This week we saw an S3 outage that crippled many web applications, a new foundation to keep data open, OSCON 2008, Silverlight flexes its gaming credentials, and Desktop Keeley breaking some records.

Featured: Amazon S3 / SQS Outage

While Amazon Webservices are not related to one specific RIA technology, they are powering many applications across multiple platforms. On July 20th, Amazon S3 and SQS were down for a majority of the day, resulting in many RIA's being inaccessible or only operating with partial functionality.

This has again brought up the danger of so much of the web being dependent on a single technology. So who was the big winner of this week's outage? Nirvanix. The buzz over this S3 alternative has been huge this week as many people are looking for a rock solid backup to their S3 based applications.

CenterNetworks.com: Amazon S3 Down

GigaOM: S3 Outage Highlights Fragility of Web Services

OSCON Announcement: Open Web Foundation

One of the announcements at OSCON this week was the Open Web Foundation. The Foundation defines itself as:

The Open Web Foundation is an attempt to create a home for community-driven specifications. Following the open source model similar to the Apache Software Foundation, the foundation is aimed at building a lightweight framework to help communities deal with the legal requirements necessary to create successful and widely adopted specification.

Announcing the Open Web Foundation

Open Web Foundation

Sun and Desktop Keeley

Sun's AIR application, Desktop Keeley, has surpassed their previous record for downloadable widgets.

"A Page 3 girl widget for RSS feeds, launched by The Sun on Friday, has beaten previous download figures for Sun apps after only three days, the newspaper has said."

The Sun: Desktop Keeley

Journalism.co.uk: Sun’s Page 3 widget breaks download records

RIA's on the Cell Phone

Guy Aharonovsky at AJAXWorld performed a rundown of the RIA technologies that exist or are being developed for the mobile platform.

AJAXWorld: RIAs on Cell Phones and Small Devices

Will Flash Developers Use Silverlight?

Joel Neubeck responded to a poll about whether Flash developers will use Silverlight. I have heard many differing opinions on this. Jacob takes the point of view that developers should want to learn a skill that will make them more marketable. I have mixed feelings about this. For many industries Silverlight is not a marketable skill yet, but I believe the Olympics coverage has a chance to change that.

Joel Neubeck: Will developers use Silverlight?

Additional Flex 4 Details Released

The Flex Team posted an announcement this week stating that both the documentation as well as the MXML Specification for Flex 4 has been released.

The Flex Team Blog: Gumbo Docs and Specs pushed this week

Livedocs: ASDOC's for Flex 4

Adobe Opensource: MXML 2009 Specification

Silverlight Flexing it's Gaming Credentials

Adam Kinney posted a list of the currently available Silverlight games. In addition to this information, Adam also provides a link to the Sports Game in Silverlight Contest.

Adam Kinney: Silverlight Games today and more on the way

Team Zone Sports: Create a Sports Game in Silverlight Contest

Read more from David Tucker.