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Webware reports that Chris Prince, a lead Gears engineer, provided some insight into what Google plans to do with Gears to advance the web browser's reach into the desktop. Among the features mentioned are notifications on the desktop of various events, support for location information, better interactions with a computer's file system, and technology to let large file uploads proceed even when hampered by intermittent network connectivity.

Prince demonstrated the following prototypes:

• One let a Web page create a shortcut icon on a computer's desktop so people could launch that Web application with a double-click instead of a more laborious process.
• A notification process, which like Yahoo's BrowserPlus feature ties into a computer's general system notification abilities, is a major missing piece in letting Web applications seize a user's attention the way desktop apps can. "Web apps have this problem where they can't tell users about important things happening on their system," Prince said.
• His file system demonstration showed a dialog box that let him select a large group of photos for upload rather than the one-file-at-a-time process that today afflicts Web site operations.
• A "blob"-processing ability could be used, for example, to divide a large file into bite-sized pieces, an approach that makes it easier to restore an upload interrupted by a bad network connection.
• He used a geolocation-processing ability to process latitude-longitude information to provide a more useful Google map showing bars near Moscone Center in San Francisco.

http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9954418-2.html

This is a great slide from an presentation given by Cameron Moll in 2006 titled, "Nine skills that separate good and great designers."

http://www.cameronmoll.com/archives/001266.html

Here are 2 recent articles that discuss why small teams are more effective than larger ones.

1. Great Numbers, Not So Great Design, by Khoi Vinh in Subtraction
   This craft, and whatever pretensions to art it can pull off, rests so much on the efficiency of transferring ideas from the brain to the hand. This means that in its ideal form, it works best when practiced by a single person. The perfect design staff is a single designer who can conceive of and execute an idea from start to finish — a straight shot from the right brain to the wrist — maintaining the same coherent creative vision throughout. ... The problem is that the structures of most larger design businesses cannot effectively facilitate the the transmittal of ideas. They don’t allow good design to happen, because they are overburdened with the organizational overhead of running a business.
2. If you’re working in a big group, you’re fighting human nature, by Matt Linderman in 37 Signals
   When you’ve got a small group, you don’t need to constantly formalize things. You communicate and you know what’s going on. If you have a question about something, you ask someone. Formalized rules, deadlines, and documents start to seem silly. ... If you’re working in a group bigger than 15 people, you’re fighting human nature.

http://www.subtraction.com/archives/2008/0430_great_number.php