GMaps Gaier

US Weather Radar Android App

2015-01-10T05:45:00.001-08:00

Enjoy all the features of US Weather Radar in our new US Weather Radar Android App:

Features recently added to US Weather Radar:

Celsius/Metric units
Weather charts
History of locations
Save config in Google™ cloud
Vertical Radar Cross Section
Lightnings overlay up to 15min
NOAA SPC reports
Read forecast, alerts, ... on certain browsers (Chrome, Safari)
Local Weather Tweets
Weatherlink® station integration
Option to hide maptypes
Hurricane maptype on-demand

US Weather Radar can be enjoyed here:

Chrome Weather Badge and Rain Alarm

2013-07-18T09:21:00.001-07:00

You need a rain alarm telling you if it will rain in the next hour or how the rain distribution will be? This is one of the main features of our Weather Badge and Rain Alarm.

The Weather Badge and Rain Alarm for the Chrome browser offers:

Hourly rain/precipitation forecast
Rain alarm
Precipitation graph shown in chrome toolbar icon
Summary of current weather condition when hovering over toolbar icon
Notification with hourly forecast
Reads hourly forecast to user
Meteogram for location
Alerts
Link to US Weather Radar

It leverages the Text-to-Speech engine of the Chrome browser to read messages to the user and shows notifications based on the configuration. Uses data from forecast.io.

US Weather Radar now offers animated radar forecast for the next half hour

2013-07-18T08:48:00.002-07:00

In case you wanted to see how the rain might develop in the next half hour - US Weather Radar shows the visualization. By analyzing the precipitation motion delivered by the Nexrad Radar images the US Weather Radar forecasts the precipitation for the next half hour. The forecasted movement is displayed on the map as shown in the screenshot below.

To activate this feature please select the location for your weather forecast on the map or in the configuration.

US Weather Radar: New Features

2013-03-23T03:13:00.003-07:00

March brings new features for the US Weather Radar!

Radar image animation now shows the progress of the precipitation and allows for planning outdoor activities. Also a national video forecast is available and new overlays have been added:

24 hour precipitation
1 day precipitation forecast
Wind barbs
Warnings

The configuration allows to hide the upper left zoom control to offer more screen space to see the weather coming.

US Weather Radar now with Meteograms; Crispy Images in Real Indoor

2013-01-12T09:59:00.000-08:00

New enhancement to the US Weather Radar: Meteograms. Meteoblue.com offers interesting Meteograms showing weather conditions over time:

Development of temperatures and sun visibility
Cloud levels and precipitation
Wind gusts, speed and directions

Here is an example of a Meteogram from Meteoblue.com for the Seattle area:

Streetview images in Real Indoor can now we tuned to your preferences. If you use Real Indoor with Chrome or Safari you can find options to tune contrast, saturation, ... in the configuration section:

Real Indoor: New Hardware Integration with Arduino

2013-01-08T04:47:00.002-08:00

We have been thinking about how to enable more integration of Real Indoor with the different workout devices like cycles, treadmills, .... And the answer is - Arduino.

With the Arduino Integration you can control your work-out device (magnetic brake, ...) as well as get information from your device like retrieving RPM values, heartbeats, ... Arduino enhances the approach Real Indoor had offered so far via webcam integration to retrieve e.g. the RPM value and adds much more flexibility.

Here is how it works under the hood:

The Arduino board I/O pins are connected to the work-out device to provide and retrieve input and output information
The Arduino board is connected to the computer via USB
Java-Applet talking via USB to Arduino
Real Indoor application providing the output information to control or retrieve input from the work-out device via Javascript from the java-applet

This approach is very flexible and offers for example

Measurement of RPM e.g. via Reed-switch integration
Control of magnetic Eddy current brakes of e.g. cycles via application of the control voltage
Control of inclination cycles or treadmills based on the present slope by application of the control voltage from the Arduino device
many more ...

