Yahoo! Smart TV (formerly ''Yahoo! Connected TV'') was a
Smart TV
A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV or, rarely, CoTV), is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and interactive Web 2.0 features that allow users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart T ...
platform developed by
Yahoo!
Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its a ...
based upon the
Yahoo! Desktop Widgets (Konfabulator) platform. Yahoo! Connected TV announced on August 20, 2008, at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco as the Widget Channel, it integrated the Yahoo! Widgets Engine with a new television oriented user interface to enable
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
connected applications to run and display on a
10-foot user interface
In computing, 10-foot user interface, 10-foot UI or 3-meter user interface is a graphical user interface designed for televisions. Compared to desktop computer and smartphone user interfaces, it uses text and other interface elements that are ...
. The platform was slowly being abandoned by its manufacturers, and was eventually deprecated. New apps that were based on Konfabulator stopped being added effective March 30, 2018, but existing apps can still be updated and installed, and
HTML5
HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language 5) is a markup language used for structuring and presenting hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. It was the fifth and final major HTML version that is now a retired World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommend ...
based apps are not affected by this.
Development
Yahoo began porting the Konfabulator Widget Engine to an embedded Linux platform in 2007 as part of a joint venture with Intel corporation that resulted in an announcement of the Widget Channel in August 2008.
On January 4, 2009, Yahoo! And
Samsung
Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...
announced that select models of Samsung's new flat panel HDTVs would support the new TV Widget service. On January 7, 2009, Yahoo! followed up with a broader announcement of distribution partnerships with major television manufacturers
Samsung
Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...
,
Sony
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...
,
LG Electronics
LG Electronics Inc. () is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational major appliance and consumer electronics corporation headquartered in Yeouido-dong, Seoul, South Korea. LG Electronics is a part of LG, LG Corporation, the fourth ...
, and
Vizio
Vizio is an American designer of televisions, soundbars, and related software and accessories owned by Walmart since 2024. The company was founded in 2002 and is based in Irvine, California.Lawton, Christopher, Iwatani Kane, Yukari and Dean, J ...
, with only a peripheral reference to Intel.
The following year, January 6, 2010, additional partnerships with
Hisense
Hisense Group Co., Ltd. is a Chinese multinational major appliance and electronics manufacturer headquartered in Qingdao, Shandong province. Television sets are its main product, and it has been the largest TV manufacturer in China by market ...
,
ViewSonic, MIPS Technologies, and Sigma Designs were announced at CES 2011 bringing the Yahoo! Widget Engine to more televisions and consumer electronics platforms. In September 2010, Yahoo! and the Vestel Group announced a partnership to deliver the platform that was now renamed to Yahoo Smart TV, to Europe. Also later in September, Toshiba announced Yahoo! Smart TV support on several models of their televisions.
On November 2, 2011, Yahoo! launched the Yahoo! Smart TV Store with
Sony
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...
and
Toshiba
is a Japanese multinational electronics company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, elevators and escalators, electronic components, semiconductors ...
. The Yahoo! Smart TV Store allows developers to offer paid TV apps from 99 cents to $99. The Yahoo! Smart TV Store expanded to
VIZIO
Vizio is an American designer of televisions, soundbars, and related software and accessories owned by Walmart since 2024. The company was founded in 2002 and is based in Irvine, California.Lawton, Christopher, Iwatani Kane, Yukari and Dean, J ...
in late 2012, and, as a part of this, the term "Widgets" was phased out and replaced with "Apps."
On January 9, 2012, Yahoo! and Sony announced Broadcast Interactivity technology available in 2012
Sony BRAVIA televisions. On March 2, 2012, it was announced that Yahoo would be closing down support for the Yahoo Desktop Widget Engine. Yahoo's reason for closure was twofold: The cost of replacing the older servers that supported the gallery, and the refocusing of human resources on the development of the Yahoo! Smart TV widget platform. On November 5, 2012, Yahoo! and Samsung announced an expanded partnership with the addition of support for Broadcast Interactivity.
