Google Debuts ‘Gears’, A Trio Of Developer APIs

Google's made many headlines lately, but today one particular announcement by the company shadowing almost all others. We say almost, because the biggest elephant in the room remains the Google-DoubleClick deal. $3.1bn is one card that’s really very difficult to trump.

On to the latest news. It turns out Google’s been hard at work trying to construct a bridge between online and offline use of applications that as of now can only be accessed with Internet connections, and come out from behind the curtain once again to tell the world that it’s made significant progress on that front.

The company today introduced Google Gears, an “open source browser plug-in that will enable developers to create offline web applications using JavaScript APIs." The plug-in is compatible with the browsers Firefox 1.5+ and Internet Explorer 6.0+ at the moment. It’s likely that versions built for both Opera and Apple’s Safari will arrive relatively shortly – either as ports constructed by Google itself, or, considering the open source nature of the utility, by any number of developers outside the Googleplex.

Google Gears is comprised of three developer APIs: one for the creation of actual data objects to store locally, another to hem together a searchable database. The third and final piece works all of the AJAX wonders and allows for effortless sync when connections to the Internet are regained. (It also helps ensure the user’s browser doesn’t get tolled by the data transfers too harshly.) Altogether, the plug-in is an easily digestible 700k download, and is available now.

Google’s made it a point to emphasize the “open” aspect of Google Gears, which really gives any developer(s) the option to mold the code and even build upon it to fit any specific purpose. The reason for Google allowing this to be is to give the company a leg up on the competition (right now it’s online-only existence isn’t too attractive for frequent travelers and the like), as it immediately presents itself as an attractive base of possibilities with little or no investment risk. Developers can basically play with Gears at will, and the freedom to do just simply looks appetizing indeed.

Note: It’s no coincidence that the launch of Google Gears was made in conjunction with that of the company’s first “developer day.” We look forward to seeing just how quickly Google Gears is administered to the company’s own series of Web applications, as well as third-party creations.