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This is a competitor in the AIR / silverlight / JavaFX space

Javascript can be enormously faster: compare ActionScript 2.0 and 3.0, which are implementations of ECMAscript (which Javascript is also) in Adobe's Flash.

If Google can basically get these things right - local persistence, speed and animation tools - the Web OS that Microsoft has greatly feared will be finally upon us...

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Who knows but that what's next on Google's plate is a great implementation of SVG or whatever, to be a completely open alternative to AIR and Silverlight. I think we can almost expect it.

The webkit implementation of <canvas> is excellent, which fills most of the need for SVG, especially with separate processes for tabs.

And with html5 video support in Webkit, another advantage of Flash evaporates. There is still the question of distribution, though.

webkit already has decent SVG support: http://webkit.org/projects/svg/status.xml

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