PC Magazine -- January 7, 1997

News Without the Wires

Global Villages's NewsCatcher provides all the news that's fit to broadcast

Jon Kaufthal

Utilities

With its blinking light and jet-black pyramid-shaped case, Global Village Communication's $150 NewsCatcher allows you to receive up-to-the-minute news broadcasts wirelessly on your PC. Think of it as PointCast Network without wires. Making use of a wireless news service used by pagers, NewsCatcher gets news headlines, sports scores, and stock quotes without having to connect to the Internet.

One year of basic service comes with NewsCatcher, but we think most will choose the premium service, which provides more news more frequently and costs $4 per month. You get this level of service free for 90 days.

NewsCatcher is a simple alternative to PointCast Network or Freeloader. Just plug the receiver into your computer's serial port and you're ready to receive news. NewsCatcher's simple graphical format provides one-click access to stories and notices when you have e-mail waiting.

NewsCatcher's software was written by AirMedia Live, the company that provides the broadcast service; at present, the service reaches about 90 percent of the U.S. population. When it gets a news item, NewsCatcher displays a small icon (an animated puck for hockey news, a dollar sign for business items) flying across your computer's screen, complete with sound effects, which you can disable.

To read an item, you can use NewsCatcher's toolbar; when clicked, its icons launch separate windows. We prefer the control given by the software's remote window, which has configuration options and access to older stories.

For those who can't or don't want to access the Internet for news, NewsCatcher keeps you up-to-date on all of the latest events--without wires.

Copyright (c) 1996 Ziff-Davis Publishing Company

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