From 2012, Vizio became the last manufacturer to use Yahoo! on its TVs.
After
Verizon
Verizon Communications Inc. ( ), is an American telecommunications company headquartered in New York City. It is the world's second-largest telecommunications company by revenue and its mobile network is the largest wireless carrier in the ...
's acquisition of Yahoo! in 2017, the platform was silently deprecated. Also around this time, Vizio began to phase out Yahoo! on their TVs in favor of its then-new ''SmartCast'' platform, and by 2018 they stopped releasing TVs with the platform, although Yahoo's website did not reflect on this until October 2020.
ADK
Development of TV Apps were enabled via the Yahoo! App Development Kit or ADK, available for download from the Yahoo! Smart TV website. The App Development kit required Ubuntu Linux as the default operating system, Windows developers must run the Ubuntu operating system on a virtual machine. Only Ubuntu 10.10 was supported although it runs on other derivatives and versions of Ubuntu successfully.
Widget Distribution
TV Widgets were distributed post sale of the television, via the Yahoo! Smart TV Store, scheduled for launch in Fall 2011. The store claimed to reach 135 countries, and enables widget distribution to millions of TVs from Samsung, Sony, Vizio, and Toshiba.
All transactions were processed by Yahoo!, and widget prices range from 99 cents to 99 dollars, with developers getting 70% of the revenue after taxes and currency exchange. All widgets must have gone through the Yahoo! approval process before they were accepted for distribution.
Technology
TV Widgets were developed using a combination of HTML, XML and Javascript. The code is then executed on the Yahoo TV Widget engine running on TV embedded Linux.
See also
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Apple TV
Apple TV is a digital media player and a microconsole developed and marketed by Apple. It is a small piece of networking hardware that sends received media data such as video and audio to a TV or external display. Its media services include ...
*
Boxee
*
Google TV
*
Hillcrest Labs
Hillcrest Labs was a sensor processing technology company that developed free space motion-control technology and the first motion-controlled remote for television.''The Washington Post'' May 1, 2011. Steven OverlyAs the TV market shifts, Hillcre ...
*
Home theater PC
A home theater PC (HTPC) or media center computer is a technological convergence, convergent device that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that focuses on video, photo, audio playback, and ...
*
Interactive television
Interactive television is a form of Technological convergence#Media, media convergence, adding data services to traditional television technology. It has included on-demand delivery of content, online shopping, and viewer polls. Interactive TV i ...
*
Internet television
Streaming television is the digital distribution of television content, such as films and television show, television series, Streaming media, streamed over the Internet. Standing in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by Broadc ...
*
Kylo
*
Roku
Roku ( ) is a brand of consumer electronics that includes streaming players, smart TVs (and their operating systems), as well as a free TV streaming service. The brand is owned by Roku, Inc., an American company.
As of 2024, Roku is the U ...
*
Smart TV
A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV or, rarely, CoTV), is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and interactive Web 2.0 features that allow users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart T ...
*
Tivoization
Tivoization () is the practice of designing hardware that incorporates software under the terms of a copyleft software license like the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL), but uses hardware restrictions or digital rights management (DRM) to p ...
*
TV Genius
TV Genius was a United Kingdom-based software company that specialize in TV search engines, TV recommendation engines, and Electronic program guide, EPG development. It was acquired by Red Bee Media in August 2011, and by Ericsson in July 2013 ...
*
WebTV
MSN TV (formerly WebTV) was a web access product consisting of a thin client device that used a television for display (instead of using a computer monitor), and the online service that supported it. The original WebTV device design and service ...
*
XBMC Media Center
Notes and references
External links
*
Yahoo! Smart TV Developer Site
{{Oath Inc.
Smart TV
A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV or, rarely, CoTV), is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and interactive Web 2.0 features that allow users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart T ...
Smart TV
A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV or, rarely, CoTV), is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and interactive Web 2.0 features that allow users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart T ...
Interactive television
Products introduced in 2008