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();
}
}