Chrome and Safari both have HTML Notifications now via webkit. Firefox does have something similar to this but I haven't researched to much into it. A quick test to demonstrate what it can do below...
document.getElementById("allowNotification").onclick=function(){ if(document.getElementById("allowNotification").value == "Allow Notification"){ window.webkitNotifications.requestPermission(function(){ document.getElementById("allowNotification").value = "Push Notification"; if (window.webkitNotifications.checkPermission() == 0) { window.webkitNotifications.createNotification( "/public/images/shaun_s.ico", "Shaunware Tutorial", "This is a Notification from your Web Browser.").show(); } }); }else{ window.webkitNotifications.createNotification( "/public/images/shaun_s.ico", "Shaunware Tutorial", "This is a notification triggered by a button.").show(); } }