Met Office gets mobile content makeover

Stand back, Google – the Met Office fancies itself as the new content provider on the block. According to a report in the Financial Times, the Met Office is hoping to resell its content onto mobile providers to boost the revenues it gets from TV companies like the BBC.

The FT says the Met Office has opened a new studio in Millbank which will be used to “stream video to 3G mobile phones of three-dimensional “fly-through” weather maps akin to those provided for BBC and ITN television bulletins”. It already provides 2D maps through MobiTV.

3D fly through maps? It’s what HSDPA was made for. On a side note, the Met Office is also buying some new computer modeling technology so it can put up severe weather warnings quicker by predicting when flooding is on the way – sounds like something that could really benefit from an SMS alert system to me.