The world’s largest meteorological company, Weathernews Inc., will launch next Monday its 24/7 live show channel, with its Adobe AIR-based client application, bringing weather updates to your PC desktop every minute.
The new service is named “So LiVE 24[J]” (So-La is similar to So-Ra in Japanese pronunciation, meaning sky), eleven weather girls and meteorologists are alternately appeared on your screen, and they will bring you weather forecast, traffic reports and disaster information on the show. The show is produced in cooperation with Tokyo’s terrestrial broadcaster Fuji-TV.
The application’s chat function allows you to throw a question to them. In order to prevent the chat room from spam message posts, it has access control feature enabling to get malicious users out by specifing predefined keywords and their IP addresses. The service is designed for a maximum of 10,000 users enough to watch the show simultaneously.
When you download the application and install it, seven windows will be popped up on your desktop. Each of the windows shows you sky pictures taken by and e-mailed from amateur weather reporters, who participate in the company’s membership program and report the latest updates from every corner of the country.
The application has also grid computing technology, and it allows you to let the company use your PC resources for calculating for climate change simulation.
11 Weather Girls for SoLiVE 24 (quoted from Weathernews’ website)
Masaru IKEDA