Current AJAX applications tend to lose user data when the browser is disconnected from the server. Unfortunately, mobile people get disconnected all the time. Panic-mode is an extension to the Prototype framework that allows AJAX applications to continue in disconnected mode and to re-synchronize once connected again. With panic-mode, data that would have been sent in server requests is stored in the browser until another request has been successfully made.

The talk goes into some detail on the types of applications that can benefit from panic-mode (and the types where the panic-mode model falls down), as well as the browser limitations that have to be worked with. panic-mode is demonstrated using a slideshow editor as the example application.