Click the links below to access the RSS and Atom feeds, which consist of the ten latest news stories in their respective categories. The feeds have been validated at http://validator.w3.org/feed/ but feel free to check the feed anyway by clicking the logo to the left of the feed.

For those not in the know, RSS¹ and Atom² feeds are simply a way of supplying information (often but not always news stories) in a standard format that facilitates the syndication of that information. Both news sites and weblogs, for instance, will frequently offer a feed as an alternative way for users to receive their updates.

The feed can then be consumed (anyone else feeling peckish?) by a program known as a "feed reader" or "aggregator", which takes the information contained in the feed and presents it in a way that people find easy to read. The feed itself, being just an XML document, can be accessed in a variety of ways but is most often listed on portal sites that allow users to pick from a number of feeds and build up a personalised digest of news stories, press releases, software update notifications and so on.

One of the goals of making RSS and Atom feeds available is to supplant the e-mail newsletter by providing an alternative that places the user in complete control of content and, perhaps more significantly, subscription.

This icon is often used to indicate that an RSS feed is available for the page you are viewing, while this icon does the same for Atom feeds. There don't seem to be any hard and fast rules about the colours of these icons, however, so don't quote us on that.

The feeds offered here are freely available but are, of course, subject to the same statutes concerning copyright and intellectual property that we continue to flout on a daily basis.

Comments, complaints and pledges of financial support can be sent here: subeditor@dotdotdotcomma.com.

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1. RSS is short for RDF³ Site Summary, Rich Site Summary, Really Simple Syndication or pretty much anything else you fancy.
2. Atom is a response to the problems encountered with RSS. It is an alternative feed format, which was variously known as "Pie", "Echo" and "Necho" before everybody settled on "Atom", which, if nothing else, demonstrates that software developers should never be left to name something they invent.
3. RDF: Resource Definition Framework. No, we've no idea either.