The New York Times has announced the release of a free beta of its Times Reader, a downloadable application that enhances the onscreen reading experience of The New York Times for Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista users.

It offers consumers access to The Times electronically, online or offline from a desktop, laptop, tablet PC or UMPC device. Times Reader lets users retrieve the latest news and photos, through a synching process that lasts approximately one minute.

Times Reader combines the interactivity and immediacy of the Web with the portability of a newspaper through Windows Presentation Foundation, Microsoft's advanced display technology in Windows Vista. The text in Times Reader is displayed in a format to fit the size and layout of any computer screen and enables readers to customize the display according to personal preferences, such as font size and content relevance.

While providing the look and feel of the newspaper, Times Reader allows mobile users, such as business travelers or commuters, to synchronize their laptops, tablet PC’s or ultra-mobile computing devices before getting on an airplane or a train and have available the latest New York Times content to read when it is most convenient.

Times Reader features include "News in Pictures" that allows consumers to navigate the day’s news through photography and a “Topic Explorer” search tool that allows readers to see the relationships between the topics covered in The Times.

In addition to saving and printing articles, readers can also highlight and annotate passages within the text of articles.

Times Reader beta for Windows XP requires Microsoft's .Net Framework 3.0, recently released as a final build.

Anyone who is currently running Windows XP and is a registered user of NYTimes.com can participate in the Times Reader beta by signing on-line. Times Reader is free during the beta period and will officially launch in 2007.