This week Gmail goes offline through the power of Gears, Adobe AIR surpasses 100 Million installations, developers get a comprehensive list of Silverlight controls, Flash gets some augmented reality, and a test drive of the BlazeDS and Spring integration is provided. All this and more on the Weekly RIA RoundUp from InsideRIA.

FEATURED: Gmail Goes Offline with Gears

Gmail has finally released a beta of one of its most requested features: offline support. Google uses Gears to implement the offline support, and this is probably the most extensive use of Gears to date (so it will be interesting to see if users run into any issues).

In addition to the traditional online and offline modes, the new beta also provides support for people with an unreliable internet connection (aptly named 'flaky connection mode') which will utilize Gears to be sure the user retains all Gmail functionality.

The beta is currently available to all US and UK Gmail users.

Google Official Blog: New in Labs: Offline Gmail

Lifehacker: Gmail Goes Offline with Google Gears

FEATURED: AIR Has 100,000,000 Installs

Adobe announced this week at Adobe Max Japan that AIR has been installed over 100 Million times since its 1.0 release. This demonstrates the extent to which the AIR platform has extended in less than one year.

In addition, Adobe also announced that since Flash Player 10 was released, it reached an over 55% penetration level (in just two months). The official numbers on Flash Player penetration can be seen at the link below.

Ted Patrick (Adobe): Flash Player 10 at 55% in 2 months and 100M AIR Installs

Adobe Flash Player Version Penetration

Can JavaFX Be Used for Real Applications?

In James Weaver's latest post, he attempts to answer the question, 'Can JavaFX Be Used for Real World Applications?' He explains that this question can from another Java developer. To help answer the question, James has started work on a proof-of-concept bookstore application that utilizes Amazon webservices. James provides some screenshots as well as a demo of the application.

James Weaver: Can JavaFX be used to Develop Real-World Applications?

BlazeDS and Spring Test Drive Code Samples

Christophe Coenraets has provided a new test drive of the BlazeDS / Spring integration that was announced in December. The test drive contains a pre-configured Tomcat installation with BlazeDS and Spring ready to go. The test drive also includes several code samples that should allow you to experiment with the integration.

Christophe Coenraets (Adobe): New Spring/BlazeDS Integration Test Drive

Augmented Reality with the FLARToolKit

Wikipedia defines Augmented Reality (AR) as:

...a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data (virtual reality), where computer graphics objects are blended into real footage in real time.

One of the toolkits that has made AR possible has been the open source ARToolkit. Recently, this toolkit was ported to ActionScript (as the FLARToolkit). The Papervision3D blog has an amazing video sample of this toolkit in action.

Papervision3D Blog: Augmented Reality with FLARToolKit

FLARToolKit

List of Siverlight Controls for Developers

Tim Heuer of Microsoft recently compiled a huge list of Silverlight controls for developers. This is certainly the most comprehensive list I have seen. This list includes most any control imaginable including datagrids, sliders, panel, magnifiers, rich text editors, and a lot more. In addition, Tim also covers other resources such as physics engines and effects libraries.

Tim Heuer (Microsoft): A comprehensive list to Silverlight Controls for developers

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