Online news portal MSNBC recently launched Spectra Visual News Reader; an interesting and fun way to explore the latest news headlines. The simple interface lets you choose the news categories you're interested in and then displays them in three dimensions.
It's a very attractive looking interface with nice graphical touches such as when you filter the headlines the ones that are not relevant sunk off the bottom of the screen, and then float back into view when you remove the filter. I don't really know how practical it is to use, or what it offers compared to viewing the news in a conventional manner other than the slick interface.
It reminds me a little of the Google newsmap, by Marcos Weskamp and Dan Albritton, released several years ago. Though not as pretty to look at, it is more useful due to the fact it prioritises news stories based on how popular they are on the Google news search. The results are then displayed in colour coded categories similar to Spectra, each is scaled on it's chronological importance and to fit perfectly within the screen.
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