Old Standby
![Updates Updates](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F88d51c09-9bd5-4d0d-9f3c-661b45e81427_240x192.jpeg)
When I'm at work, my Mac sits beside me as my window to the outside world. Sometimes its my "with friends" Twitter stream, sometimes it's a live webcam or two, and sometimes it's Digg Labs' "swarm."
A lot of the time, though, it's this "newsmap" page.
Taking your typical linear scrolling news ticker to the next level, it shows a spectrum of news stories (configurable by topic and region). The "hotter" the story, the larger the item is on screen. It's a few years old now (turns out I blogged about it in March 2004!), but still quite cool.
I guess I'm basically using these as glorified screen savers, but I'll take up-to-date tidbits over flying toasters any day.