Microsoft tests app that will read you the news

[Thakur]

Microsoft app will read out news

Do you remember reading important news stories out to your ailing grandfather or illiterate neighbour in your childhood days to earn some pocket money? Well, an app is going to do this for you now.

 

Microsoft is reportedly testing an app that will sort out the best news stories from the web and use text-to-speech technology to read out article summaries to the users.

 

Users can save articles for reading later and view the full text of any article the app -- called NewsCast pulls in using a built-in browser or a distraction-free reading view, PCWorld.com reported.

 

It has been designed to keep users up to date with the latest news while they are commuting and do not have time to look at smartphones.

 

According to a publicly-accessible webpage for the app, NewsCast is a proof-of-concept product from the Bing News and Speech teams and seems to only be built for testing inside Microsoft.

 

Collecting feedback from users is a major focus of the app-developing team.

 

A feedback button in the app opens an email that includes a three-question survey about what users like, dislike and want from it in the future.



http://www.abplive.in/gadget/2015/08/16/article686366.ece/Microsoft-app-will-read-out-news

 

[Rahulan Raj]

RE: Microsoft app will read out news

Will it read all Thakur's articles here :huh Would be a great help

 

[Sarkar]

Microsoft is quietly testing an app that seems designed for people who want an assist keeping up with today's barrage of news.

The app, called NewsCast, hasn't been formally announced, but it was first spotted by Neowin's Brad Sams. It takes in articles from around the Web and starts reading summaries of them to users in an ongoing playlist. Users can save articles for reading later and view the full text of any article NewsCast pulls in using a built-in browser or a distraction-free reading view.

It's all designed to keep users up to date on the latest news while they're commuting and don't want to be staring at tiny text on their phone.

According to a publicly accessible webpage for the app, NewsCast is a proof-of-concept product from the Bing News and Speech teams and seems to be testing only inside Microsoft. The teams are "trying to validate several hypothesis"[sic] with the app, though it's not clear what they're testing. Collecting feedback from users is a major focus of NewsCast's current build -- tapping a feedback button in the app opens an email that includes a three-question survey about what users like, dislike and want from it in the future.

Interestingly, NewsCast is only available for iOS right now, which means that there must be a sufficiently large group of people inside Microsoft who use iPhones to be valuable for testing a new app. This isn't the first time the company has built something specifically for Apple's mobile platform before its own, however -- multiple teams working on projects as part of Microsoft's Garage idea lab recently released iOS-only apps.

For now, anyone can download the app from this website and install it on an iPhone, though it's not clear how long it will be before Microsoft takes it down. Because it's not being sent through the App Store, users will have to give it permission to run on their device.

Microsoft isn't the only tech company going after mobile news summaries. Facebook is reportedly testing its own Twitter-like news app, and Yahoo has received accolades for its News Digest app, which gives users bite-sized summaries about current events.

A representative for Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Microsoft tests app that will read you the news | Computerworld

 

[Sarkar]

OOps sorry for double posting :shy