A gadget is a mechanical device or any ingenious article. Gadgets are sometimes referred to as gizmos.

In the software industry, “Gadget” refers to computer programs that provide services without needing an independent application to be launched for each one, but instead run in an environment that manages multiple gadgets. There are several implementations based on existing software development techniques, like JavaScript, form input, and various image formats.

Proprietary formats include Google Desktop, Google Gadgets, Microsoft Gadgets, the AmigaOS Workbench and dashboard software Apple Widgets. The earliest documented use of the term gadget in context of software engineering was in 1985 by the developers of AmigaOS, the operating system of the Amiga computers (intuition.library and also later gadtools.library). It denotes what other technological traditions call GUI widget—a control element in graphical user interface. This naming convention remains in continuing use (as of 2008) since then. The X11 windows system ‘Intrinsics’ also defines gadgets and their relationship to widgets (buttons, labels etc.). The gadget was a windowless widget which was supposed to improve the performance of the application by reducing the memory load on the X server. A gadget would use the Window id of its parent widget and had no children of its own It is not known whether other software companies are explicitly drawing on that inspiration when featuring the word in names of their technologies or simply referring to the generic meaning. The word widget is older in this context. In the movie “Back to School” from 1986 by Alan Metter, there is a scene where an economics professor Dr. Barbay, wants to start for educational purposes a fictional company that produces “widgets: It’s a fictional product.”

Domestic technology

Domestic technology is the incorporation of applied science into the home. There are multiple aspects of domestic technology. On one level, there are home appliances, home automation and other devices commonly used in the home, such as clothes dryers and washing machines. On another level, domestic technology recognizes the use of applied science to construct homes to achieve a particular goal, such as energy efficiency or self-sufficiency. For more information, read about self-sufficient homes. It has been claimed that domestic technology has led to decreases in the time people spend on household work, although the factual basis of this claim is disputed