Spectra: A Different Perspective in Viewing News

We would like to introduce a new member to our Vivid Lamp team. Louie from Orangeinks will be posting an article each week about technology, innovation and internet related ideas. Please welcome Louie to our team, we are very happy to have him join us! His first article post is below:


I am always fascinated by innovations and enjoy trying out fresh new ideas. It may not always be the best but if it's interesting and unique, it's always worth giving a try.

Ever since the birth of Web 2.0, news sites and news aggregators have been showing off different styles to attract readership in their news sites. While good content is always important, it never stopped developers in making innovations and testing out fresh ways to make their visitors' viewing and reading experience better. There are sites that use simple interface in delivering news to their readers/viewers while others adapted the "Web 2.0" look with a more eyecandy interface. MSNBC is trying out something different and less boring than your average news reader.


Spectra is a visual news reader which is developed by MSNBC that merges the news spectrum and the color spectrum into an expansive news viewing experience. The web app delivers a colorful, more visual and interesting way of viewing news. You can easily add a color-coded news category to be included in the visualization. The only problem with visualization is that it provides little content, for Spectra is only an alternative and not a full-feature news tool. Aside from the title, Spectra gives a gist of the story along with photos (if available) related to the article. You will still be redirected to the MSNBC regular site in order to read the full news content.

• Orbital View: This is actually the default view with headlines spinning in a circular, tornado-like motion where you can view, choose and select a news article you want to read.
• Auto Mode: Is quite similar to the Orbital View feature which also displays the headlines all over your screen only with the selection feature disabled. It's like a screensaver with news tiles floating around.
• Color Sensor: This one requires a webcam to work. This works like a motion/color detector which will display different headlines depending on the colors Spectra detects through your webcam. It's like a random news viewer function with a twist. Not very efficient but it is certainly entertaining.
• News Collector: This feature allows you to temporarily bookmark and collect news articles for future reading. Using this feature in viewing news will also let you view the full article from within the Spectra window.
• Orbital Order: This feature lets you change the order of the news articles being displayed.
• Word Filter: This feature eliminates news articles which are not related to your keyword of choice.

Whether you are a news junkie or someone who just likes to browse headlines looking for something newsworthy, Spectra is definitely worth checking out and will surely give you a unique experience in reading news in the web. Check it out and tell us what you think.