James released his development version of Active Shipping to github

Active Shipping does what Active Merchant did for payment gateways: Provide one unified API to talk to all the Parcel Services on the web. Given a weight, a to and a from address you can calculate the Shipping costs of every supported Shipping Service. All the complexity of the task is handled by the library.

Active Shipping has been in production use with Shopify since the beginning of the year.

require 'active_shipping'
include ActiveMerchant::Shipping

# Package up a poster and a Wii for your nephew.
packages = [
  Package.new(  100,                        # 100 grams
                [93,10],                    # 93 cm long, 10 cm diameter
                :cylinder => true),         # cylinders have different volume calculations

  Package.new(  (7.5 * 16),                 # 7.5 lbs, times 16 oz/lb.
                [15, 10, 4.5],              # 15x10x4.5 inches
                :units => :imperial)        # not grams, not centimetres
]

# You live in Beverly Hills, he lives in Ottawa
origin = Location.new(      :country => 'US',
                            :state => 'CA',
                            :city => 'Beverly Hills',
                            :zip => '90210')

destination = Location.new( :country => 'CA',
                            :province => 'ON',
                            :city => 'Ottawa',
                            :postal_code => 'K1P 1J1')

# Find out how much it'll be.
ups = UPS.new(:login => 'auntjudy', :password => 'secret', :key => 'xml-access-key')
response = ups.find_rates(origin, destination, packages)

ups_rates = response.rates.sort_by(&:price).collect {|rate| [rate.service_name, rate.price]}
# => [["UPS Standard", 3936],
#     ["UPS Worldwide Expedited", 8682],
#     ["UPS Saver", 9348],
#     ["UPS Express", 9702],
#     ["UPS Worldwide Express Plus", 14502]]

# Check out USPS for comparison...
usps = USPS.new(:login => 'developer-key')
response = usps.find_rates(origin, destination, packages)

usps_rates = response.rates.sort_by(&:price).collect {|rate| [rate.service_name, rate.price]}
# => [["USPS Priority Mail International", 4110],
#     ["USPS Express Mail International (EMS)", 5750],
#     ["USPS Global Express Guaranteed Non-Document Non-Rectangular", 9400],
#     ["USPS GXG Envelopes", 9400],
#     ["USPS Global Express Guaranteed Non-Document Rectangular", 9400],
#     ["USPS Global Express Guaranteed", 9400]]