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.

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.