Yahoo purchased the Desktop widget utility Konfabulator which is a javascript runtime engine that allows small programs written in Javascript to be run as independent applications. Not being a Mac user, I'm not as familair with the history of Konfabulator and whatever dispute there seem to be with Apple who also has something similiar. Originally, only for Mac platforms, there is also a windows version available that competes with a similiar product from Stardock. Instead of charging $19.99, Yahoo will now release the product for FREE.
The new download location for Konfabulator (now called Yahoo! Widgets?) is at: http://widgets.yahoo.com/
I tried out Konfabulator and some of the widgets do look nice. Their level of usefulness is still questionable at this point (a lot of simple clocks, etc) but I can see some interesting things that can be done when integrated with the Yahoo APIs. This does move away from dependency on the browser which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The one thing I don't like as much about these type of things is the memory usage. Each widget seems to take up as much as the next and as much as the main Konfabulator process.
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