• CNet, Thursday, August 21, 2008 9:46 AM

Though the TV experience has been spiced up by voting for "American Idol" contestants, it is still generally passive. To change that, Yahoo plans to offer software that can run small applications, or widgets, to network-enabled TVs.

Yahoo's Widget Channel will resemble what's available on PCs, but will allow widgets to be controlled with a TV remote control, says Patrick Barry, Yahoo executive.

Yahoo's hope is to bring its Internet clout to the TV domain and "address the audience in a unified consistent way, ultimately creating a liquid advertising market," Barry says. Television equipment with the software built in is expected to hit the market next year.

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