Googlified

Aside from the announcement of acquiring Panoramio, Google today launched a new product/API, Google Gears, “an open source browser extension that lets developers create web applications that can run offline”, at the Google Developer Day.

Google Gears currently works on Firefox 1.5+ and Internet Explorer 6+ under OS X, Linux, and Windows XP/Vista.

Here are Gears’ three key features as listed by Google:

Which means that the data are stored in a SQLite database on your hard drive and can be retrieved by SQL commands. Under the same-origin policy, web applications cannot access data from other domains. (ex. website A cannot access data from website B because they are not under the same domain)

To take an extra step to ensure security, Google Gears asks for user’s permission before storing data on your computer.

The first web application that employs this new product is Google Reader, which allows users to download 2000 items and read offline. I guess this is good for people who travels a lot or often in places where internet connection is not available.

I predict that Google Gears would soon to be used in Gmail, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and thousands of other web applications and will change the entire Web 2.0 revolution.

Google Gears is a browser extension, you can install it here. For developers, you might want to join the discussion forum or take a look at the documentation or subscribe to the Gears Blog.