Gmail's web-based app for any smartphone [video]

Mobile apps. Every platform wants one. And every developer wants to build them. But so many platforms these days - Windows Mobile, Apple, Blackberry, Palm, Android - means a different app to be built for each of them.

In this video from the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, Google VP of Engineering Vic Gundrota showed off the prototype of a new Web-based Gmail app that could one day be used on any smartphone, regardless of the OS.

By using HTML 5 standards, he predicts, developers will no longer have to choose just one platform to write for. When the app is released, users will be able to archive and use their e-mail even when not online.

The moderator is Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO, O'Reilly Media