As the Arduino integration typically needs some knowledge of hardware we are not yet providing the Arduino hardware integration publicly but for selected projects. Please let us know if you are interested in learning more about the new hardware integration or would like to start an integration project via our feedback form in Real Indoor or here.

BTW - Real Indoor now supports choosing imperial or metric units.

US Weather Radar now as standalone webpage

2012-10-13T01:14:00.001-07:00

The popular US Weather Radar Gadget has been ported to a stand-alone webpage. Please check it out at Weather NG.

Now the US Weather Radar can be viewed as normal webpage also from your smart phone - or you can integrate US Weather Radar in other homepage technologies like Protopage, Netvibes, ...

US Weather Radar at Weather NG

Control Real Indoor with Webcam Gestures and Cadence Sensor

2012-09-20T08:17:00.002-07:00

Real Indoor uses webcam images to allow user gestures to control the Real Indoor user interface and retrieve additional information like the spinning cadence (RPM). While you sit on your spinning bike it is difficult to control the computer e.g. with a mouse and adjust power, cadence, ... - to overcome this we developed the unique gesture control.

This is build leveraging the new HTML5 features of browsers like Chrome which enable to access the video taken by the webcam of your laptop or a connected USB camera. Of course the browser will ask you if you allow access to your webcam so please confirm the question appearing just below the upper browser bar.

Below are some screenshots of the movements detected in the webcam image which then allow identifying the sensor activation and triggering the respective actions. And please remember ... all is done in your browsers javascript engine ;-)

Cadence/RPM detection:

The arrow shows the sensor where RPM calculation is triggered from. When a object (head, shoulder, crank, ...) repeatedly moves into this area the cadence is calculated and influences the power applied and so the driving speed with which the driver is moving forward on the track.

Of course you can drag the RPM sensor to the most suitable position depending if you want to measure your head movements or the rotation of the crank.

Power control:

You can control the slider on the right with the finger or hand the to adjust the power applied.

Heading control:

While driving you might want to look around. When you control the heading slider the Real Indoor driver stops and you can enjoy the beautiful scenery around you.

All controls are optional so you can choose which suits you best while spinning at full power.

User interface:

Technical background: The webcam images taken via the HTML5 "getUserMedia" javascript API are constantly monitored against changes between the present and the previous image. If movement is detected in the different sensor areas the respective control is triggered.

Add "contrast" to your Real Indoor experience

2012-09-13T11:08:00.000-07:00

The new feature of Real Indoor allows to change the contrast of the Streetview images "on the fly". This gives a major enhancement to the spinning experience in Real Indoor.

Many Streetview images have low contrast. Now you can control the contrast of the images in the settings of Real Indoor and tune it to your desired value.

Normal Streetview image from the Col de Tourmalet (Stage 16 of Tour de France 2012):

Contrast enhanced Streetview image from the same location:

This feature works only in Chrome for now and requires to start Chrome with the option "--disable-web-security" - which you should only do for this individual Chrome instance. All other Chrome instances have to be stopped in advance. Because of the reduced security you should not browse other webpages with this setting.

Technical background: the contrast is calculated in the canvas where the Streetview images are loaded into. As the images come from a different site web security settings do not allow access to the image content which is why the web security settings have to be changed to allow the image manipulation.

Real Indoor: Tour de France 2012 with all stages

2012-08-04T09:28:00.001-07:00

The new update of Real Indoor includes all stages from the Tour de France 2012 Race Route in July 2012.

The Tour de France 2012 consists of 20 stages starting with a prologue in Liege/Belgium.

One impression from this years Tour de France in Real Indoor:

If you want to ride one of the Tour de France stages direct your browser to realindoor.com and select "Advanced" when creating a tour. You will find the Tour de France race as first entry in the pull-down:

US Weather Radar and iGoogle end of life

2012-07-14T07:35:00.001-07:00

We are getting several questions about what happens to the US Weather Radar gadget on iGoogle when iGoogle goes end of life in about a year.

We have started a discussion at http://usweatherradar.uservoice.com/ about the migration of the US Weather Radar gadget functionality to a webpage.

