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45-497: The companies use the JIL as a platform to develop mobile services. JIL's first project is to develop a mobile widget ecosystem that will allow developers to benefits from access to the combined customer base of the four JIL mobile operators. The Wholesale Applications Community was formed by a group of 24 mobile network operators and announced at Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona with

90-435: A swap file or swap partition is a way for the operating system to provide more memory than is physically available by keeping portions of the primary memory in secondary storage . While multitasking and memory swapping are two completely unrelated techniques, they are very often used together, as swapping memory allows more tasks to be loaded at the same time. Typically, a multitasking system allows another process to run when

135-425: A few images and about 10 to several hundred lines of XML / JavaScript / VBScript source code . A single host software system, such as a web browser , runs all the loaded widgets. This allows several desktop widgets to be built sharing resources and code. Widget engines are not to be confused with widget toolkits . Toolkits are used by GUI programmers, who combine several widgets (reusable components ) to form

180-523: A program will run in a timely manner. Indeed, the first program may very well run for hours without needing access to a peripheral. As there were no users waiting at an interactive terminal, this was no problem: users handed in a deck of punched cards to an operator, and came back a few hours later for printed results. Multiprogramming greatly reduced wait times when multiple batches were being processed. Early multitasking systems used applications that voluntarily ceded time to one another. This approach, which

225-450: A single application. A widget in a toolkit provides a single, low level interaction, and is prepared to communicate with other widgets in the toolkit. On the other hand, widget engines such as desktop widgets and web widgets are intended for end users. Desktop and web widgets are stand-alone, task-oriented applications which can be composed of several related interactions on its own. Computer multitasking In computing , multitasking

270-428: A time, but when real multitasking OSes became available, these were replaced by normal applications. Most mobile widgets are like desktop widgets, but for a mobile phone. Mobile widgets can maximize screen space use and may be especially useful in placing live data-rich applications on the device idle-screen/home-screen Java ME -based mobile widget engines exist, but the lack of standards-based APIs for Java to control

315-443: A user input or an input/output transfer with a peripheral to complete, the central processor can still be used with another program. In a time-sharing system, multiple human operators use the same processor as if it was dedicated to their use, while behind the scenes the computer is serving many users by multitasking their individual programs. In multiprogramming systems, a task runs until it must wait for an external event or until

360-500: A variant to threads, named fibers , that are scheduled cooperatively. On operating systems that do not provide fibers, an application may implement its own fibers using repeated calls to worker functions. Fibers are even more lightweight than threads, and somewhat easier to program with, although they tend to lose some or all of the benefits of threads on machines with multiple processors . Some systems directly support multithreading in hardware . Essential to any multitasking system

405-422: Is a portable application installed and executed, typically by non-expert webmasters on HTML -based web pages , to offer site visitors shopping, advertisements , videos , or other simple functionality from third party widget publishers. Web browsers can also be used as widget engine infrastructures. The web is an environment well suited to distribution of widgets, as it doesn't require explicit interaction from

450-403: Is a relatively simple and easy-to-use software application or component made for one or more different software platforms . A desk accessory or applet is an example of a simple, stand-alone user interface, in contrast with a more complex application such as a spreadsheet or word processor. These widgets are typical examples of transient and auxiliary applications that don't monopolize

495-483: Is a server that manages widget instances and allows them to be embedded in web applications in addition to being provided for client devices such as Opera. Widgets are also available for TVs. Yahoo! Widget Engine is announced as a component of the next generation TV sets. A widget engine is the software platform on which desktop or web widgets run . The widget model in widget engines is attractive because of ease of development. Most of these widgets can be created with

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540-399: Is a set of programming tools that help developers reuse GUI widgets to build a user interface. Graphical user interface builders , such as e.g. Glade Interface Designer , facilitate the authoring of GUIs. Desktop widgets (commonly just called widgets) are interactive virtual tools for a desktop environment that provide single-purpose services such as showing the user the latest news,

