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Frequently Asked Questions
 What is
Particls?
Particls
learns what you care about and alerts
you when there's new information on
those subjects. Check out
the screenshots
for an example.
So it's a news
reader?
Particls
is a newsreader in the same way the
Internet is only for websites.
You can read
your news in it, but it is not a
newsreader - it is an alerts platform.
This means that information is displayed
'while you work on other things' in a
heads-up-display presentation style. In
this way you can keep working while
staying informed.
So it's a
widget platform?
Particls
is not a widget or gadget platform. Widgets each typically represent a window
into a single source of information (e.g.
"The Stock Quotes Widget" displays stock
quotes).
Particls
output adapters are designed to consume
varying levels of user attention.
Particls evaluates each incoming
piece of information and gives it a rank
of 'Personal Relevance' to the user.
Particls
then uses the right Output Adapter so
that it consumes only the amount of
attention appropriate for the relevancy of
the alert. We call this
The policy of Diminishing Attention
Consumption.
What operating system does it run on?
Currently Particls is a Windows only
application (XP or Vista). Yes, yes we
know - A Mac version would be very nice.
We hear you.
If you only have a Mac, please note that
we have tested Particls on Parallels and
it works great. Also check out the
Demos.
How does it
learn what I care about?
In a few ways.
You can tell it by typing in
and ranking keywords and sources. Also you can
optionally allow Particls
to scan your hard drive periodically to
auto-detect topics you care about (from
the documents, conversations, emails and
sites you visit). Don't worry,
your privacy is
assured.
Particls also takes other factors into
consideration - for example, how popular
a particular item is on the internet at
large, how current the item is and other
factors
that are part of our secret recipe.
Particls uses all this information to
determine the 'Personal Relevancy' of
incoming items/alerts.
Where does the
information come from?
Particls can get information from
virtually any
place. The first and most obvious place
is using a technology called RSS. RSS is
the best way for sites to
tell visitors when there is new content
to view.
Particls supports this format
as well as similar formats such as Atom.
There
might be sites and applications (including
those that run on your personal
computer) that provide different ways of retrieving
information and Particls can support
those with
Input Adapters.
What sort of alerts are used?
By
default Particls comes with a news
ticker, a system tray alert (like the
one you might get with Windows Messenger
or Skype), and a cursor trail alert (a
popup that follows your mouse for a few
seconds before fading away).
Additional alerts are developed by others in the community and are
listed on the
extensions page. These might include
SMS, Email etc.
Typically
these alerts would not steal focus from
your current application so you could
keep working even as they fade in and
fade out on your screen.
Particls allows you to set rules for
which alert method to use depending on
the 'Personal Relevancy' of an update. The
more important the update, the more
attention grabbing an alert you may wish
to use.
How much is
Particls?
Particls will come in two flavours.
Free with ads or an ad-free Pro Version
(price to be announced).
I don't want
to have annoying ads bugging me while I
work!
Well
that's not a question - but the
Particls ad system will be very
special.
First, ad
items will go through the same item
processing system as all your other
updates. This means that ads will be given
a Personal Relevancy value and only
be presented in proportion to
their importance to you.
Second,
the ads should be of a
quality that actually improves the Particls experience
by giving you relevant information based
on your interests.
Third,
you can turn the ads off by upgrading to
the pro version.
I'm sold - how do I get it?
You can download
Particls
here (for windows only at the
moment).
How can I stay informed about updates?
Sign up to the
mailing list here and or subscribe
to
the blog. |
