Access shows browser widgets for cell phones
Widgets, or small Web applications that supply useful information direct to
the desktop, could soon be appearing on your cell phone screen.
Japan's Access, the company behind the NetFront browser that is used in hundreds
of phones on sale worldwide, has developed a widget system for the latest version
of the browser and will demonstrate it next week at the Mobile World Congress
in Barcelona.
Much like those on Apple's Mac OSX or Windows Vista, the NetFront widgets can
do things like provide updated weather information, news headlines, favorites
from YouTube, local maps and photo feeds from Web sites.
The intention is that users will be able to download widgets for sites like
Google Maps, YouTube and Wikipedia so those sites become services available
directly from the desktop. In the case of some sites, say an auction site where
prices change all the time, the widget will be able to provide constantly updated
information to the desktop so the user doesn't have to go through a browser
to the Web site.
The widgets can be kept minimized at the bottom of the screen or placed on
the desktop, where they appear as small boxes showing just a few highlights
of the information they contain. Click on the boxes and they expand to full
screen and their entire contents can be accessed.
In a demonstration the minimized weather widget showed a symbol for the sun
-- the current weather conditions at the time. When placed on the desktop it
added the current conditions, "clear," and the temperature and when
fully expanded a three-day forecast was provided.
The news widget displayed just five headlines on the desktop but expanded to
show more news and the full text of each story while the video widget on the
desktop had a screenshot from a single video and expanded to show details of
the video and related content.
In addition to linking up with data stored on the network the widgets framework
also supports communication with parts of the phone hardware, like the camera,
GPS chip or e-mail client.
Access has developed the widget framework for NetFront 3.5, the latest version
of its browser. The software isn't in any products available to consumers but
is on its way. Access said it has already released NetFront 3.5 to partners
and products are coming. It has also had interest on the widgets from partners
but wouldn't identify them.
On Monday Access will begin offering a preview
of NetFront 3.5 intended for software developers. The software runs on Windows
Mobile.
The NetFront browser has been fitted in 1,349 different products to date including
cell phones, televisions, set-top boxes and PDAs. On Thursday Access said more
than 544 million copies of the browser have been installed on such products.
IDG News Service
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