http://liliputing.com/2014/12/google-chrome-gains-better-offline-app-support-..."Service workers allow web apps to intercept network requests and reply with cached data or other responses that don’t require an internet connection.
What makes service workers different from some other tools that allow web apps to work offline is that they can function even after you close a web page.
This allows them to run as background services, offering push notifications, background sync, or other capabilities, particularly on a mobile device where a user gives an app permission to run in the background.
Not only will service workers allow some web apps to work like native apps whether your phone, tablet, or other device is online or not, but it can also speed up the loading of some web apps even when you are online."Google likes to work magic, like giving GPS-less iPad 2 units Google voice actuated GPS functions when the unit has no voice and it has no GPS chip.
It tickles their techie egos to no end to go do things you just simply can't do.
So, Google guys have figured out how to get on-line apps to think they are on line even when you have dropped out of signal range and do not have a signal.
It involves mirror/buffering all on-line data flow into relatively large fast memory cache and keeping it there until it is replaced with new data from the wifi or cellular data flow. Now how is this different from a normal cache? It is responding FASTER than ever before and is is LARGER, more all encompassing and
it persists even when the device power is cut off.
Why is this important? It means your phone is preloading all the new stuff for you in the background while you are doing something else. Your device is always "on-line" even if it it is disconnected.
This is a really BIG performance improvement, much more so than you might think at first blush.This is a video, just click on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px-J9Ghvcx4Phones that don't drop off line when a slight glitch happens. Browsing that continues to work when you go out of range for a few seconds when driving along. Apps that work when the signal drops, continuing to work taking and giving data to the app data in the Cache until the connection comes back.
Note: phone calls will still see a glitch when the person's verbal response doesn't come, but all other forms of use won't see a lot of flaws in this new form of buffering.Why NOW? MS and Intel are fighting back price-wise and it is a flaw in Chromebooks that needs to be fixed to keep Chrome competitive. Same tricks work across the board, so across the board they go, for free no less.
What becomes more & more possible with this already released Chrome version 40 trick?
The new class of wifi first phones from T Mobile and Republic Wireless now have a natural support system integral to the phone OS to do the same sort of buffering that that they have done with their own custom software that has allowed them for YEARS to switch back and forth between Wifi and Cell Signal without showing any gaps or glitches to the user.
Yep, them good ideas in open source tend to move around and get adopted and improved and spread and adopted all over the place in venues you never even thought about.
It is all a question of Cache size and speed --- and this stuff is so fast that a person can't tell they got sent to cache for a few seconds, the screen just keeps on painting and the data crunching keeps going in and out without any interruptions.
Needless to say,
big stoppages still have to show up in any live activity but games and such can run from the cache until they need a spot of data that simply isn't in the cache. You know, like loading a new level.
And if you were using a spreadsheet or a word processor you'd never see the break as your saves are saved (into the cache) and they get sent to cloud memory as soon as the connection comes back.
The Cache is large and smart and it buffers its older data automatically to your fixed memory to make sure you have fast memory free to handle current activities.
This is a new use for an old idea, one that will allow phones, tablets and Chromebooks to offer much more seamless off-line activities, especially in the new lower cost, mixed source wifi-first world of phones and tablets and such which is happening as we watch.
It will serve to further lower the general cost of cell services, since you aren't totally dependency locked into a carrier's data plan speeds when you use these mixed style services.
Plus, much cheaper lower speed 3-G cellular services tend to offer the exact same lightning fast service speed from the big Cache as a much more expensive 4-G service would do. Change, she comes ....... think of it as giving all those extra ARM cores something useful to do with themselves in the mean times.
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