Really Simple Syndication support shall be a feature in the long awaited Longhorn 64-bit operating system.
The popular XML-based technology that makes gathering information from widely disparate web sites in one reader utility will have native support in the breathlessly awaited Longhorn operating system from Microsoft.
Though RSS has become more popular, it isn’t quite a mainstream technology yet. Its proponents favor RSS as a way to keep track of favorite web sites from a central location, instead of having to browse to each site individually.
Microsoft made the announcement at the Gnomedex conference it is sponsoring in Seattle today. Basic end-user RSS functionality will be available in the Longhorm client beta coming later this summer. More details will be discussed at the September Microsoft Professional Developers Conference.
The RSS functionality in “Longhorn” is being designed to make it simple for end users to discover, view and subscribe to RSS feeds, as well as make it easier for developers to incorporate the rich capabilities of RSS into their applications.
Also, Microsoft announced Simple List Extensions, a set of extensions to RSS that can be used to enable Web sites to publish lists such as of photo albums, music playlists and top 10 lists as RSS feeds.
Microsoft is making the specification freely available via the Creative Commons license, the same license under which the RSS 2.0 specification was released.
“We really believe that RSS is key to how people will be using the Internet in the future,” said Megan Kidd, a Windows project manager.
RSS support in Longhorn will manage a user’s list of subscribed feeds, and provide a common data store where local applications can access anything that has been acquired via RSS.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
