rss

Has Techmeme met its match? Or Flipboard? New semantic news analysis company Wavii is launching its automated, personalized news "feed" app today. It's a more modern and more pretty, deconstruction of the overwhelming news barrage we're all buried under. Wavii CEO Adrian Aoun's pitch: "Facebook is good for keeping up with friends, but it's kind of annoying that you can't keep up with your world this way."

Wavii is a smart timeline of the news. Its core value is that it runs its semantic engine against several hundred news feeds and … Read more

After using Newser on the iPhone, one of my all-time favorite apps, for years, I have found it hard to rely on RSS feeds on my Mac with their text-heavy design and truncated headlines. With MixTab, free in the Mac App Store, I get a quickly loading app that delivers my news, complete with engaging graphics.

Launch MixTab and you'll be asked to create an account. After providing an e-mail and password, MixTab opens with seven default topics. You can delete any topic that doesn't interest you by clicking on the Edit Tabs button at the top and … Read more

As I noted back in January, the only smart way to buy Apple gear is to buy it refurbished.

You're guaranteed to save money while getting gear that's literally as good as new.

Just one problem: how can you keep tabs on Apple's latest refurb deals? Suppose, for example, you're in the market for a refurbished fourth-gen iPod Touch, the one with the built-in cameras and Retina display. (As it happens, that's exactly what my kids are after.)

For a long while, there weren't any for sale. I know because I checked the store … Read more

Mozilla engineers have begun work on a new API for Web sites that will allow them to notify you when they update, similar to how a mobile app notifies you that it has new content for you to check out. But what it really sounds like is a way to drag the concept of RSS feeds into Web 2.0--finally.

Jeff Balogh, a Web developer at Mozilla, explained in a blog post earlier this week that the push application programming interface is designed to extend the idea of the push services we already experience on iOS and Android to the … Read more

We previously told you about IfThisThenThat (ifttt) when it was in a closed beta, and had a limited selection of channels and triggers.

Fortunately, the list of channels and triggers is growing by the day.

Using an RSS feed, you can bring in a lot of other sites and services that aren't currently available as a channel on ifttt. One example of a service you can bring into ifttt via RSS is Netflix.

Before we begin, sign up for an ifttt account if you don't already have one. After you have an account, sign in and follow the … Read more

If you want to spread the word far and wide, Tumblr is a great resource.

If you want to send content from one blog to another, though, Tumblr isn't so great, as they recently turned off RSS importing. You can circumvent that restriction with TumblRSS as long as you're willing to set up a Webapp and restrain yourself from posting more than 100 items per day. Here's how to do it: 

If you haven't grabbed the app yet, get Google Currents for Android, or Google Currents for iPhone.

Step 1: Open the app and make sure you're on the Library tab.

Step 2: Swipe through the edition tiles to find the one labeled "Add more" and then press it.

Step 3: Scroll down to Google Reader in the list that loads.

Step 4: You'll see the RSS feeds you're subscribed to through Google Reader. Just press the Add button next to the ones you want to add to Google Currents.

Step 5: You'll … Read more

It's not pareidolia. You're actually looking at the face of the Little Printer, a tiny output device coming in 2012 that curates your online subscriptions and spits them out as a snackable newspaper.

The Little Printer occupies as much room on your shelf as an alarm clock, but the wireless server inside the molded plastic and brushed steel faceplate connects to an accompanying smartphone app with which you choose the services you want in your morning or evening report; multiple feeds are available, including your daily agenda, news headlines, personal messages, games and puzzles, and birthday reminders extracted from Facebook.

The guts of the Little Printer are simple; a roll of paper sits on a spool and a thermal printer heats up chemicals that change color when exposed to heat (the same inkless printing technology is used on sales receipts, giving you an idea of the output quality limitations)--maybe that's why every message starts and ends with a happy face.… Read more

Muzine is a music news app for iPad that lets you read the latest music topics in an easy-to-read format, or lets you customize your feeds to get news only from your favorite bands and sources. After launching the app, you're given a slideshow of featured stories--strangely, you can't go to a story by tapping on it, but instead need to hit the Features button to get access to full stories. Even with this oversite, the columned layout of the stories in the Featured section makes browsing for music news incredibly easy and enjoyable. A swipe upwards lets … Read more