585-420: Is part of a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows a computer user to control a software application. In this context a widget may refer to a generic GUI element such as a check box , to an instance of that element, or to a customized collection of such elements used for a specific function or application (such as a dialog box for users to customize their computer screen appearances). A widget toolkit

630-446: Is still used today on RISC OS systems. As a cooperatively multitasked system relies on each process regularly giving up time to other processes on the system, one poorly designed program can consume all of the CPU time for itself, either by performing extensive calculations or by busy waiting ; both would cause the whole system to hang . In a server environment, this is a hazard that makes

675-443: Is the concurrent execution of multiple tasks (also known as processes ) over a certain period of time. New tasks can interrupt already started ones before they finish, instead of waiting for them to end. As a result, a computer executes segments of multiple tasks in an interleaved manner, while the tasks share common processing resources such as central processing units (CPUs) and main memory . Multitasking automatically interrupts

720-400: Is to safely and effectively share access to system resources. Access to memory must be strictly managed to ensure that no process can inadvertently or deliberately read or write to memory locations outside the process's address space. This is done for the purpose of general system stability and data integrity, as well as data security. In general, memory access management is a responsibility of

765-659: The Classic Mac OS . In 2001 Apple switched to the NeXTSTEP -influenced Mac OS X . A similar model is used in Windows 9x and the Windows NT family , where native 32-bit applications are multitasked preemptively. 64-bit editions of Windows, both for the x86-64 and Itanium architectures, no longer support legacy 16-bit applications, and thus provide preemptive multitasking for all supported applications. Another reason for multitasking

810-474: The Sinclair QL followed in 1984, but it was not a big success. Commodore's Amiga was released the following year, offering a combination of multitasking and multimedia capabilities. Microsoft made preemptive multitasking a core feature of their flagship operating system in the early 1990s when developing Windows NT 3.1 and then Windows 95 . In 1988 Apple offered A/UX as a UNIX System V -based alternative to

855-462: The user 's attention. On the other hand, graphical control elements ( GUI "widgets") are examples of reusable modular components that are used together to build a more complex application, allowing programmers to build user interfaces by combining simple, smaller components. Because the term, and the coding practice, has been extant since at least the 1980s, it has been applied in a number of contexts. A graphical control element (GUI widget)

900-429: The CPU (" CPU bound "). In primitive systems, the software would often " poll ", or " busywait " while waiting for requested input (such as disk, keyboard or network input). During this time, the system was not performing useful work. With the advent of interrupts and preemptive multitasking, I/O bound processes could be "blocked", or put on hold, pending the arrival of the necessary data, allowing other processes to utilize

945-555: The CPU. As the arrival of the requested data would generate an interrupt, blocked processes could be guaranteed a timely return to execution. Possibly the earliest preemptive multitasking OS available to home users was Microware 's OS-9 , available for computers based on the Motorola 6809 such as the TRS-80 Color Computer 2 , with the operating system supplied by Tandy as an upgrade for disk-equipped systems. Sinclair QDOS on

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990-418: The current weather, the time, a calendar, a dictionary, a map program, a calculator, desktop notes , photo viewers, or even a language translator, among other things. Widgets can provide or augment the graphical shell . Examples of widget engines include: Originally, desk accessories were developed to provide a small degree of multitasking in operating systems that could only held one main application at

1035-489: The entire environment unacceptably fragile. Preemptive multitasking allows the computer system to more reliably guarantee to each process a regular "slice" of operating time. It also allows the system to deal rapidly with important external events like incoming data, which might require the immediate attention of one or another process. Operating systems were developed to take advantage of these hardware capabilities and run multiple processes preemptively. Preemptive multitasking

1080-596: The first one began to run. When the first program reached an instruction waiting for a peripheral, the context of this program was stored away, and the second program in memory was given a chance to run. The process continued until all programs finished running. The use of multiprogramming was enhanced by the arrival of virtual memory and virtual machine technology, which enabled individual programs to make use of memory and operating system resources as if other concurrently running programs were, for all practical purposes, nonexistent. Multiprogramming gives no guarantee that

