In a very hectic time in which we live today we do not have a luxury of putting on a side a chunk of time, sit in the chair, relax and read the newspaper. We provide an opportunity to busy people and especially commuters that spend precious time on the road to listen to their favorite newspapers wherever they go and whenever they want. You only have to carry with you Pocket PC, and not bulky newspapers and magazines.
How does it work?
The user selects news channels and schedule a download time. At the specified time ReadMeNews downloads HTML pages, extracts text and converts them into MP3 files. At the same time it builds tree-like structure that organizes news stories in categories and subcategories. All necessary files are stored on CF/SD card. Snap a memory card into Pocket PC and you are ready to go.
In the car just place a Pocket PC beside you and you can navigate through the news by simple pressing the hardware buttons. Four buttons are provided for navigation.
Hardware buttons on the front side of the PDA are enabled to perform navigation like to go to the next/previous news or to go up in the tree with the Up button.
Our experience is that only two buttons are required for easy navigation: Next and Up (taking you one level up in the tree). The Next button will always take you to the next article wrapping around when it comes to last one (it will position you to the first one). With the Next button you always stay at the same level. Up button is provided for changing the level, taking you a level up from the current level. Both buttons can be easily located on the Pocket PC even while you are driving. It will take the most 5 to 10 minutes to get used to button manipulations.
The best way to listen is to let ReadMeNews cruise through all the news and when you ear catches something interesting you can go back and listen to the part again. No frustration that you missed something and pressure that you have to be attentive to every spoken word in order not to miss interesting parts, because you can very easily navigate through the news and go back to the previous one. At the same time no need to listen to something you do not like. You can easily skip those parts. Our experience tells that most of the users would let ReadMeNews automatically walk them thorough the articles and occasionally skip some or go up in the tree. As you spend more time with ReadMeNews, you will learn more about your preferences and find ways to locate the news that the most interest you.
