Orange and Vodafone push forward with widgets

Mobile Internet services are set to take a leap forward with both Orange and Vodafone looking to use widgets to offer their subscribers access to the web at a glance. Vodafone would appear to have taken the lead with the launch of its Widget Manager - albeit a beta version, that is downloadable free of charge from the company's Live! web portal. However, the Widget Manager has been developed to work with Opera for the S60 platform and will initially only be available on the Nokia N96, N95 8GB, N78 and 6210 handsets.

Orange, meanwhile, is at the stage of attempting to attract developers to produce a mobile widget for the Times Online service based upon its Djinngo platform, which already includes the Live Radio and Weather Checker applications. Djinngo joins Orange's other three platforms: SoundTribes for the promotion of unsigned music, Whose Gaming for gaming, and Pikeo - a photo sharing service.

In contrast, some of the widgets launched by Vodafone include Live Scores, Fresh Games, RSS Reader, Weatherbug, Egg Timer, Train Times, Lottery, Sccope, Currency Converter and FHM Hot Babes. Both BBC News and BBC Sport along with Vue Cinema widgets are expected in the near future.

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