1125-484: The idea that the most efficient way for cooperating processes to exchange data would be to share their entire memory space. Thus, threads are effectively processes that run in the same memory context and share other resources with their parent processes , such as open files. Threads are described as lightweight processes because switching between threads does not involve changing the memory context. While threads are scheduled preemptively, some operating systems provide

1170-410: The initial announcement, the first WAC 1.0 mobile web run time specification was released, signalling the organisation’s intent to support developers with an open web-based platform that could run applications across multiple devices and operating systems. With the support of its 40+ members, WAC appointed former Vodafone executive Peters Suh as CEO, with Michel Combes and Jean Philippe Vanot taking on

1215-638: The interface is often challenging. Wading through large amounts of information in a mobile environment is not just a nuisance; it is a near impossibility. Android has supported mobile widgets natively since Android 1.5 Cupcake , released on April 27, 2009. Some of the most popular widgets on the Android operating system include DashClock, Google Keep and HD Widgets. The iOS operating system also supports mobile widgets. Alongside, HarmonyOS that supports widgets in what it's called 'Service Cards', that also includes installation-free apps and widgets. A web widget

1260-410: The mobile device home-screen makes it harder for these engines to expose widgets on the phone-top. Several AJAX -based native widget platforms are also available for mobile devices. The growing pervasiveness of mobile widgets is easily understood. While widgets are a convenience in the online world, they can be looked at as near-essential in the mobile world. The reason: the mobile device is small and

1305-468: The operating system kernel, in combination with hardware mechanisms that provide supporting functionalities, such as a memory management unit (MMU). If a process attempts to access a memory location outside its memory space, the MMU denies the request and signals the kernel to take appropriate actions; this usually results in forcibly terminating the offending process. Depending on the software and kernel design and

1350-500: The operating system's scheduler forcibly swaps the running task out of the CPU. Real-time systems such as those designed to control industrial robots, require timely processing; a single processor might be shared between calculations of machine movement, communications, and user interface. Often multitasking operating systems include measures to change the priority of individual tasks, so that important jobs receive more processor time than those considered less significant. Depending on

1395-513: The operating system, a task might be as large as an entire application program, or might be made up of smaller threads that carry out portions of the overall program. A processor intended for use with multitasking operating systems may include special hardware to securely support multiple tasks, such as memory protection , and protection rings that ensure the supervisory software cannot be damaged or subverted by user-mode program errors. The term "multitasking" has become an international term, as

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1440-403: The remit to tackle device fragmentation through the introduction of ‘open standard’ web technologies. Over the following year, more and more companies expressed a commitment to the common cause and WAC now has over 60 members in its ranks, including handset manufacturers, software development companies and mobile network operators from all over the world. In September 2010, just six months after

1485-584: The roles of Chairman and Deputy Chair. The news that the GSMA’s OneAPI would be the standard adopted by WAC’s network operator members for the exposure of network APIs was followed by a further nine new members joining the organisation, including new OEMs, swelling the membership to over 50 companies. By Mobile World Congress 2011, WAC formally confirmed its status as a ‘not for profit’ organisation and announced that its membership had now grown to more than 60 full members. Mobile widget A software widget

1530-518: The running process hits a point where it has to wait for some portion of memory to be reloaded from secondary storage. Processes that are entirely independent are not much trouble to program in a multitasking environment. Most of the complexity in multitasking systems comes from the need to share computer resources between tasks and to synchronize the operation of co-operating tasks. Various concurrent computing techniques are used to avoid potential problems caused by multiple tasks attempting to access

1575-490: The running program, saving its state (partial results, memory contents and computer register contents) and loading the saved state of another program and transferring control to it. This " context switch " may be initiated at fixed time intervals ( pre-emptive multitasking ), or the running program may be coded to signal to the supervisory software when it can be interrupted ( cooperative multitasking ). Multitasking does not require parallel execution of multiple tasks at exactly