The idea is a (small) webpage which can be potentially opened as separate window which has the similar functionality like the iGoogle US Weather Radar (http://www.google.com/ig/directory?hl=en&type=gadgets&url=gmapsflighttracker.com/weather/radar/weather-radar.xml).

This way the US Weather Radar could be seen from every browser on desktop as well as on mobile phones.

What do you think? Head over to http://usweatherradar.uservoice.com/ and let us know. We are happy to hear about your ideas!

Real Indoor: Paris-Nice 2012 Race Route with all stages

2012-02-01T10:02:00.000-08:00

The new update of Real Indoor includes all stages from the Paris-Nice 2012 Race Route in March 2012.

The race consists of 8 stages starting with a time trial near Paris. Further stages cross the country to the south-east into the mountains until decending to the Nice. The last stage is a 9km climb from Nice to the Col d'Èze.

One impression from stage 6 Suze-la-Rousse > Sisteron:

More mountain stages from Tour de France

2012-01-25T09:05:00.000-08:00

Real Indoor got some more predefined mountain stages from Tour de France 2011 - 2013:

Tour de France 2011 Etape 19: From Modane Valfrejus to Alpe-d'Huez
Tour de France 2012 Etape 11: Albertville to La Toussuire
Tour de France 2013 Etape 2: Corsica: Bastia to Ajaccio

Climb that hills like the pros ;-)

Real Indoor now supports waypoints - enhances realistic workout!

2011-12-29T14:10:00.000-08:00

A feature which has been requested by many is to be able to specify multiple waypoints for the route. This e.g. is interesting in cases where the directions given by Google do not fit the needs and travel a different route than the intended one.

Waypoints now have been added to Real Indoor and can be found in the directions interface:

"Let it snow" - on your webpage

2011-12-23T11:36:00.000-08:00

Googles latest easter egg: If you search for "let it snow" your screen will become foggy from all the snow coming down.

Here is an explanation how to use the slightly modified javascript to have it snow on your webpage as well. The following code goes into your html-file - best at the end of your content before the "</body>" tag :

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.google.com/jsapi?key=INSERT-YOUR-KEY"></script>

<div id="gbqfb" style="z-index: 1000;"></div>

<div id="snfloader" style="visibility: hidden;"></div>
<script id="snfloader_script" type="text/javascript">
(function(){
var s=document.createElement('script');
s.src='snfog.js'; s.type = 'text/javascript';
s.async=true;
s.addEventListener('load',function(){console.log("snow loaded");
var app = new goog.egg.snowyfog.Snowyfog();app.init();},false);
document.getElementById('snfloader').appendChild(s);})();</script>

The snowyfog-mod.js (you can just save it with right click from here) goes into the same directory as your html file.

Update: You need to include the Google JS api to have the "google"-environment available. Please add your API-key which you can get in the Google API-Console. The script tag should be added in the head section:

Here is the example page with minimal requirements: Let it snow!

When opening your page it will slowly go foggy. After a while a button called "Defrost" will appear and all the fog will be removed after clicking. Snowflakes will continue to fall. Try it out.

Here is an example:

New Simulator "Real Indoor" with Physics Engine

2011-12-22T03:01:00.000-08:00

What is Real Indoor?

Based on the successful Gaiagi Driver we have pushed the limits of online driving simulation to create Real Indoor.

Real Indoor is dedicated to create a realistic biking experience while working out on spin bikes or similar devices.

Streetview panoramas and the physics engine provide feedback which simulate driving on a real track.

Tracks from bicycle directions, GPS recordings or just following Streetview panoramas allow for a whole new experience while working out and seeing the Earth.

Use Real Indoor to prepare yourselve for that bike summer trip into the mountains - slopes, physics and views all realistically simulated.

Predefined tracks offer a jump start into working out in the real world:

Enjoy the Earth with Real Indoor and have fun biking!

