Intel and Yahoo have announced plans for a new “Widget Channel”, a widget platform for consumer electronic devices running on Intel’s hardware. The platform will support a number of current technologies, including JavaScript, HTML, XML, and mostly notably Adobe’s ubiquitous Flash, which many current platforms on CE devices don’t support.
The two companies envision a library of small widgets that will be included alongside standard television content. For example, a user could use an eBay widget to monitor the current prices of their active auctions, or a sports widget to keep track of current scores.
The TV Widgets Channel continues to blur the line between a television and a computer with a big screen - it probably won’t be long before the distinction no longer exists. And while I could see some of the widgets coming in handy, they might also turn off a lot of users. For many people, television is an escape from the constant alerts and messages of today’s society. Interactive TV is a neat idea, but sometimes people just want to kick up their feet and rel