Yahoo Japan introduces digital TV widget
June 12, 2008 - Yahoo Japan has released the "Yahoo! 1seg Widget", designed to display Internet information on television programmes while they are being viewed on a computer received via 1seg digital TV tuners.
Firmware on compatible tuners receives the programme data broadcast with the TV stream and sends it to Yahoo's search engine automatically, from where it is fed into the widget to display useful information such as cast and episode name or topic. Users can also open Yahoo Messenger to join a chatroom populated by people watching the same show.
"Recently, many users search for information on TV programs using their PCs while watching TV," said Yahoo. "In addition, keywords concerning the content of TV programs rank high among the most searched word rankings on Yahoo! That's why we thought about developing the widget."
Compatible 1seg tuners are already available from companies including I-O Data Device, Buffalo and Pixela. Yahoo is also expected to expand the widget's functionality to support regular digital broadcasts on PCs and possibly on Internet-connected TV sets as well.
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