Web as ubiquitous computing platform got a boost today as Google announced a version of Gears for Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices. Google Gears is a browser extension which lets web applications work offline, which is a crucial requirement if you're planning on doing any serious application for a mobile device where the connection is likely to drop in and out relatively often (compared to your desktop PC). It's a shame that they've not started with Symbian, the most widely deployed smartphone OS outside of the US, but hopefully they'll get to it shortly.

And while on the subject of Symbian based OSes, Microsoft also made an announcement in the mobile device space today - they have agreed with Nokia to write a version of Silverlight for Series 60 (which is Symbian based) phones. I admit I hadn't really taken Microsoft's 'cross platform' claims for Silverlight that seriously up until now, because they weren't even as 'cross platform' as Flash, which is hardly the gold standard, but a few more announcements along these lines and they might convince me.