ultimately emerge with an open standard that benefits everyone."

Google has unveiled a beta version of its new Google Gears technology, which allows you to run web applications without being connected to the internet.

"With 'Google Gears' we are tackling a key limitation of the browser in order to make it a stronger platform for deploying all types of applications, and enabling a better user experience,"

Google is hoping Google Gears will be the standard application for adding offline capabilities to online services, eating into Microsoft 's dominance in this sector.