TECH SPECIAL ....................How to Streamline the Way You Read Your News

How to Streamline the Way You Read Your News



The problem with a fast-paced city life is that you're always short on time. Getting your daily news fix is one thing that should'nt take up much of your time.

How you can get all the news that's important to you, delivered quickly and effortlessly to the device you want it on whether a computer or cellphone

ON A COMPUTER

Glowdart.com

If you prefer a continuously scrolling, ticker based newsfeed, Glowdart is your best option. Unlike most websites, there is no registration required -just open the website in a browser and it will start showing you scrolling headlines from various sources -click on a headline to read the story in detail. You can choose from a list of various news sources and even link your Facebook and Twitter feed to it. Keep in mind that the news feed is refreshed every few minutes, so it will consume a fair bit of your Internet bandwidth.

Guzzle.it

Guzzle lets you create a customised news page with topics of your choice within the browser. You can add any topic you like from the settings and Guzzle will browse through hundred of sources to get the latest news on it. It shows you the latest headlines and popular headlines side-by-side -you can click to open the detailed article in a new tab. Creating an account is not necessary, but if you do, you can access your customised news page from any other computer or web browser by signing in.

Newsblur.com

Newsblur offers a split-screen interface for news. It has a large sidebar where you can sort various feeds/sites under different categories. There are also sections for global stories and most shared stories. The reader side is split in two sections -the top shows the article while the bottom displays only headlines. You can choose to view the selected article as a a snippet or get the full web view in the same window. Another good thing about Newsblur is that you can choose the font size, font type, spacing between lines and even the layout.

Dailyme.com

DailyMe is the one to go for if you like a clean layout with clear labels and categories. Like any news website, DailyMe has topics unders various tabs -click on a topic to get the latest news about it. You also have the option to personalise the news feed by adding a topic of your choice or by manually adding RSS feeds from a website. If you create a free account, DailyMe keeps track of your reading habits and customises content to suit your taste.

ON A MOBILE DEVICE

Flipboard

 Flipboard (available for iOS, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Android) creates a magazine-style news feed with big images on your handheld device.
You can customise the content with topics of your choice as well as add your social network feeds. Zite With over 40,000 topics, Zite (available for iOS & Android) delivers personalised news in an easy-to read-interface. You can also choose to link your Facebook, Twitter or Pocket accounts to get personalised topic suggestions.

LinkedIN Pulse

As the name suggest, Pulse is a news aggregator by LinkedIn (available for iOS & Android). The interface uses the entire screen of your device to show a large image and headline for each article -just swipe left to see the next story. We liked that that articles are automatically downloaded for offline reading when the app is open.

Weave News Reader

 Weave (Windows Phone only) has a similar tile based interface to the Windows Phone home screen. Your topics and articles appear as scrollable tiles with images -tapping a tile opens up the story within the app and you can even get the phone to read the article out for you.

Pocket/Readability

Both these apps (available for iOS & Android) perform a similar function -they let you save content from various sources to read later, even if you are offline. You need to create a free account on the service and then, when you come across something interesting, you can save it for later in one click. Useful for frequent travelers.

Taptu

Taptu (iOS, Android & BlackBerry) lets you create a curated stream of news feeds from selected topics of interest as well as your favourite websites. Each story is represented as a photo tile -tap on a story to open a mobile optimised layout. Plus, you can customise the font and image sizes within the app as per your taste. Getprismatic.com If you like the magazine style layout for reading news (which a lot of smartphone/tablet apps have), you can also get it for your PC. Prismatic is what we use and it works within a web browser. After a free signup, select your topics and Prismatic will load the relevant stories in a scrollable, magazine-style layout. You can switch between topics from a handy sidebar and even search for other topics on the fly. Finally, you can connect your social media accounts to share and a Pocket account to save content for offline reading.

Hitesh Raj Bhagat & Karan Bajaj ET140611