I think there is no way around it, I'll need to use BOOST for the socket library since its cross platform and seems to be the most reliable, which I suppose I don't have any problems with, its working right now for just about every implementation of bitcoin.

However, I still need to find a cross platform launcher which will load the browser up.  I'm thinking I can use a system console type command to attempt to launch the default browser to 127.0.0.1:31337 (or some port we decide on).  Then the software app will look for local html/css files to handle GUI & AJAX to update in realtime.

I'll see if I can put together a demo.

After I figure this out, I'm done on programming until more planning.  In particular, my focus will be a strategy to handle the fixed ledger, large transaction volume & the marketplace.