Users are increasingly reading content on a screen as they ditch print to surf the Web. But what happens when they want to read and they're not connected to the Internet? Bill Hill and Michael Cooper of Microsoft presented the latest software they developed in a partnership with the New York Times and Caroline Pauwels gave the results of a test the Flemish paper de Tijd did with e-paper at the 13th World Editors Forum in Moscow.

Hill in his "business suit kilt" addressed the Forum hall by revealing that he has always wanted to change the world. What better way to do it by revising Microsoft Windows, used by half a billion people daily.

Hill, who admitted that he is a reading addict, is a director of reading technologies at Microsoft and is trying to make reading on a screen more agreeable to the human eye, adapting the 550 years of experience we as a species have in reading on paper.

In doing that, Hill explained that Microsoft had helped the New York Times to create Times Reader, a device that allows the reader to browse the Times offline. The project includes:

• paginated layout (no scrolling)
• ClearType, (proven that people read it 5% more quickly and retain 2% more material)
• Adaptive layout (fits to the screen you are using)

Cooper quoted NYTCo. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger whose motivation for Times Reader is "to be able to engage our readers in a way that they’ll spend more time with our content”

One of the most innovative characteristics of the software, continued Cooper, is the potential for a new form of advertising. The Times Reader shows a version of the advertising on the page in adaptive layout that also includes an embedded link that allows the reader to find out more about the product without having to connect to the Internet. This has the potential to bring in more print-like ad revenues.

Hill concluded the Microsft presentation by listing his dreams; that news organizations prosper in the digital world, that news is highly valued, and that everyone has access to news everywhere in order to make the world a more educated and peaceful place. "The more of the world that can read, the better the world will be.”

Caroline Pauwels followed the Microsoft duo by reporting on a much discussed e-paper test here paper in Flanders, de Tijd, was undergoing.

Pauwels said that readers, espcially those that travel, generally thought the reader was a good idea, but that they still preferred the paper because the device de Tijd distributed needs some work. The main complaint was the download time when switching from page to page. They were also annoyed that the device did not have search functions, which de Tijd thought was caused by readers' habits of reading the news online.

More news from the 59th World Newspaper Congress

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