About 18 months ago, Tariq Krim had a problem that most tech-savvy individuals grapple with daily. The French entrepreneur was running the technology blog www.generationmp3.com, and he was finding it nearly impossible to manage the towering number of data feeds, news alerts, podcast subscriptions, not to mention e-mails and chat queries, he needed to keep the site and his personal life up-to-date.
“At the time, there seemed to be one new Web 2.0 service popping up every day. If you add that to the blogs and podcasts and your emails, it makes it impossible for a human being to manage,” he said recently.
Amid the data deluge, a light bulb flickered to life. Krim designed Netvibes, a web interface to capture all these nifty new applications and news feeds in one spot that instantly updated as new apps emerged.
Today, these apps – known as widgets or gadgets -- are everywhere, and they handle most every kind of function imaginable. Need to know train times to Heathrow? What about currency fluctuations between the pound and the Thai Baht?
Language translation? Nessun problema.
Maps, movie times, maths tables? They’re just a quick download away.
There are tens of thousands of widgets now available, and new ones appearing on widget engines daily. Created by tinkerers, coders, day-traders and commuters alike, these light-weight applications are designed to sit in browser or on desktop toolbars – Apple’s Mac series pioneered this feature, but Microsoft has caught up with Vista – most accessible at a click. Widgets eliminate the need to scroll through a graveyard of bookmarks or type in ambiguous search queries to track down various news headlines, sport scores and traffic alerts. With widgets, chances are someone has already gone to the trouble of designing an all-in-one gadget that can be affixed to your desktop or on a personalised homepage. Put simply, these nifty apps bring the web to you.
In the latest evolution of communications alerts, widgets are jumping off the desktop and into your pocket. As mobile phone operating systems become more sophisticated, increased interoperability between the computer and mobile handset has become a reality. Thus, apps that are incubated on the web can be ported onto your mobile, enabling you to check the scores, train times and stock prices while on the bus or waiting for a friend at the pub.
The biggest boost occurred last week when Nokia, the world’s largest handset maker, announced it will allow applications developers to build widgets and gadgets for its S60 software platform. Tech consultancy Ovum predicted that of the 208 million Symbian OS handsets expected to ship in 2008, the vast majority will be Nokia S60 devices, meaning there will be tens of millions of widget-friendly mobiles on the market from next year.
Check out some cool widgets on the next page.
Published on 27 April 2007
