WidSets: Get breaking news on the go

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Mon, 08/06/2007 12:45 PM  |  Life

Budi Putra, Contributor, Jakarta

How often do you wish you had access to your favorite websites and weblogs from your cell phone? Wouldn't you like to stay on top of things all the time, anywhere? Wouldn't you like to receive breaking news from the BBC or CNN websites, the tech column for WSJ.com or the latest reviews and tips and tricks from prominent tech blogs like TechCrunch and LifeHacker?

Actually you can already do that using your cell phone. But we have all had the frustrating experience of browsing the web via traditional or optimized phone browsers.

When you want to open a website, for example, you should type in the URL or pick it up from the bookmark; and, if you want to visit another site, you need to open New Window on the browser; and so on.

The problem is, if you need to open a bunch of sites and blogs, you quickly become exhausted dealing with the number of browsers' windows in your cell phone. It's also not easy to return back to the desired sites and you'll need to refresh them manually in order to get the latest updates.

But there is a solution: you can use a mobile application called WidSets. You can get traffic alerts, news, blogs, reviews, weather reports and loads of other stuff that you would normally get through a web service, without having to wade through hundreds of websites and weblogs.

WidSets is a mobile phone browser that is independent and so hassle-free that there is no need for you to click from site to site, refresh, or browse for what you want to read and retrieve.

The idea behind this application is to broaden the media reach to cell phones, including content and its community affinity. It's really a logical step since there are more than four billion cell phone users now around the globe.

""The beauty of WidSets is that it lets you pick widgets that retrieve the specific search stream that you typically do, and have them ready for you in one large horizontally scrollable environment,"" wrote blogger Carlos Eduardo.

This application was built based on the user interface on great-looking and dynamic mini-applications called widgets.

According to Wikipedia, in computer programming, a widget (or control) is an interface element that a computer user interacts with, such as a window or a text box. Widgets are sometimes qualified as virtual to distinguish them from their physical counterparts, e.g. virtual buttons that can be clicked with a mouse cursor, vs. physical buttons that can be pressed with a finger.

WidSets is a widgets-based application and it was designed to use and operate in mobile devices.

""Our goal is to make this service available to everyone, and make it as simple and as effortless as possible,"" Kajfrom WidSets told The Jakarta Post at an exhibition during Nokia Connection 2007 in Singapore.

He said people expected immediate access to information today. ""Thus we wanted to make it easy for everybody, from an individual blogger to a web service provider, to automatically have mobile access to website content.""

WidSets allows users to build a Content Library, freely choosing from RSS feeds to blog posts to photo uploading sites that are multicast to any new generation Java(TM) enabled mobile devices, including lineups from Nokia, Motorola, Samsung or Sony Ericsson.

According to Hggman, the best thing about WidSets is its simplicity. As soon as one of your chosen websites or blogs is updated, the widget for that website sends you an alert.

How much does WidSets cost? This service is absolutely free. ""And we definitely want to keep it that way,"" he said. ""But... your service provider may charge you for data transferred (GPRS or 3G charges) to your phone.""

However, WidSets has a useful feature called Traffic Monitor which helps you monitor the total amount of data WidSets is using, and how much data each individual widgets is using.

You can also set a limit for the amount of data transferred by your widgets and you'll receive a notification when the limit has been reached.

However, you can also read all updated content (mostly in summary forms, but in several cases, the full version appeared) in off-line mode, after -- of course -- going online for a few seconds. It's good enough for those who want quick updates only.

But if you opt for the unlimited GPRS/3G/HSDPA data access contract with your network provider, you don't need to worry about this. You can activate it all the time, even while you sleep!

The next step is to ascertain whether your cell phone supports WidSets. The best way is to try it out. It's free, so why not? You'll need a phone that supports Java MIDP 2.0 -- most cell phones sold in the last couple of years do -- and that can connect to the Internet.

Then go to www.widsets.com, select a few of the widgets you like the most, then click on the Download the selected widgets to your mobile button. Fill in your e-mail address, username and password and click OK.

Enter your phone number (complete with the country code). A text message will then be sent to this phone number, containing a link to the WidSets download page. Click the link and your cell phone's web browser will open the WidSets download page (and it automatically detects you cell phone series). Install it on your cellular phone and now start using WidSets.

I already downloaded and operated this application in my cell phone, Nokia N95. I totally agree that this application is useful in retrieving the latest (almost real-time!) updates on the go. I can do it effortless and conveniently.

But, according to me, if we are able to click and drag the widgets in the dashboard -- rather than having the existing horizontally scrollable environment -- it should be more cute and interesting.

Yeah, it's the only weak (or minus) thing inside this amazing mobile application. I gave it eight stars out of 10 for this.

The writer is a tech blogger. He can be reached at his blog at www.budiputra.com

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