| Up-to-the minute weather news can be delivered to a construction site via cellular phones for about $20 per month. |
Paul Douglas, weatherman at WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, is marketing a new application for cell phones that provides weather conditions and forecasts, along with Doppler radar images, for any specific site, including job sites.
“It really makes sense for builders because severe electrical storms pose a major threat to building sites and the trade crews working on them,” Douglas says, noting that the threat is most severe in the Midwest and South from early spring until fall, just when construction peaks.
Douglas’ company, Digital Cyclone, developed Mobile My-Cast to run on Nextel/Motorola and AT&T mLife phones equipped with Java technology. The service costs about $20 a month. “Our fee is $9.95 a month, and the data service is usually about $8 or $9 a month for the average user tapping in one or two times a day,” Douglas explains.
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