Why airWRX?

The web info-model of multi-format pages, interlinked to form sites, and accessible on multiple screens, has been missing from the realm of personal computing. Personal-web applications must combine the strengths of the web & PC models, delivering always-on-you, edit-in-place webs, with diverse data types and integration of desktop apps.

This requires a lightweight application server and user toolset which can run on laptops, wi-fi handhelds, or directly from flash drives. The look and feel should approximate an orderly spiral-bound notebook (in hypertext) instead of a cluttered desktop.

Existing application servers and PC software are not designed for personal webs. Today's tools either confine the app to a single device during use, or centralize it on the internet/intranet, requiring reliable hosting and access for use. Existing tools also isolate applications from each other, forcing the user to think in terms of tools, rather than tasks.

USB flash drives, sized to carry on a keychain and 1/10th the cost of handhelds, are proliferating in pockets. Their gigabyte storage capacities and easy, high-bandwidth connectivity to any PC make them suited to deploying applications, which borrow the CPU and I/O resources of the host PC, and possibly other nearby PCs over a wireless LAN.

Despite huge gains in all aspects of digital technology in recent years, personal computing still falls short of its natural goals:

This is continuous computing. Its goals are similar to the research effort lead by the late Mark Weiser and company at Xerox PARC in the early 1990s, dubbed ubiquitous computing.

Achieving continuous computing requires a means to carry your apps & data with you at all times, and engage them via whatever devices are available. The flash drive application server delivers that; current systems do not. PC architecture binds apps to a single powerful unit, which is generally too bulky to carry continuously. The alternative of siting personal apps & data on the internet hasn't caught on because it requires costly managed hosting and a network vastly more accessible and reliable than the internet is today.