UniveRSS is a 3D RSS feed reader for Windows Vista. It leverages the Windows Presentation Foundation and provides a stunning way of visualizing RSS feeds and their content. It introduces a full-screen 3D universe where galaxies represent the folders of your RSS feed directory, and the stars are represented by the spinning cubes that hold the feed information. Size and position of the feed cubes indicate how many unread items they contain.

You navigate through the feed galaxies in a game-like environment, freely moving in all three dimensions. Selecting items in lists will turn the cube to the next side displaying the item's content including images. Just click the right mouse buttons and you turn back to the list view or to the galaxy.

UniveRSS is a showcase application that demonstrates the use of several WPF features, 3D animations, data binding, and data visualization. Currently UniveRSS uses the RSS Feed Store managed through Internet Explorer 7. Later versions will allow you to manage the Feed Store from within the UniveRSS application.

Please note: We expect RSS feeds to become visually more appealing in the future. Today a lot of feeds don't provide any logo or feed picture yet. In such cases the cubes only display a generic feed icon. So make sure to use a list of feeds that provide logos to generate the best experience (e.g. most podcasts).

Since this is a WPF showcase using 3D models and animations, we strongly recommend to install UniveRSS on PCs ready for Windows Vista Premium. This includes PCs with the following specifications:

• 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 GB of system memory
• Support for DirectX 9 graphics with a WDDM driver, 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum), Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel.

You will find the complete list of requirements here.

UniveRSS is an evolving showcase application which will continuously be developed and enhanced with new features. It will update itself through the ClickOnce deployment service. You will also find regular articles on the development and how to's from a developer's perspective. Updates will be announced through the MSDN Flash newsletter. By registering for the Panel website you will receive updates via MSDN Flash.

Over the next months you will see enhancements and additional features like:

• alternative ways to navigate in UniveRSS
• further customization features and RSS feed management information
• advanced search and sorting possibilities
• more-advanced physical animation model
• integration of Live services
• additional layouts
• and many more …

With the release of version 1.0 you will find documentation and descriptions on how UniveRSS was built.