Gaiagi Driver - Updates 2011

2011-09-09T03:24:00.000-07:00

New features added recently to the Gaiagi Driver:

The car speed can manually controlled via a slider
Condense controls into a small driving control in the upper left where you can pause, stop, continue driving; also the speed is displayed in the control
Physics mode: to support indoor biking/spinning bikes a bike has been added which moves with real speed based on the applied power. You can control the power you want to spend on your bike and the driver will move accordingly based on weight, slope of the track, ...
New vehicles added: Motorhome, Camper, Ferrari, Porsche, Ducati, BMX bike, Woman with bike, Millenium Falcon ;-)
Configurable Icon which displays the location on the map
Show Panoramio Pictures instead of Birds View in the lower right
Saving own tours: You can create a tour and store this on your computer to later load the tour again
Support for speech input on Chrome browsers
Draggable start and end points. Just adapt your route by dragging the start and end points on the Google Map.

The Gaiagi Driver is here: http://www.gaiagi.com/driving-simulator/.

Gaiagi Driver - Updates 2010

2010-03-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

New features added recently to the Gaiagi Driver:

Text-to-speech of directions: if you are using Google Chrome you can enable the driver to read the next leg of the directions - just click on the loudspeaker icon appearing in the upper right of the directions to enable reading the directions
House value Zestimate: when panning the Google Earth view or the Google Map the Location information will show you a "Zestimate link". This will retrieve Zillow.com house values and display in a separate window.
The location information will as well show the option to retrieve incident data for the present viewport of the Google Map. This feature is leveraging a service from mapquest .

The Gaiagi Driver is available at http://www.gaiagi.com/3d-driving-simulator/.

US Weather Radar Gadget - Issue with centering on Kansas

2009-10-18T12:31:00.001-07:00

Due to an incompatible change in the geocoding API of Google we are facing difficulties with mapping ZIP-codes to geo-coordinates. A fix was introduced which should be active in the latest Us Weather Radar Gadget.

Some instances might have cached the Weather Radar gadget. Helpful is the following gadget from Google which enables you to control caching behaviour of gadgets:

http://www.google.com/ig/directory?hl=en&url=www.google.com/ig/modules/developer.xml

Please let us know if you still have issues after turning off caching of the gadget. If it is working for you you can turn off caching again.

Update Oct. 20th: The issue with the Google geocoder is still not solved. We did further modifications to the geocoding process using 3 different geocoder now and will track results and issues. For us it is working so we need feedback if you have trouble even after turning off caching.

Gaiagi Driver - Updates 2009

2009-04-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

New features added recently:

Sightseeing Tours: you can select a sightseeing tour from a predefined list of tours like "New York: Central Park to Time Square", "San Francisco: Market Street to Golden Gate", "Rome: Collosseum to Monumento Vittorio Emanuele II", .... Tours can also be saved via a link and shared with others.
Select your car: Gaiagi Driver now offers to select your car. You can e.g. drive a Porsche, US Police Car, ... and even a UK Bus. Modells are from the Google 3D warehouse and created by Antics and others. Please check the config section for details. If there is interest we can offer to select your own car in "kmz"-format via an URL specified.
Radio: You can turn on the radio in the config section. Every car needs a radio ...

Gaiagi Driver is available at http://www.gaiagi.com/3d-driving-simulator/.

Gaiagi Driver - Driving Simulator including Streetview and Birdsview

2008-10-07T13:36:00.001-07:00

The driving simulator follows the path created by the directions and shows the present position in different views. Following views are available:

upper left: Google Earth view
upper right: Google Map view. You can toggle traffic information as well as street view information as overlays.
lower left: Google Streetview
lower right: Microsoft Birdsview

Other features include navigation in the Google Earth or Google Maps view while other views are adjusted accordingly, controlling of road overlay in earth view, buildings overlay in earth view, traffic overlay in maps view etc. You can easily share the current view with others.

Test drive Gaiagi Driver (Google Earth plugin required; you will be asked to install it if you have not done so).

