Aura
An ambient, OS-level layer that captures your life to memory you own, and prices the attention others spend to reach you — consent enforced at the system layer, not in the terms of service.
Local-first
Your life runs on your hardware
100 ms
P99 interaction loop target
E2E
Encrypted, keys you hold
Your OS works for the platforms.
The operating system in your pocket was built to serve the companies on the other side of the glass. Google, Meta and the rest monetize your presence by default and you never see a cut; your attention is harvested, your memory is rented back to you a subscription at a time, and consent is a checkbox you tap after the data has already moved. Nothing at the system layer is actually on your side.
The second problem is quieter. Everything you have ever posted, messaged, recorded or read is scattered across a dozen services that will not let it leave — so the one archive of your own life is the one place you cannot search, own, or take with you.
Both are architectural. Neither gets solved by one more privacy setting inside someone else's app — the thing that decides what reaches you has to be a delegate that answers to you, running below the apps, on your own hardware.
Two products, one layer.
01
Vault
An always-on, permission-based capture layer that pulls your life into an encrypted store you hold the keys to. It takes the files you already own — mail, docs, photos, voice, history — and your social history exported back out of the silos: every post and message from X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and the rest. On devices that allow it, capture extends to the ambient stream around you — what you see, what you hear, and the environmental and biometric context that marks when it mattered. Ask it anything, replay your own timeline with that context and receipts, and share encrypted slices with the people you choose. Ingest is opt-in per source; nothing leaves the device unless you send it.
02
Gate
Your delegate, running below the apps and brokering both directions. Inbound requests to reach you — people, brands, agents — route through programmable policies, and you set the price of your own attention: no consent, no access. Outbound runs on the same terms — you can sell curated access to your own streams, so the audience that used to be harvested for free now pays you for it. Every share is logged and auditable, so the record of who reached you, what you released, and on what terms, is one you can read.
A design, plainly labelled.
| Milestone | Status | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Consent policy engine | In progress | Reference implementation |
| Vault ingest & local index | In progress | Single-source prototype |
| End-to-end encryption & key custody | Design | Threat model drafted |
| Attention paygate & payouts | Next | — |
Figures on this page are targets and early measurements at proof-of-concept stage. The source is available for inspection; commercial rights are reserved for partners, investors and the spin-off companies each project seeds.
A layer people can hold in their hands.
The next twelve months turn the design into something a person can run: a consent engine enforcing real policies across live apps, Vault ingesting more than one source into a searchable local archive, and an encryption and key-custody model reviewed by people who did not write it.
Aura spins out of Research ByIQ as an independent company once the consent layer holds up in the open.