Having grown up near Los Angeles, with a career stop in Miami, I’ve lived through my share of earthquakes and hurricanes. Unless you’ve experienced it, it’s difficult to understand the stress and fear these events can bring. One very important factor in preparing, enduring, and recovering from a natural disaster is communication. During these times when we have so little control over the outcome of events, information is priceless, and helps us make what decisions we can.
Pardon the pun, but weather like this was made for cloud-connected TVs.
With all due respect to The Weather Channel, 24/7 viewing can get a little redundant. How many times can a news reporter put a fresh spin on wind and rain, or roll tape of the same half-dozen people talking about how their building was shaking?
By the way, am I the only one who gets some glee out of watching these reporters get their toupees blown off, or struggle to hold onto a street sign while they get pelted with freezing rain? I suppose I’m not the only one; otherwise they’d probably just be standing in front of a window pointing to the horrible weather outside.
Imagine this alternative: Cloud-delivered forecasts and other updates from The Weather Channel or Accuweather in a corner of your screen while you’re watching something else. Or, since you’re not likely to be enjoying a light comedy during these times, maybe you would just prefer to watch a mosaic of all the news and weather channels. Another part of the screen could provide Twitter feeds and YouTube videos that show you—in real-time—what people are experiencing with the weather.
Instead of having to frantically scour TV and the Web for all the disparate information sources, you can have peace-of-mind knowing that all this information is centralized for you in one place.
Now, of course, if the power goes out, even a cloud-connected TV will be of no help to you. So make sure you have a portable radio with fresh batteries on hand. Better yet, get a generator, so you can keep that cloud-connected TV powered up.
