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The pictures on some HDTVs this spring will be as cluttered with information as a widget-laden Mac.
Yahoo's TV Widgets, Javascript, and XML mini-apps that glean headlines and stock figures from your home's Internet connection are coming to Samsung sets this month.
The TV Widgets, most of which are not yet available, will include weather updates and news from The New York Times and USA Today. You will also be able to use the widgets to display photos through a Flickr widget, and view videos provided by Yahoo and others.
You will be able to access the widgets through a menu bar that will appear alongside those annoying network logos on the bottom of the screen.
EBay junkies will also be able to place bids without having to step away from "Antiques Roadshow."
Samsung's Series 7 line will be among the first to feature the new service, according to Yahoo. Sony, LG, and Visio are also on board with the Yahoo widget plan.
Yahoo is calling its widget collection (which it hopes to grow through a soon-to-be released developer's kit) the Internet@TV-Content Service. But it seems as if marketing people have been branding and rebranding the service since Yahoo unveiled it last year.
How you connect your PC to your HDTV will be up to you.
The Samsung sets, for example, will give you the option of connecting directly to your router with an Ethernet cable or a WiFi dongle.
A button on your remote will bring the widgets up on your screen.
Prototype
RFID skis smarten up your technique
Not all RFID applications are inherently evil. Radio frequency identification, which can be used to secretly track people and objects, is also doing some good, in PayPass debit cards and in proximity (or "prox") cards, which can speed up transactions and provide access to secure areas.Now some German skiers are using the technology to improve their downhill skills. By using RFID-tagged skis, athletes can learn to keep their feet straight and to properly carve the skis through turns. Skiing is only the latest sport to take on RFID. Officials have for years used RFID to time racing cars, horses, and marathon runners as they cross the finish line. Some golfers use RFID to find missing balls.
Skiers' lift tickets also contain the little computer chips and radio antennae, which can be read at great distances.
The RFID ski system can pinpoint the position of an RFID tag to within three centimeters, according to researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation IFF in Magdeburg, Germany, who tested the system on the country's Bottrop indoor ski slope. (The Austrian firm Abatec designed the system.)
A coach can then look at a computer screen to monitor in detail his skiers' strength and abilities.
The special skis require special slopes, however. Many RFID readers must be positioned on each side of the slope.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
