From Techmeme via Twitter: Google is rolling out (ie, not everyone can get it immediately) Google Gears, which is a first-step in offline use:

You’ll know you have the feature when you see a little “offline” menu item in the upper right of your document window in Google Docs… The feature’s first-use case is, “I’m amending a document and I lose my Internet connection,” Norton said. Document creation capability will come eventually… Google Gears runs on Firefox 1.6 and above (but not beta 3) on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It also supports Internet Explorer 6.0 and higher on Windows. There is no support for Safari, Flock, Opera, Maxthon, or mobile browsers.

Of course, this will mean versioning issues for documents created collaboratively if people are working offline. (Like on an airplane, perhaps.) More later. I’m not one of the first chosen few. ;-)

Update: doh! I hadn’t installed the extension yet.