You may have noticed the icon shown to the left underneath the current news and events and possibly in your browser address bar. This is the RSS or Really Simple Syndication icon.
RSS is a standard method for web sites to publish a list of updates to the site. In our case the feed on our home page lists news and events entries. An RSS reader (see below) will automatically collect this data and show you what has changed since you last viewed that RSS feed. There is an excellent arcticle on RSS at the BBC News website. If you visit that page you will see that the BBC provide a number of feeds covering different types on content on their site.
There are a large number of news readers to choose from and increasing support for RSS in Web browsers. Internet Explorer 7 includes an RSS news reader as does Firefox and the mail reader Thunderbird. There are also web sites which you can use, a very popular one is Bloglines or if you have a Google account you might like to try Google Reader. If you prefer a Windows desktop application then FeedDemon is a good option although you will have to pay for it.
If you want to know more then a Google search for news reader will list both news readers and information about RSS.
For detailed information see these Wikipedia entries:
