Where others have been trying to bring TV to Web, Yahoo and Intel were busy trying to do it the other way round. Intel and Yahoo jointly announce the plans for Widget Channel. This could be just the start of an era where lines between offline and online devices will be blurred and every device will be connected to the internet. This is very much the next big thing (Cloud Computing is another “big thing”).

In simple words, Intel and Yahoo together designed a framework which lets developers design small and light weight applications which connect to internet to accomplish a task it is programmed for. This means every consumer electronic running on Intel architecture will be able to interact with internet using Widget Channel.

Imagine a day where you are watching your favorite cricket match on TV and you will have something like a sidebar or a bar at the bottom of the screen which will seamlessly updated you with your e-mails, RSS feeds, Twitts or simply chatting with friends using your TV remote.

Yahoo and Intel have already started working with companies like Blockbuster, CBS Interactive, Cinequest, Disney-ABC Television, eBay, GE, Joost, MTV, Samsung Electornics, Toshiba, Twitter, etc.. to develop widgets/programs which an run on the TV based on widget channel.

I am certainly looking forward to this exciting technology to explore ways for making our lives more technology driven and efficient.

Widget Channel Framework and TV Widget Developers

Underlying the Widget Channel will be a powerful set of platform technologies, including the Yahoo! Widget Engine and core libraries that expose the powerful functions enabled by the Intel Architecture. The Widget Channel framework will use established Internet technologies to dramatically lower the barrier of entry for developing applications optimized for TV. To help create new TV Widgets for the Widget Channel, Intel and Yahoo! plan to make a development kit available to developers, including TV and other CE device makers, advertisers and publishers. The Widget Channel will also include a Widget Gallery, to which developers can publish their TV Widgets across multiple TV and related CE devices and through which consumers can view and select the TV Widgets they would like to use.

Watching TV will never be the same again.

This news came in shortly after the stock market was closed, it would be interesting to see how the markets react to this news.

These screenshots were taken after the markets were closed.