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Yahoo! Announces Upgrade of Yahoo! Widgets: Maps, Picture Frame, Search, E-Mail Checker, and Notepad Lead Slate of New Widgets

Posted on: Monday, 12 December 2005, 09:00 CST

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, today announced that the company has launched a new version of the leading cross-platform engine for mini desktop applications, Yahoo! Widget Engine 3.0.

Widgets are light-weight applications that live directly on a users' desktop and perform a wide variety of tasks, such as checking for wi-fi presence or strength, finding contacts in an address book, updating a user's calendar, or checking their latest e-mail. These small applications are always available, and make it easier for users to directly access the content they care about -- whether it's on their computer or on the Internet -- all without launching specific, single-purpose applications or a web browser.

Yahoo! Widgets is available for both Windows and Macintosh computers and is an open platform that allows any third party developer to build and distribute their own widgets. Yahoo! Widget Engine 3.0 is the first version to include contributions from the Yahoo! Developer Network and is available for free download at http://widgets.yahoo.com/.

Nine new widgets are available beginning today and include:

-- Yahoo! Maps Widget -- integration with Yahoo! Maps makes it easy to search for addresses, and drag and scroll maps within the widget;

-- Picture Frame -- updating the popular photo-display widget, the new version displays photos from Yahoo! Photos, Flickr or photos stored on users' computer. Pictures dragged and dropped into the "photo frame" can be instantly uploaded to Yahoo! Photos or Flickr;

-- Yahoo! Search Widget -- search directly from your desktop using Yahoo!'s powerful search technology to search across the Web, including Yahoo! Image Search, Video Search, Yahoo! Local, Yahoo! Shopping or Yahoo! News, all with no browser required;

-- Yahoo! Mail Widget -- keeps Yahoo! Mail users informed of new messages in their Yahoo! Mail inbox, including the number of e-mails and how long it has been since they last checked;

-- Yahoo! Notepad Widget -- allows users to create, edit and delete notes, acting as a sticky pad for your desktop, and is synched to Yahoo! Notepad online so that no matter where users are, they can easily get to their notes and to-dos.

Additionally, more than 2,000 widgets created by third party developers are available for download at widgets.yahoo.com/gallery.

"Yahoo! Widgets allow consumers to always have the information and content they want close at hand and is just one example of the ways we're able to make Yahoo!'s services and content available to users when, where and how they want," said Jerrell Jimerson, vice president of Connected Life products, Yahoo! Inc.

Arlo Rose, Director of Widget Technology, Yahoo! Inc. added, "With this release of our Widget technology, we make it easy to organize notes, address book, calendar and photos right from your desktop. But why stop there? Developers can now tap into Yahoo!'s powerful and open infrastructure to create the coolest little mini applications around."

In July 2005, Yahoo! acquired Pixoria, creators of Konfabulator, the first-ever widgets service. Yahoo! rapidly integrated Pixoria's technology and rebranded the service as Yahoo! Widgets. Since the acquisition, Yahoo! has distributed over 1.5 million copies of the Konfabulator platform, and users have downloaded over 10 million Widgets. Yahoo! has renamed the third generation release of Konfabulator as Yahoo! Widget Engine 3.0.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! seeks to provide online products and services essential to users' lives, and offers a full range of tools and marketing solutions for businesses to connect with Internet users around the world. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

Source: Business Wire

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