Microsoft is testing a news reading app Newscast. Newscast application which makes a playlist of news story summaries and reads them to people. The publication came across a page on the Microsoft Azure Web Sites domain that had the app for download. As described by the Microsoft Bing team programmer working and designing with this application. The product was designed with more friendly by the users, they can listen to playlist even while driving. Unfortunately, the download’s no longer available, but Neowin managed to take some screenshots that you can see below the fold.
NewsCast reportedly uses Bing’s text-to-speech program to read out blurbs that last 30 seconds each, though the voice isn’t as organic as Cortana’s. It allows you to save summaries for later and also has a feedback button that launches a three-question survey for testers. Curiously, the app that was on Azure was available only for iOS devices, though it’s probably because a lot of Microsoft employees/testers use iPhones and iPads. As you can see, it’s not quite identical to the breaking news app Facebook’s reportedly developing, as well, but the two could very well be rivals in the future.
[Image credit: JeepersMedia/Flickr, Neowin]
Featured image Credit : Flickr
