Google Data » Aaron Boodman https://googledata.org Everything Google: News, Products, Services, Content, Culture Fri, 10 Apr 2015 22:28:52 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1 Stopping the Gears https://googledata.org/google-gears/stopping-the-gears/ https://googledata.org/google-gears/stopping-the-gears/#comments Fri, 11 Mar 2011 23:51:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=d3667ffc4531294dab4f060558d63e94 Last February, we let you know we were shifting our focus from Gears to HTML5. Over the last year or so, we’ve been working closely with other browser vendors and standards bodies to help define and standardize HTML5 features across browsers, and we’ve worked hard to improve these HTML5 capabilities in Chrome:


  • We implemented support for application caches, which are a great replacement for Gears’ offline features. App caches are already being used by web apps like the NYTimes app in the Chrome Web Store. There is also full-featured debugging support for application caches in Chrome’s developer tools.

  • Together with our friends at Mozilla and Microsoft, we proposed, specified, and implemented the IndexedDB API. This can take the place of the Gears Database API.

  • We implemented the HTML5 File API, which is very similar to the Gears Blob functionality.

  • We implemented the geolocation, notifications, and web worker APIs, which were pioneered by Gears, natively in Chrome.

With all this now available in HTML5, it’s finally time to say goodbye to Gears. There will be no new Gears releases, and newer browsers such as Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9 will not be supported. We will also be removing Gears from Chrome in Chrome 12.

The code itself will of course remain open source, and anyone is free to use it.

Our mission with Gears was to enable more powerful web applications. Over 5 releases, we added tons of APIs, enabling everything from offline access to parallel computation. Now that these features have all been adopted by browsers and have official W3C specs, they are available to more developers than we could have reached with Gears alone.

Edit: Corrected timeframe for removing Gears from Chrome.

Posted by Aaron Boodman, Gears Team

]]> Last February, we let you know we were shifting our focus from Gears to HTML5. Over the last year or so, we’ve been working closely with other browser vendors and standards bodies to help define and standardize HTML5 features across browsers, and we’ve worked hard to improve these HTML5 capabilities in Chrome:


  • We implemented support for application caches, which are a great replacement for Gears’ offline features. App caches are already being used by web apps like the NYTimes app in the Chrome Web Store. There is also full-featured debugging support for application caches in Chrome’s developer tools.

  • Together with our friends at Mozilla and Microsoft, we proposed, specified, and implemented the IndexedDB API. This can take the place of the Gears Database API.

  • We implemented the HTML5 File API, which is very similar to the Gears Blob functionality.

  • We implemented the geolocation, notifications, and web worker APIs, which were pioneered by Gears, natively in Chrome.

With all this now available in HTML5, it’s finally time to say goodbye to Gears. There will be no new Gears releases, and newer browsers such as Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9 will not be supported. We will also be removing Gears from Chrome in Chrome 12.

The code itself will of course remain open source, and anyone is free to use it.

Our mission with Gears was to enable more powerful web applications. Over 5 releases, we added tons of APIs, enabling everything from offline access to parallel computation. Now that these features have all been adopted by browsers and have official W3C specs, they are available to more developers than we could have reached with Gears alone.

Edit: Corrected timeframe for removing Gears from Chrome.

Posted by Aaron Boodman, Gears Team

]]> https://googledata.org/google-gears/stopping-the-gears/feed/ 0 WiFi-based geolocation, anyone? https://googledata.org/google-gears/wifi-based-geolocation-anyone/ https://googledata.org/google-gears/wifi-based-geolocation-anyone/#comments Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:59:00 +0000 Andrei Popescu, Gears Team

Guess what? The Gears Geolocation API got even better! We have just released a new version of Gears, 0.4.24.0, which contains an enhanced implementation of the Geolocation API. This new version uses WiFi access point signals to return significantly more accurate results, making it a lot more useful on laptop computers.

You can find more details about this release on the UK Google Code Blog.
]]> https://googledata.org/google-gears/wifi-based-geolocation-anyone/feed/ 0 WiFi-based geolocation, anyone? https://googledata.org/google-gears/wifi-based-geolocation-anyone-2/ https://googledata.org/google-gears/wifi-based-geolocation-anyone-2/#comments Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:59:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=3c122129bf7424a306d39d950341238b Andrei Popescu, Gears Team

Guess what? The Gears Geolocation API got even better! We have just released a new version of Gears, 0.4.24.0, which contains an enhanced implementation of the Geolocation API. This new version uses WiFi access point signals to return significantly more accurate results, making it a lot more useful on laptop computers.

