It's not usual to get excited about an Alpha release of anything, but jQuery Mobile promises good things. It's a  lightweight Javascript framework for developing mobile UIs the work across most phones and tablet devices.

Currently the phones supported are:

• Apple iOS: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad (all versions)
• Android: all devices (all versions)
• Blackberry Torch (version 6)
• Palm WebOS Pre, Pixi
• Nokia N900 (in progress)

The intention seems to be to support any phones that the team can get hold of. Why mobile phone makers like Samsung or Nokia haven't got a bada or MeeGo device to spare for this project is a mystery.

Probably as important as the release of the second Alpha is the news that the intention is to release another Alpha before the year is out, with a final version 1  release in January 2011 as the target.

For Alpha 2 specific information:

jQuery Mobile 1.0a2 Demos and Documentation

and more general info at:

http://jquerymobile.com/

Further reading  & Book Reviews

jQuery for mobile

jQuery in Action (2nd ed, Manning, 2010 )

jQuery Cookbook (O'Reilly, 2009)

JQuery: Visual QuickStart Guide (Peachpit Press, 2009)