Yahoo has acquired
Pixoria, maker of the
Konfabulator
JavaScript runtime engine which provides a platform for so-called widgets.
The tiny applications provide information from the internet or about a
system's performance. Existing widgets offer TV guides and weather forecasts,
for example, or monitor remaining battery life.
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Yahoo told vnunet.com that the deal
closed on 19 July, but was not made public until 25 July. Terms were not
disclosed.
The search firm has rebranded the
Yahoo Widgets
application and has made it available for free. Pixoria previously charged
$19.95 for a one-off licence fee.
A Yahoo spokeswoman told
vnunet.com that the
applications will enable the "next generation of the internet".
"By offering Yahoo Widgets to our users, we are creating a new desktop
distribution model for our products, making it even easier and more convenient
for our users to access Yahoo content," she said.
More than 1,000 widgets from Pixoria and third-party developers are available
for download here.
Yahoo plans to make the widgets available through XML feeds to offer new
distribution models and allow users to access information from Yahoo's network
in ways other than through a web browser.
Apple offers a platform
similar to Konfabulator with its
Dashboard
application introduced as part of OS X 10.4 Tiger.
Although both platforms use the industry standard JavaScript for their
widgets, an application designed for Dashboard will not work on Konfabulator and
vice versa. Konfabulator is available for Windows and OS X.
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