You can find more details about this release on the UK Google Code Blog.]]> https://googledata.org/google-gears/wifi-based-geolocation-anyone-2/feed/ 0 Fly, Gears 0.3! https://googledata.org/google-gears/fly-gears-0-3/ https://googledata.org/google-gears/fly-gears-0-3/#comments Thu, 12 Jun 2008 05:08:00 +0000 Posted by Aaron Boodman, Gears Engineer

Well, that's it, Gears 0.3 has officially left the nest. Most users have now been updated to 0.3.24.0. If you haven't, you can update at gears.google.com.

It seemed like just yesterday we were announcing 0.2. But here we are again, with great new features like:
*Sniff* ... They grow up so fast.

As always, please let us know what you think of the new APIs, and what you think still needs work. Or better yet, join the project and send us a patch.

And don't worry about us, we'll be fine. We've got to focus on 0.4. Soon enough, it too will spread its wings.
]]> https://googledata.org/google-gears/fly-gears-0-3/feed/ 0 Fly, Gears 0.3! https://googledata.org/google-gears/fly-gears-0-3-2/ https://googledata.org/google-gears/fly-gears-0-3-2/#comments Thu, 12 Jun 2008 05:08:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=cfd48dd16810851fdeb4c5d549089175 Posted by Aaron Boodman, Gears Engineer

Well, that's it, Gears 0.3 has officially left the nest. Most users have now been updated to 0.3.24.0. If you haven't, you can update at gears.google.com.

It seemed like just yesterday we were announcing 0.2. But here we are again, with great new features like:
*Sniff* ... They grow up so fast.

As always, please let us know what you think of the new APIs, and what you think still needs work. Or better yet, join the project and send us a patch.

And don't worry about us, we'll be fine. We've got to focus on 0.4. Soon enough, it too will spread its wings.]]> https://googledata.org/google-gears/fly-gears-0-3-2/feed/ 0 Gears and Standards https://googledata.org/google-gears/gears-and-standards/ https://googledata.org/google-gears/gears-and-standards/#comments Wed, 09 Apr 2008 03:13:00 +0000 Posted by Aaron Boodman, Gears Engineer

Gears is about more than just offline web applications. For example, we recently added desktop shortcut functionality, and we're working on resumable uploads, a geolocation API, and lots more fun things for the future.

We've received some questions recently about how all this relates to web standards, such as HTML5 and those proposed by the W3C. It seems like some people are afraid Gears will try to compete with the web.

Let us put those fears to rest right now: on the Gears team we loves us some web standards. Some of us were web developers stuck in the crossfire of the browser wars, and we deeply understand standards have played a key role in the productivity and creativity of the web over the past 10 years.

We have no desire to create a parallel platform and compete with the web. Anyway, that would be crazy. The web is an unstoppable force of nature. Competing with it would be like entering a shouting match with the wind: you can't win, and you look pretty silly trying.

Instead, Gears aims to bring emerging web standards to as many devices as possible, as quickly as possible.


Some History

The Gears project started because a group of developers at Google were frustrated by the slow march of web browsers. Competition and standards were producing fantastic results, but it took a long time to get implementations on every browser. In some cases, we still don't have compatible implementations, years after the standards were finalized. Our first project was to implement APIs that would make offline web applications possible.

Currently, the Gears Database and LocalServer modules are not fully compatible with the HTML5 proposals for the same functionality. This is only because those specs were written after Gears was released, and not because of any desire to be different. In fact, we were involved in the design of both HTML5 specs, and we are currently implementing the proposal for database access.


Going Forward

In many ways, Gears is like a browser without any UI. And just like other browsers, Gears will implement existing standards and rally for changes and additions where they seem needed. For example, we recently proposed our geolocation API work to the W3C WebAPI group.

There are three important differences between Gears and other browsers, however:
  1. Improvements to Gears can be used by developers immediately. Gears is available today on Firefox (for Windows, OS X, and Linux), IE, and IE Mobile. Implementations for more browsers and platforms are in progress. Developers no longer have to wait for every browser to implement new web standards before they can use them, they only have to wait for them to be available on Gears.

  2. Most browser vendors have two groups of customers: users and developers. User-facing features typically get more attention than developer-facing APIs, for a variety of reasons. But with Gears, developers are the only customers. We can focus completely on creating the best possible platform for web development.

  3. Gears is an implementation of web standards that lives inside another browser. For example, the HTML5 Database API might be available to developers through both the google.gears object and the traditional window object. This is OK, and in some ways a good thing. Developers will be able to mix and match the pieces of Gears and native browser implementations that work best.

The Pitch

By implementing emerging web standards, Gears is influencing what the web of tomorrow will look and act like. And since Gears is an open source project, anyone can contribute.

Get involved. You don't have to be able to code in C++. All that's needed is some free time and the desire to push the web forward.
]]> https://googledata.org/google-gears/gears-and-standards/feed/ 0 Gears and Standards https://googledata.org/google-gears/gears-and-standards-2/ https://googledata.org/google-gears/gears-and-standards-2/#comments Wed, 09 Apr 2008 03:13:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=8cde401407bc35004c13e6af5d0e5736 Posted by Aaron Boodman, Gears Engineer

Gears is about more than just offline web applications. For example, we recently added desktop shortcut functionality, and we're working on resumable uploads, a geolocation API, and lots more fun things for the future.

