Three Upcoming Web Technologies that Work Offline

Google launched Gears Beta Web Application ,which is an open source browser extension. It lets web applications provide offline services.

Advantages:

Database installation on client system
Uses data from local cache
Synchronizes data in the cache with online services.
During unavailability of network, synchronization is deferred.


Adobe launched Air:

According to Adobe , Adobe Air is a cross-operating system runtime that allows web application developers to use their existing web development skills (HTML, Javascript, Adobe Flash®, Adobe Flex™, Ajax) to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop.
In other words, Adobe Air helps users to update their information to the url once they connect to the internet.

Advantages:

Installation files can be much smaller
Allows integration of the technologies together (Flash, HTML, PDF) on a much lower level than may otherwise be feasible.
Standardized and consistent security model for Adobe AIR applications and users.


Microsoft launched Silverlight.:

Silverlight is termed as a rich plugin for browsers. Its focus is on animation, graphics and video playback capabilities of Windows Presentation Foundation.

Advantages:

Supports the display of high definition videos.
Microsoft to host silverlight media files and applications to stream large media files.