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widgets

10 widgets for Opera users to sing about

When Opera released its widget software development kit last year, there was little doubt that some cool applications would make their way to the company's browser. More than a year later, they indeed have.

I've been sifting through hundreds of Opera widgets that all work with the Opera browser for your Mac, Linux box, or PC. I've found 10 that stand out from the others. Opera users should definitely try these out.

10 Opera widgets

Brainkrieg Brainkrieg is a fun game that does its best to "exercise your brain." The tool gives you a variety of games to play that test your memory and help you think. The point of the game is to decrease your brain age. It's somewhat similar to Brain Age on the Nintendo DS, but the latter is a bit more sophisticated.

Dotoo Dotoo is a to-do list widget in your Opera browser. You can create a host of to-do lists and access them all from within the widget. Adding tasks is as simple as pressing the "+" button under your list and inputting your task. It's not a sophisticated widget, so you won't be able to track your progress. But if you want to quickly add a few tasks, you should be happy with what you find.

Facebook Notifier Facebook Notifier gives you a listing of all your friends' recent status updates. You can't update your profile in the application, but you can easily access your profile with the links in the widget. It might not be the most useful app, but if you want to see what your friends are up to while you're browsing outside Facebook, it's a fine choice.… Read more

Google Reader widget brings RSS to the desktop

Users of Google's Desktop software have a new first party widget to play with. This one lets you use most of Google Reader's features without having to fire up your browser. It puts Google Reader's source list in your sidebar where you can peruse feeds you're subscribed to and read individual stories in a small pop-up window that slides out across your screen.

The widget works both in Google Desktop's dock and "popped out" on its own. Between the two, I prefer it off the dock since you can see more of the … Read more

iBrowz: Windows Mobile's slick new RSS-reader

Until native RSS-reading is perfected on mobile phones, third party newsreaders are often the quickest path to keeping up on headlines. Viigo has been our favorite for Windows Mobile phones to date, but the new application iBrowz beta provides a familiar widget paradigm for subscribing to feeds, and a sharp-looking reader.

Instead of assigning each subscription its own icon, iBrowz groups them by category--under news, tech, and sports thumbnails, for instance. You tap to view the bundle, tap again to see headlines for a news source, and tap a third time to open the story in iBrowz's glossy black … Read more

Study: 'I want my Internet on TV'

A new study by the Consumer Electronics Association, the industry group representing electronics manufacturers, finds that nearly half of prospective TV buyers say they want to buy an Internet-connected TV.

The study, conducted in December 2008, asked respondents to say how they'd use their connected sets, and the most popular answers included accessing information about current TV shows or identifying a song played on a show (48 percent) and finding out more about the actors (44 percent). Asked whether they currently surf the Web while watching TV, 30 percent of "online adults" responded "always or usually" while 32 percent answered "sometimes."

Activities likely to be moved from the PC to the living room TV include watching online video (62 percent), getting weather updates (59 percent), and playing online games (57 percent).… Read more

Comcast tries to stay relevant in online world

As more entertainment content makes it way online, Comcast is looking for new ways to remain relevant to its subscribers.

Specifically, the cable giant is launching a bunch of new initiatives to bring more interactive content to its services and keep its subscribers hooked on cable. First on the list is the company's proposed free online video-on-demand service. The service, which will be offered as part of Comcast's Fancast video site, has been discussed publicly for the past couple of months. But the company has kept the details, such as when it will launch and what content will … Read more

Netvibes gets labs section for experimental features

Taking a page from Google, Netvibes has launched its own labs section that will serve double duty as a place for users to request widgets they want to see, along with a small collection of experimental features that are not yet a part of the main service. These include an organizer that will weed out feeds you don't read, a WYSIWYG theme editor, and a tag cloud generator that reads feed headlines and highlights words that frequently show up.

Of the three new tools, the theme editor is actually a refresh on an existing Netvibes feature. Previously, users could … Read more

Yahoo Widgets hands-on review

Update 08-11-09: Check out our in-depth looks at the Twitter, YouTube, Yahoo Video, Yahoo Sports, USA Today Sports and games widget reviews.

The variation of Yahoo Widgets designed specifically for TVs debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show last January. Not to be confused with its PC-centric incarnation, the TV-only widget feature will be available on certain HDTVs from LG, Samsung, Sony, and Vizio shipping this year. The first widget-equipped sets to hit store shelves are members of Samsung's UNB7000 series, and this hands-on review was performed on a UN46B7000--although we expect the widget experience to be similar across brands.

What is a widget? It's basically a gateway on your TV screen to Internet-supplied content in a certain subject area. All TVs with Yahoo Widgets can connect to the Internet, and via that connection can populate the widgets with real-time information and updates. At the time of this review there are only four widgets, all of them available as soon as we turned on the TV, connected the Ethernet cable, and hit a button to activate the feature. The four, namely News, Weather, Finance, and Flickr, were all created by Yahoo.

In the coming weeks and months, more TV widgets will become available. According to Yahoo, more than 300 publishers "are interested in developing" widgets, from individuals to large content publishers, and the company expects TV widgets from Accedo Games, Twitter, Yahoo! Video, eBay, USA Today, Yahoo! Sports, Showtime, CBS Entertainment (CNET Reviews is published by CBS Interactive, a unit of CBS), The New York Times, YouTube, CinemaNow and others. Publishers that have announced plans to develop TV Widgets include Disney/ABC, MySpace, Viacom/MTV, Netflix, Amazon, Blockbuster, Associated Press, and Joost. Yahoo estimates at least 100 widgets will be available by the end of the year, and its TV widgets website teases with some of the big names, like Netflix, whose description reads: "Browse, find and enjoy great movies with the Netflix widget--a personalized, convenient way to rent and watch movies on your TV."

We also expect advertising to appear on the system eventually, which could make the user experience less consumer-friendly. Yahoo says that "some publishers may choose to monetize their content by the end of 2009," and that the widget engine works with Web-compliant advertising system to enable Yahoo and third parties to advertise. For now, however, the widgets are blessedly ad-free. … Read more

Apple refusing royalty-free license to widget patent

Apple believes it has a patent that could potentially throw a wrench into an effort to develop a Web standard for updating widgets.

Last month Apple disclosed the patent (No. 5,764,992) to the W3C Web Applications Working Group, which is trying to come up with a standard entitled "Widgets 1.0: Updates," as spotted by MacNN. Apple's patent is for "A software program running on a computer automatically replaces itself with a newer version in a completely automated fashion, without interruption of its primary function, and in a manner that is completely transparent to … Read more

Yahoo Net service comes to Samsung TVs

Yahoo technology to bring Internet services to TVs has fledged from the demonstration realm to become available in an actual product, Samsung TVs.

Yahoo calls the technology TV Widgets, but Samsung is branding it as Internet@TV. It provides access to a handful of Yahoo services--news, stock quotes, Flickr photos, weather--as well as the Twitter microblogging service, sports scores, eBay shopping, and CBS content. (CBS is owner of CBS Interactive, which publishes CNET News.)

People tap into the services through applications called TV widgets that can be overlaid across the bottom or left of the screen; there's also a gallery that lets people download new widgets. A remote control is used to operate the service. … Read more