Cook Computing

Web applications which dynamically update their web pages without refreshing the whole page are in the news a lot these days, for example the various Google applications.

Adaptive Path has an article on what they call "Ajax" - Asynchronous JavaScript + XML, and Bill Bercik has a tutorial on how to use the XMLHttpRequest JavaScript object, the key component which enables you to make requests to a server without refreshing the web page(via Windley's Technometria). Jason Fried warns that people shouldn't get too carried away with the technology and should always consider the user experience.