Yahoo Launches Dashboard

An anonymous reader writes "Engadget has a 'live' post from a Yahoo press conference this morning showing something called Yahoo Dashboard. It looks awwwfully familiar. They brought out Ellen DeGeneres to demo it, and Tom Cruise to show an MI: 3 trailer for some reason." From the article: "I would like to announce right now what we call Yahoo Go. If you have some of the same problems dealing with things as Ellen .... Yahoo Go ... is a revolutionary way to connect users to Web services they already use. We're installing new applications right on devices (pix of laptop, TV, phone)." Dashboard is the relaunch of Konfabulator. We reported on Yahoo!'s purchase of Konfabulator last year.

Imitation is the sincerest form...

[daveschroeder]

I'm not sure if the submitter is insinuating that Yahoo "Dashboard" looks suspiciously familiar to Apple's Dashboard [apple.com] on Mac OS X 10.4.x (Tiger), but we should be reminded that Yahoo Go/Yahoo Dashboard is in fact Yahoo! Widget Engine [yahoo.com], which is in fact Konfabulator renamed.

And Konfabulator [wikipedia.org], by Arlo Rose (of Kaleidoscope [kaleidoscope.net] fame) and Perry Clarke, was around on the Mac OS X platform first, until a Windows version was also released with the help of Ed Voas before Yahoo!'s purchase [wikipedia.org]. In fact, if it weren't for the Windows version, Yahoo! may never have come knocking.

And it's easy to say that Apple ripped off Konfabulator to make Dashboard, but if we go back a step further...say, a couple of decades, we find that the idea of Konfabulator - little modeless applets that do useful things, like an address book or a notepad or a calculator or a little game - actually hearkens back to Apple's original idea [daringfireball.net] of Desk Accessories [wikipedia.org].

It all comes full circle!

No, wait. That's not full circle. It all leads back to Apple. ;-)

I tried it and had a gripe, so I stopped using it.

[Rude Turnip]

I'm conditioned to hit Windows-D to drop back to my desktop when I need to get back to my desktop. Unfortunately, this simple and practical key combination also hides the widgets from my view, making them much less useful.

Its not called Yahoo Dashboard...

[RockClimbingFool]

Its called Yahoo Go and its derived from Konfabulator. Doesn't Konfabulator pre-date Apple's implementation of their Dashboard?

Not Dashboard

[hondo77]

Yahoo! (wisely) isn't calling it "Dashboard". They're calling it Widget Engine [yahoo.com].

Just one part of the package...

[smorky]

the article seems kinda of skimpy on details, so you can find some more information here [yahoo.com]. It appears that Konfabulator/Yahoo! Widget Engine is just a part of Yahoo Go and Yahoo Dashboard.

Yahoo Go Site...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why plug a new product on /. and not provide a link to the actual product?

Yahoo Go site with download [yahoo.com]

yep. just head here...

[jpellino]

http://widgets.yahoo.com/ [yahoo.com]

Re:I tried it and had a gripe, so I stopped using

[slthytove]

If you hit the F8 key, it will bring up the "Heads Up Display"), showing you all your Widgets. If you hit Win+D, it will show you your desktop (which is sort of what Win+D is supposed to do). If you would rather use a Windows combination to see your desktop AND your Widgets, then hit Win+M, which will minimize all windows.

Re:Ripping Off Apple Ripping Off Konfabulator

[atomm1024]

That's ok, because it's called Yahoo Widgets [yahoo.com], not Dashboard. The article submitter lied, I guess, and Slashdot's "editors" did no fact-checking.

Re:Imitation is the sincerest form...

[generic-man]

The article implies that widgets on the desktop were the only things being announced today, but Yahoo! also announced an interface that lets you navigate through web services on a TV [yahoo.com] using a Windows XP computer. Basically they've created a "10-foot user interface" that lets you view photos, listen to music, etc., using a TV as the center of attention and the Internet to retrieve extra content.

Unfortunately it's not available yet, but I'm sure commenters can assure me that MythTV and FrontRow are superior to it.