The proposed standard, recently renamed as the Indexed Database API, will provide an interface that Web application developers could use to have a user's browser store database content for offline use, said Philippe Le Hégaret, who is the chairman of the W3C's Web Services Coordination Group.

Typically, today's Web application, such as a browser-based e-mail client or a calendar, will draw its user data from a database that is accessible from a network. In some cases, however, the user may wish to use the application while not connected to the network. Web applications could use these APIs (application programming interfaces) to store copies of the data in the browser itself.

"The database engine will directly be in the browser," said Le Hégaret. The Javascript-based APIs provide the interface for Web application developers to store and query data in the browser.

The proposed standard "allows you to associate some values with a key, and allows you to retrieve those values using the key," Le Hégaret said.

Today, Web application developers must develop their own approaches to storing data offline. With this standard in place, assuming it gets adopted by the browser makers, the data storage can be taken on by the browsers instead of each application. "The browser will take care of managing the database," Le Hégaret said.