Kevin Junghans

It looks like Google has killed its unofficial weather service API.  I caught wind of it when I saw a lot of inquiries about it on StackOverflow .  Now when you make a request to the API it returns "Unsupported API".  One of VoiceModels examples used the Google weather API to demonstrate how to get information from a service and voice it back.  When I found this out I searched for another free weather service and found MSN. The example WeatherVoice now uses the MSN service.  The example was written so that it is easy to insert new services or even use a mock-up service when testing.  If you need a replacement for using the Google weather API you may want to check out the example to see how you can use MSN for the same information.

An add-on for the open source project Mayhem that was developed using VoiceModel just won an honorable mention in the Make Mayhem Contest .  There were some pretty cool add-ons developed for Mayhem in this contest and you can view the winners on FaceBook . I recently posted about this add-on and the contest.  You can read about it here .  There was not enough time to submit everything intended for Mayhem in this contest. The way this solution was designed it would be easy to send commands to Mayhem via text messages (SMS) using a service like Tropo or SMSIified .  Work is currently being done to integrate VoiceModel with Tropo  which would allow VoiceModel applications to also communicate using SMS.  And it is intended to create an add-on that would control Z-Wave devices in a home for home automation. This would allow you to control lighting and other devices in your home by sending a text message.  Watch this blog for future development.