1620-402: The same time; instead, it allows more than one task to advance over a given period of time. Even on multiprocessor computers, multitasking allows many more tasks to be run than there are CPUs. Multitasking is a common feature of computer operating systems since at least the 1960s. It allows more efficient use of the computer hardware; when a program is waiting for some external event such as

1665-408: The same word is used in many other languages such as German, Italian, Dutch, Romanian, Czech, Danish and Norwegian. In the early days of computing, CPU time was expensive, and peripherals were very slow. When the computer ran a program that needed access to a peripheral, the central processing unit (CPU) would have to stop executing program instructions while the peripheral processed the data. This

1710-801: The specific error in question, the user may receive an access violation error message such as "segmentation fault". In a well designed and correctly implemented multitasking system, a given process can never directly access memory that belongs to another process. An exception to this rule is in the case of shared memory; for example, in the System V inter-process communication mechanism the kernel allocates memory to be mutually shared by multiple processes. Such features are often used by database management software such as PostgreSQL. Inadequate memory protection mechanisms, either due to flaws in their design or poor implementations, allow for security vulnerabilities that may be potentially exploited by malicious software. Use of

1755-521: The user to install new code snippets . Web widgets have unleashed some commercial interest, due their perceived potential as a marketing channel, mainly because they provide interactivity and viral distribution through social networks. The first known web widget, Trivia Blitz, was introduced in 1997. It was a game applet offered by Uproar.com (the leading online game company from 2000 - 2001) that appeared on over 35,000 websites ranging from GeoCities personal pages to CNN and Tower Records. When Uproar.com

1800-582: Was acquired by Vivendi Universal in 2001, the widget was discontinued. On 9 November 2006, the Web Application Formats Working Group in W3C released the first public working draft of Widgets 1.0. The intention is to standardise some aspects of widgets. The Opera browser is the first client side widget engine to adopt this draft W3C standard. Apache Wookie (Incubating) is the first server side widget engine to adopt this W3C standard. Wookie

1845-469: Was eventually supported by many computer operating systems , is known today as cooperative multitasking. Although it is now rarely used in larger systems except for specific applications such as CICS or the JES2 subsystem, cooperative multitasking was once the only scheduling scheme employed by Microsoft Windows and classic Mac OS to enable multiple applications to run simultaneously. Cooperative multitasking

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1890-680: Was implemented in the PDP-6 Monitor and Multics in 1964, in OS/360 MFT in 1967, and in Unix in 1969, and was available in some operating systems for computers as small as DEC's PDP-8; it is a core feature of all Unix-like operating systems, such as Linux , Solaris and BSD with its derivatives , as well as modern versions of Windows. At any specific time, processes can be grouped into two categories: those that are waiting for input or output (called " I/O bound "), and those that are fully utilizing

1935-725: Was in the design of real-time computing systems, where there are a number of possibly unrelated external activities needed to be controlled by a single processor system. In such systems a hierarchical interrupt system is coupled with process prioritization to ensure that key activities were given a greater share of available process time . As multitasking greatly improved the throughput of computers, programmers started to implement applications as sets of cooperating processes (e. g., one process gathering input data, one process processing input data, one process writing out results on disk). This, however, required some tools to allow processes to efficiently exchange data. Threads were born from

1980-471: Was the first computer designed with multiprogramming in mind. Its architecture featured a central memory and a Program Distributor feeding up to twenty-five autonomous processing units with code and data, and allowing concurrent operation of multiple clusters. Another such computer was the LEO III , first released in 1961. During batch processing , several different programs were loaded in the computer memory, and

2025-456: Was usually very inefficient. Multiprogramming is a computing technique that enables multiple programs to be concurrently loaded and executed into a computer's memory, allowing the CPU to switch between them swiftly. This optimizes CPU utilization by keeping it engaged with the execution of tasks, particularly useful when one program is waiting for I/O operations to complete. The Bull Gamma 60 , initially designed in 1957 and first released in 1960,

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