Yahoo! magazine hits iPad with mobile future in mind

"With all the swirl out there, the impression is that it must be defocusing," Yahoo! chief product officer Blake Irving said during a Product Runway press event at the firm's headquarters in the Silicon Valley city of Sunnyvale.

"There is little confusion," he continued regarding the environment at Yahoo!, which has yet to replace its ousted chief executive and is reportedly interested in takeover bids.

"The other noise out there you are talking about at parties or with your friends, but we feel very good about what we are building."

Product Runway was a stage for unveiling new software designed to deliver video, news, and other Yahoo! "premier digital content" to smartphones, tablets or personal computers in vivid, personal and social ways.

"Hundreds of millions of people rely on Yahoo! every day, yet no two users are alike," Irving said.

"By building these products on top of our powerful platforms with beautiful interactive design, we are getting closer to a truly 'personal Web' for every Yahoo! customer," he continued.

Livestand applications for iPads let Yahoo! stream "personalized living magazines" to the market-ruling tablet computers.

Livestand weaves video, rich pictures, and text in easily navigated presentations in a challenge to popular iPad social magazine application Flipboard.

Livestand was available for download in the United States at Apple's online App Store.

Yahoo! also launched an IntoNow iPad application that enables tablets to analyze audio snippets to figure out what television shows people are watching and then connect them to news, Twitter posts and other related information.

"Pretty much all of us are engaging with multiple devices while watching TV," said IntoNow chief Adam Cahan.

"Tablets go hand-in-hand with television, they are a gateway to consumption," he continued.

A Yahoo! Weather application for Android-powered gadgets lets Flickr users in more than 60 countries create searchable libraries of images showing conditions at different places and times.

"I am personally more bullish on Yahoo! today than I was two weeks ago, or a year ago," Irving said.

"Our mission and strategy is the same as last year at Product Runway," he continued. "Bring deeply personal digital experiences to people across the world; that is our mission."

(c) 2011 AFP