Have you ever been in some remote place, like Africa, Antarctica or the backwoods of Georgia, and wished, “man I really wish I had an Internet connection here.”

Surprise!! Our wishes have been answered. Google is working on something that may just give Internet users that very connection…..well sort of.

Google is currently developing an application called Google Gears that will allow you to download site content in advance of using it. The storing of Web information gives browsers the chance to work online, even when a connection is lost. When the Internet goes live again, all your transactions go through—this explanation is in very broad terms.

“The technology […] would allow users of computers, phones and other devices to manipulate Web services like e-mail, online calendars or news readers whether online, intermittently connected to the Web or completely offline,” said Eric Auchard of Reuters. “By bridging the gulf between new Web services and the older world of desktop software, where any data changes are stored locally on users’ machines, Google is pushing the Web into whole new spheres of activity and posing a challenge to rival Microsoft, leader in the desktop software era.”

There are three features crucial to making Gears work as explained above:

• A local server, to cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) without needing to contact a server
• A database, to store and access data from within the browser
• A worker thread pool, to make web applications more responsive by performing expensive operations in the background

Basically the information is located and stored, and any work you are submitting online is remembered so when the connection is returned, everything goes through properly.
The system was built as an open source browser extension, meaning developers can create and modify Gears to their own standards; however, there are a few system requirements to use it. You must operate on either Windows XP or Vista, and have Firefox 1.5+ or Internet Explorer 6.0+. The BETA version of Gears is currently available for Windows, Mac and Linux but Google warns that it is still in the early testing phase.

When the product is finally released out of BETA, we will finally be able to stop running around, laptop in hand, climbing on top of desks for a sighting of the illustrious Internet connection. We will be able to work by means of a stale Internet, until the next time the connection decides to swing by. But some Internet is definitely better than none at all.

Get ready Africa, here I come.