Everything you need to know,
on a drive, when the internet is gone.
An AI assistant, all of Wikipedia, the best free medical and survival manuals, and a map of the whole world. On a portable SSD. Works on any Windows PC or Mac with no internet, nothing installed, and it learns from you.
Not on sale yet.
What it does
- Ask it anything. It looks the answer up in the books on the drive and quotes them, naming the book and the page. Medical answers are quoted word for word, never reworded.
- It remembers what you teach it. Type
wrong:and what actually worked. It's saved in a plain text file on the drive and used from then on. You can read or edit that file yourself. - Nothing to install, nothing online. Plug the drive in, click Start. It runs from the drive, on any Windows PC or Mac, with no internet and no account.
- Phones and tablets get the library. Copy the books to a phone over Wi-Fi or by plugging the drive in. Read them in the free Kiwix app. Maps on the phone through Organic Maps.
What's inside
General knowledge
- Wikipedia, English, complete, with pictures
- Wiktionary, a full dictionary
- Wikibooks, free textbooks
Medical
- Where There Is No Doctor
- Where There Is No Dentist
- Where Women Have No Doctor
- A Book for Midwives
- US Army First Aid, Field Hygiene
Survival
- US Army Survival Manual (two editions)
- FEMA Are You Ready
- Army field water supply manual
- USDA Guide to Home Canning
- Nuclear War Survival Skills
Repair and how-to
- iFixit repair guides, with photos
- wikiHow, tens of thousands of illustrated guides
Maps
- The whole world, street level, from OpenStreetMap
- Place search, and region cutting for smaller devices
The AI
- Two models: a fast one and a full one
- Runs on your computer, nothing leaves it
What you need
- A portable SSD, 512 GB or bigger. 1 TB is the comfortable choice. Any brand-name USB-C SSD. Cairn takes about 340 GB.
- A Windows PC (Windows 10 or newer) or a Mac (macOS 12 or newer) with 8 GB of memory or more. More memory and a graphics card make the AI faster.
- A few hours of internet, once. The installer downloads everything onto your drive. Cairn works within about 20 minutes; the encyclopedia and the world map keep downloading behind it.
How long the one-time download takes
| Your internet | Cairn usable | Everything on the drive |
|---|---|---|
| 25 Mbps (rural DSL) | 45 min | about 38 hours |
| 100 Mbps (typical cable) | 12 min | about 9.5 hours |
| 300 Mbps (good cable) | 4 min | about 3 hours |
| 1000 Mbps (fiber) | 1 min | about 1 hour |
You can stop and restart the installer any time; it carries on where it left off. Made one drive? Copy the folder to as many drives as you like, no download needed.
Questions
- Does it really work with no internet?
- Yes. After the one-time download, unplug the cable, turn off Wi-Fi, and everything works: the AI, the books, Wikipedia, the maps.
- Is my data private?
- Completely. The AI runs on your own computer. Nothing you ask or write leaves the drive.
- Can I run it on my phone?
- The AI needs a real computer. Phones and tablets get the library: the books and Wikipedia through the free Kiwix app, and maps through Organic Maps. Cairn's Phone tab walks you through it.
- Does it install anything on the computer?
- No. Everything lives in one folder on the drive. Delete the folder and it's gone.
- Can I add my own books?
- Yes. Drop PDF or text files into the library folder. Cairn indexes them next time it starts and quotes them like the others.
- What about updates?
- Run the installer again on the same drive. It fetches only what's new.