouldn't God want Christendom to repent?
  - endymi0n 8y ago
    If you hire someone and pay them lots of money for their expertise, that's the definition of an expert. If you consult someone for their expertise and they pay you (or your party/campaign) lots of money, that's the definition of a lobbyist. I'm still at loss how that form of corruption is not just legal but apparently completely accepted in the US.
    - andrewla 8y ago

tyfon 8y ago

NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation like the BBC) and the Norwegian Meteorological Institute has made yr.no (webside [1], apps and open api [2]). It's government owned so no data collection. I'm not sure how useful it is outside of Norway but I have used it successfully when visiting other countries in EU. I think it also worked in Mexico but I can't really remember. [1] https://www.yr.no/?spr=eng https://www.yr.no/?spr=eng [2] https://hjelp.yr.no/hc/en-us/articles/360009342833-XML-weather-forecasts https://hjelp.yr.no/hc/en-us/articles/360009342833-XML-weath...

reaperducer 8y ago
For those who need it, U.S. National Weather Service API: https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api
notatoad 8y ago
>I'm not sure how useful it is outside of Norway Yr pretty popular here in Canada, it tends to be better than Environment Canada or TheWeatherNetwork.com at predicting precipitation, and similar for temperature.
colechristensen 8y ago
It even automatically switches to English and recognizes US zip codes. I'm particularly impressed.
Klover 8y ago
I, and others, have been using Yr.no for many years across the world. It’s only really failed me once, when other weather providers also failed. I dislike the iOS app, the Android app is a beauty. Just using the website is fine though, because it’s super fast.
flurdy 8y ago
Yr is very good and was my main weather app for years. I still use it but my main app is now BBC Weather [1] and its apps [2][3]. I trust it for the same reasons I trust YR as they are backed by non-commercial organisations that I in general trust with my data. And both seem to have accurate enough weather forecasts, probably mostly sourced from the same metrology organisations across the world. Both have a very nice UI and easy to use. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather [2] https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/bbc-weather/id649420946 https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/bbc-weather/id649420946 [3] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bbc.mobile.weather&hl=en_US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bbc.mobile.wea...

Rebelgecko 8y ago

I think this is a little bit ironic. The city of LA just released an app called ShakeAlertLA, which works with the USGS early warning system to let you know when there's an earthquake in LA. The app TOS imply that your personal information is only used locally and not uploaded, but if you look at the app's source (to their credit, it's easily available), your location is continuously sent to an AWS server.

choward 8y ago
> look at the app's source (to their credit, it's easily available) Care to link to where this "easily available" source code is? I tried searching for it and couldn't find it.
- Rebelgecko 8y ago
  Wow, it looks like they took down the repo today. I take back my kudos to Los Angeles. The Android version of the app used to be at https://github.com/CityOfLosAngeles/ShakeAlertLA-android https://github.com/CityOfLosAngeles/ShakeAlertLA-android. The backend code that seems to handle the REST call with user's lat/lon is still available[1]. Fortunately I cloned the Android repo locally. If you're interested I can reupload it somewhere. It's Apache licensed and I paid for a fraction of its development, so I think I'd be legally and morally in the clear to share it. [1]: https://github.com/CityOfLosAngeles/ShakeAlertLA-message-gateway/blob/master/Code/LaWebApi/src/com/la/webapi/MySql.java https://github.com/CityOfLosAngeles/ShakeAlertLA-message-gat...
  - wikibob 8y ago
    Yes please do reupload it!
    - Rebelgecko 8y ago
      hopefully this works: https://ufile.io/yrmrx https://ufile.io/yrmrx
mark212 8y ago

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

Whatever you think of the problem of this location tracking, we still need to step back and take notice of the great hypocrisy of NYT on this kind of shit... e.g. “Project Feels” in which NYT predicts your emotional state while reading articles and attempts to sell ad inventory based on the ad’s connection to your emotional state. https://digiday.com/media/project-feels-usa-today-espn-new-york-times-targeting-ads-mood/ https://digiday.com/media/project-feels-usa-today-espn-new-y...

mark212 8y ago

The really ironic part in my view is that the native, Apple-made weather app on iOS used data from the Weather Channel. So there is literally no need to download the WC app. (To be clear, the complaint is centered around android and not the iOS app anyway.)