We've received some questions recently about how all this relates to web standards, such as HTML5 and those proposed by the W3C. It seems like some people are afraid Gears will try to compete with the web.

Let us put those fears to rest right now: on the Gears team we loves us some web standards. Some of us were web developers stuck in the crossfire of the browser wars, and we deeply understand standards have played a key role in the productivity and creativity of the web over the past 10 years.

We have no desire to create a parallel platform and compete with the web. Anyway, that would be crazy. The web is an unstoppable force of nature. Competing with it would be like entering a shouting match with the wind: you can't win, and you look pretty silly trying.

Instead, Gears aims to bring emerging web standards to as many devices as possible, as quickly as possible.


Some History

The Gears project started because a group of developers at Google were frustrated by the slow march of web browsers. Competition and standards were producing fantastic results, but it took a long time to get implementations on every browser. In some cases, we still don't have compatible implementations, years after the standards were finalized. Our first project was to implement APIs that would make offline web applications possible.

Currently, the Gears Database and LocalServer modules are not fully compatible with the HTML5 proposals for the same functionality. This is only because those specs were written after Gears was released, and not because of any desire to be different. In fact, we were involved in the design of both HTML5 specs, and we are currently implementing the proposal for database access.


Going Forward

In many ways, Gears is like a browser without any UI. And just like other browsers, Gears will implement existing standards and rally for changes and additions where they seem needed. For example, we recently proposed our geolocation API work to the W3C WebAPI group.

There are three important differences between Gears and other browsers, however:
  1. Improvements to Gears can be used by developers immediately. Gears is available today on Firefox (for Windows, OS X, and Linux), IE, and IE Mobile. Implementations for more browsers and platforms are in progress. Developers no longer have to wait for every browser to implement new web standards before they can use them, they only have to wait for them to be available on Gears.

  2. Most browser vendors have two groups of customers: users and developers. User-facing features typically get more attention than developer-facing APIs, for a variety of reasons. But with Gears, developers are the only customers. We can focus completely on creating the best possible platform for web development.

  3. Gears is an implementation of web standards that lives inside another browser. For example, the HTML5 Database API might be available to developers through both the google.gears object and the traditional window object. This is OK, and in some ways a good thing. Developers will be able to mix and match the pieces of Gears and native browser implementations that work best.

The Pitch

By implementing emerging web standards, Gears is influencing what the web of tomorrow will look and act like. And since Gears is an open source project, anyone can contribute.

Get involved. You don't have to be able to code in C++. All that's needed is some free time and the desire to push the web forward.]]> https://googledata.org/google-gears/gears-and-standards-2/feed/ 0 This is not an April Fool’s joke! https://googledata.org/google-gears/this-is-not-an-april-fools-joke/ https://googledata.org/google-gears/this-is-not-an-april-fools-joke/#comments Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:38:00 +0000 Posted by Aaron Boodman, Gears Engineer

As of yesterday, it is possible to use Google Docs offline. We've all been working on this for a while now, and I think sometimes we take it for granted. A web-based word processor you can use without an internet connection?! Who'd'a thunk it?

Gigantic congrats to the Docs team, from all of us working on Gears. We especially love how simple you have made the setup and synchronization process.

Sometime soon, we'll have to get one of the Docs engineers to write a blog post about some of the challenges they faced bringing this together. There are some really interesting stories and lessons in there that would be useful to anyone aiming to offline-enable their web application.

To see offline Docs in action, check out the video below.

]]> https://googledata.org/google-gears/this-is-not-an-april-fools-joke/feed/ 0 This is not an April Fool’s joke! https://googledata.org/google-gears/this-is-not-an-april-fools-joke-2/ https://googledata.org/google-gears/this-is-not-an-april-fools-joke-2/#comments Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:38:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=187978531e5d1047830ac03aa6e05bbd Posted by Aaron Boodman, Gears Engineer

As of yesterday, it is possible to use Google Docs offline. We've all been working on this for a while now, and I think sometimes we take it for granted. A web-based word processor you can use without an internet connection?! Who'd'a thunk it?

Gigantic congrats to the Docs team, from all of us working on Gears. We especially love how simple you have made the setup and synchronization process.

Sometime soon, we'll have to get one of the Docs engineers to write a blog post about some of the challenges they faced bringing this together. There are some really interesting stories and lessons in there that would be useful to anyone aiming to offline-enable their web application.

To see offline Docs in action, check out the video below.

]]> https://googledata.org/google-gears/this-is-not-an-april-fools-joke-2/feed/ 0