Dawn of the Living Widgets winners

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Danette Breitenbach

After a marathon six-hour contest this past weekend, Vodacom announced the winners of its very first ‘Dawn of the Living Widgets'. A four-man team from S3 Solutions scooped R50 000 for developing a 2010 FIFA World Cup widget which counts down the days and hours left until kick-off of the first match next year.

The first runner-up, Werner Pieterson, won an Xbox, for his widget 'Flogger', which aggregates all information from one's car journey and assists in managing one's car travel log. The second runner-up, Mark Pearl, received an HTC smartphone for his ‘Guess the number' widget, which looks set to be a great contender for the ultimate timewaster.

The competition day on Saturday, 5 September 2009, also included a full lineup of workshops discussing the technical aspects of widget creation. Expert widget enthusiasts from Vodacom, Vodafone and other industry experts judged the contest.

"As a company, Vodacom is always looking to stay at the forefront of web and mobile-based applications,” said Romeo Kumalo, Vodacom executive director: commercial.

"The widget competition and workshops are part of the innovation drive to introduce Betavine, an open development platform, to the South African mobile applications development community.”

Developers can go to www.betavine.net to submit their widgets and share ideas and knowledge in the forums. For more information on Betavine, go to www.vodacominnovation.co.za.