World News Screensaver 2.0

The World News Screensaver proposes a new way of reading the news. The application, which is a screensaver as you can clearly tell from its name, pulls news articles from RSS feeds and displays them on your desktop – when the screensaver becomes active of course. Behind the news you can see the Earth and a black background. The Earth rotates according to the place where the news takes place. So if you have some news article about Russia, the globe will show you Russia.

By default the application comes with a list of RSS feeds. You can customize that list by removing and adding new ones. I tried it out with the FindMySoft RSS feed http://www.findmysoft.com/xml/news/software_news.xml.

The World News Screensaver promptly displayed the latest news article, mainly Help Yahoo! in the Fight Against Breast Cancer. Since the article mentions Germany, World News Screensaver showed me Germany. When I pressed the right arrow, the screensaver showed the next article from the FindMySoft news section, mainly Windows Only: The Chrome Team's Favorite Browser Extensions. Since the article mentioned Redmond-based software giant Microsoft, World News Screensaver showed me Redmond, WA.

If you see a news article in World News Screensaver and you would like to read it later, simply press F2. When you close World News Screensaver, your browser will automatically launch and take you to that article. From the configuration pane you can set it up so that the article is accessed immediately after you press F2.

World News Screensaver can also play music in the background. The application can play a selected song or a playlist (with your default music player).

Before you go get World News Screensaver and put it to the test, take a look at the following details:
Download – the download weighs in at some 1.9MB.
Installation – at the time of writing this and according to the developer, Cosmic Voyage provides support for Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP, and Vista. During the installation process you are asked if you want to put desktop shortcuts on the screen; this will put a Configuration and a Run shortcut on the screen.
Limitations – the trial version displays a license reminder.

Pros

• Lightweight download
• Easy to use
• A nice RSS feed reader-screensaver combo
• Plays music in the background
• The trial version is not time limited
• Various customization options

Cons

• No customization option to make the text smaller

Additional details about World News Screensaver are available here.

World News Screensaver has been reviewed by George Norman on 05 Oct 2010. Based on the user interface, features and complexity, Findmysoft has rated World News Screensaver 3 out of 5 stars, naming it Very Good