F
FYIS.org/
July 26, 2005, 12:22AM
COMPUTING
An acquisition by Yahoo empowers widget market
By DWIGHT SILVERMAN
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
At first blush, news Monday that search giant Yahoo had purchased yet
another tiny technology company didn't seem like that big a deal.
After all, big companies gobble small ones all the time. But Yahoo's
acquisition of Pixoria is far greater than the sum of its parts.
Pixoria makes just one product - a program for both Windows and Macintosh
called Konfabulator. However, this software already has had a profound
effect on the personal computing industry. The technology under its hood is
an industry standard that also is having a dramatic impact on how
information is shared over the Internet.
Konfabulator is a Java-based program that runs modules called widgets. Each
widget specializes in fetching specific information and displaying it on a
computer desktop in a visually cool way.
It's so cool, in fact, that Apple Computer adopted the idea - right down to
calling the modules widgets - for the Dashboard feature in the latest
version of the Mac OS X.
(We pause for a moment to give fans of Microsoft's Windows operating
system - frequently accused of stealing ideas from the Mac OS X - time to
snicker.)
On my desktop at the moment I've got these widgets:
.. The Weather, which grabs data from Weather.com and displays the week's
forecast, along with the temperature and a graphical representation of
conditions. It being July in Houston, a bright, oversized sun dominates the
widget.
.. Radar Widget, which shows two radar images from Weather.com, displayed
vertically or horizontally. They can be from anywhere, but I'm looking at
Houston and the entire Gulf of Mexico.
.. CPU Portal, which shows usage levels for my computer's main chip. I can
see both what the system as a whole and what my specific applications are
requiring of the CPU. The display looks like a magnifying glass with a
percentage number in the transparent center. The glass turns various shades
of red, depending on the CPU's stress level.
.. Memory Monitor, which shows how much RAM is being taken up by programs,
and tells me which one is hogging the most memory.
These are the ones I use regularly, but there are literally hundreds of
others. There's the Werewolf Monitor, which shows phases of the moon set for
your particular location; a slew of webcam viewers; traffic maps; news
feeds; controls for media players, such as iTunes, Winamp or Windows Media
Player; prescription drug information.
There's a widget that will show you the beat of a song, or act as a
metronome. Another will keep track of feedback ratings on eBay. Another even
tells you how bad the mosquitoes are in your area.
At this writing, there are 646 widgets.
Konfabulator previously cost $20 to register, but with Yahoo's acquisition,
it's free. Folks who recently paid the licensing fee can get a refund. You
can download it at widgets.yahoo.com, and you can see all the available
widgets at www.widgetgallery.com.
Normally, I'm suspicious when a small, innovative company is swallowed by a
bigger one, but given that Yahoo has made the program free and taken
Pixoria's entire three-person staff on as employees, there's not much of a
downside. The only evil I can see so far is that the name's been changed
to - ugh - Yahoo! Widgets.
Other than the fact that Konfabulator's cool, free and incredibly useful,
why is this an important move by Yahoo?
Most of the widgets developed for Konfabulator rely on a kind of data feed
known as XML, which stands for Extensible Markup Language. This is the code
that powers RSS, or Really Simple Syndication feeds, which I have written
about in the past (see www.chron.com/rssreaders).
Konfabulator allows widget designers to capture XML feeds and present them
graphically, rather than as simple text or a table. That's important for the
development of this powerful technology, which is primarily used now by
techies and early adopters. Konfabulator is the type of application that can
bring RSS and XML to the masses. And that's Yahoo's audience.
With its abundance of content and marketing savvy, Yahoo could turn
Konfabulator into a killer application.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/tech/weekly/3281853
Cool looking stuff at www.widgetgallery.com,
DanlK, FYI Services Collectibles
www.FYIS.org
COMPUTING
An acquisition by Yahoo empowers widget market
By DWIGHT SILVERMAN
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
At first blush, news Monday that search giant Yahoo had purchased yet
another tiny technology company didn't seem like that big a deal.
After all, big companies gobble small ones all the time. But Yahoo's
acquisition of Pixoria is far greater than the sum of its parts.
Pixoria makes just one product - a program for both Windows and Macintosh
called Konfabulator. However, this software already has had a profound
effect on the personal computing industry. The technology under its hood is
an industry standard that also is having a dramatic impact on how
information is shared over the Internet.
Konfabulator is a Java-based program that runs modules called widgets. Each
widget specializes in fetching specific information and displaying it on a
computer desktop in a visually cool way.
It's so cool, in fact, that Apple Computer adopted the idea - right down to
calling the modules widgets - for the Dashboard feature in the latest
version of the Mac OS X.
(We pause for a moment to give fans of Microsoft's Windows operating
system - frequently accused of stealing ideas from the Mac OS X - time to
snicker.)
On my desktop at the moment I've got these widgets:
.. The Weather, which grabs data from Weather.com and displays the week's
forecast, along with the temperature and a graphical representation of
conditions. It being July in Houston, a bright, oversized sun dominates the
widget.
.. Radar Widget, which shows two radar images from Weather.com, displayed
vertically or horizontally. They can be from anywhere, but I'm looking at
Houston and the entire Gulf of Mexico.
.. CPU Portal, which shows usage levels for my computer's main chip. I can
see both what the system as a whole and what my specific applications are
requiring of the CPU. The display looks like a magnifying glass with a
percentage number in the transparent center. The glass turns various shades
of red, depending on the CPU's stress level.
.. Memory Monitor, which shows how much RAM is being taken up by programs,
and tells me which one is hogging the most memory.
These are the ones I use regularly, but there are literally hundreds of
others. There's the Werewolf Monitor, which shows phases of the moon set for
your particular location; a slew of webcam viewers; traffic maps; news
feeds; controls for media players, such as iTunes, Winamp or Windows Media
Player; prescription drug information.
There's a widget that will show you the beat of a song, or act as a
metronome. Another will keep track of feedback ratings on eBay. Another even
tells you how bad the mosquitoes are in your area.
At this writing, there are 646 widgets.
Konfabulator previously cost $20 to register, but with Yahoo's acquisition,
it's free. Folks who recently paid the licensing fee can get a refund. You
can download it at widgets.yahoo.com, and you can see all the available
widgets at www.widgetgallery.com.
Normally, I'm suspicious when a small, innovative company is swallowed by a
bigger one, but given that Yahoo has made the program free and taken
Pixoria's entire three-person staff on as employees, there's not much of a
downside. The only evil I can see so far is that the name's been changed
to - ugh - Yahoo! Widgets.
Other than the fact that Konfabulator's cool, free and incredibly useful,
why is this an important move by Yahoo?
Most of the widgets developed for Konfabulator rely on a kind of data feed
known as XML, which stands for Extensible Markup Language. This is the code
that powers RSS, or Really Simple Syndication feeds, which I have written
about in the past (see www.chron.com/rssreaders).
Konfabulator allows widget designers to capture XML feeds and present them
graphically, rather than as simple text or a table. That's important for the
development of this powerful technology, which is primarily used now by
techies and early adopters. Konfabulator is the type of application that can
bring RSS and XML to the masses. And that's Yahoo's audience.
With its abundance of content and marketing savvy, Yahoo could turn
Konfabulator into a killer application.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/tech/weekly/3281853
Cool looking stuff at www.widgetgallery.com,
DanlK, FYI Services Collectibles
www.FYIS.org