US Weather Radar Gadget Updates 2008

2008-03-16T14:19:00.000-07:00

New features added recently:

1 click weather: just click on the map to get local weather information
IR Clouds: Clouds overlay based on infrared satellite images as part of the Radar tab
Wind Movie: 6 day wind flow forecast from meteoblue.com
May 29: Added Google Earth Plugin support which is yet experimental as it does not support all of the functionality offered by Google Maps like changing the height of the Gadget or supporting overlays the same way as Google Maps does. Update: To test the present functionality you can enable the GE Plugin in the configuration settings.
July 11: The gadget now supports opacity control of the cloud overlay as well.
August 23: If no ZIP is configured the weather is shown for your local geographic location derived from the IP address. An additional configuration parameter enables to automatically center the map on the geographic location.
If you are travelling this lets you always view the weather information for your local area as well as optionally have the map centered on your present location.
October 18: support for canvas view in iGoogle

More about NEXRAD - the Doppler Weather Radar detecting present rainfall

2008-02-29T14:12:00.000-08:00

Part of the information shown by the Weather Radar Module are NEXRAD weather radar echo graphics. Here you can find more information about the radar technology and meaning of the colors in the radar overlays:

Gaiagi Photo Explorer

2007-07-21T08:04:00.000-07:00

The Gaiagi Photo Explorer shows photos from flickr and Panoramio tagged with geo locations on Google Maps. It has a convenient interface to zoom into locations of photos as well as links to the original photo pages at the photo services.

You can move from one photo to the next easily and load new photos for the map area selected. Local search from Google enables to easily select a new location and display a brand new set of photos.

Please let us know your comments and suggestion how to improve the service.

US Weather Radar Gadget Update

2007-05-07T14:40:00.000-07:00

The new update includes:

Instant weather forecast via insert with icons. Hover over the icons to get a detailed forecast
Stored locations of the weather forecast inserts as well as map location and zoom
Options to scale the size of the content of the weather forecast insert
Option to show the timestamp of the last update of the Radar overlay
Options to hide the inserts

Update: We also added:

Live Weather cams in the area around the selected ZIP code. Not every weather station has its own webcam.
Video weather forecast (Vidcast) from Weatherbug.com.
Option to change the weather station. With the Chg button next to the weather station name in the insert the weather stations in the area are displayed on the map. Clicking on a weather station selects the new weather station and saves it for future.
Fixed: The map did not recenter to the stored location for modules with a height greater 200. This is fixed now.
Display of earthquakes from the last 24 hours. The default is to hide earthquakes below magnitude 5.0 so the display does not get cluttered.
Optional display of traffic status for selected cities. Default is not to show the traffic overlay so display stays uncluttered.
Support for KML and GeoRSS-Overlays is now also available. KML-Collections can be found at e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyhole_Markup_Language. FYI: right now sometimes image overlays don't work.
You can specify an overlay by the link to e.g.

NWS Weather Warnings
http://wdssii.nssl.noaa.gov/geotiff_new/nws_warnings.kmz
Hurricane live positions
http://www.glooton.fr/hurricanes.kmz
Flights approaching different airports: http://www.fboweb.com/antest/ge/geSFO.kmz (San Francisco)
http://www.fboweb.com/antest/ge/geBOS.kmz (Boston)
http://www.fboweb.com/antest/ge/geJFK.kmz (JFK - New York)
http://www.fboweb.com/antest/ge/geLAX.kmz (Los Angeles)
http://www.fboweb.com/antest/ge/geATL.kmz (Atlanta)
http://www.fboweb.com/antest/ge/geORD.kmz (Chicago)
http://www.fboweb.com/antest/ge/geSEA.kmz (Seattle)
http://www.fboweb.com/antest/ge/geMIA.kmz (Miami)

Option to change the location of the weather forecast. Click on the "ZIP" link or on one of the forecast icons in the weather forecast overview. Enter a location or ZIP in the field and hit "enter" to change to the new location displaying the new weather forecast and weather station