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Startup Webaroo to put the 'Web on a Hard Drive'?
An anonymous reader writes "A new startup called Webaroo is launching Monday with an audacious proposition: You can search the Web without a net connection of any kind. Initial release consists of 'Web packs' on specific topics such as news, city guides or Wikipedia. Later this year they're promising a full-Web version that you can carry on a laptop -- provided you're willing to devote something in the neighborhood of 80 gig."
I'm sold. Does anyone have the .torrent for it?
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beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
A new startup called Webaroo is launching Monday with an audacious proposition: You can search the Web without a net connection of any kind.
If anyone doubted the next dotcom boom is upon us, this should put that doubt to rest.
After reading the article, it sounds like they are just selling their web cache, nice idea but really unless they are selling really cheap I just can't see it picking up, especially considering the difficulties of getting the data to your drive, I mean an 80G download!
Additionally what if I decide to follow site links that leave the cache?
Yeah I can't really see this picking up.
GeekServ Unix Consulting Services (http://www.geekserv.com)
when someone asked if the internet will fit on a floppy?
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
How soon till the first lawsuit is filed.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Is this really the right to to try this? when wi-fi connections are popping up all over the place and the internet's bigger than it ever has been before?
Wouldn't there be an issue here of selling another person's content? While everyone can view the content at will, copying that information to media and then reselling it, or even distributing it for free, would be an issue.
For example, where do we get the porn diffs?
Did you know my dad's dog died?
Been around since the early 90's. Back then it was called "fan fiction."
e.g. searching? Having Wikipedia on your hdd is all well and good, but if you can't easily search it, what's the point?
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
They should be selling their compression technology!
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
That would cover about 0.0000000001% of the web, give or take a few dozen orders of magitude.
Concealed Handgun License Courses in Plano, Texas
"The Internet Archive Wayback Machine contains approximately 1 petabyte of data and is currently growing at a rate of 20 terabytes per month. This eclipses the amount of text contained in the world's largest libraries, including the Library of Congress. If you tried to place the entire contents of the archive onto floppy disks (we don't recommend this!) and laid them end to end, it would stretch from New York, past Los Angeles, and halfway to Hawaii."
Internet Archive Frequently Asked Questions
I've got news for Husick. I'm a lawyer who have sets of Statutes, Court Rules and Local Rules behind his desk. I still look them up online to make sure I have the most recent version. I can't afford not to.
Search performance? Rarely, if ever a problem.
Siphon traffic away from "increasingly crowded broadband networks?" They make money from that traffic. They can't, if necessary, charge per data download? Tier the service by download bandwidth? Charge more? Build a better network?
The first cell phone or wireless device that expects me pre-download some portion of the net, that portion being determined by somebody else, is the first one I can cross off my list.
Save $5 or %10 at the airport by not connecting? What if I want to send or receive e-mail? Get the latest news, business or stock information? I'm AT AN AIRPORT, which implies I have some money, and in his context that I'm on business. I'm going to foregoe a net connection for $5 or $10? If my employer is that tight, I'm looking for another job anyway -- one that doesn't use Webaroos' services.
This reminds me of software solutions to cramped hard drive spaces awhile back. On the fly file compression and expansion when data size was outstriping hard drive size for a short period of time. (Remember the file corruption.) Even though there was a market for those products, barely, everyone and his brother knew that market was going to go away Real Soon Now.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
Only if one of the webpacks is porn. Or better yet, if several are porn, cross referenced by type and participants.
Though, my vaguely disturbing ramblings do raise an interesting point, maybe - what's their stance on the indecent materials that make up a good deal of teh webernet? When they say the "whole internet," do they MEAN goatse too?
Would the downloadable content include porn?
Er, I'm asking this in order to, er, protect my girlfriend's sensibilities. Can't have her unwittingly downloading such naughty stuff you know. =)
When your argument is based exclusively on your opinions and personal experience, global absolutes like "this idea is bad" come off as arrogance. Phrases like "this is useless to me" are more accurate.
From the website "Webaroo is a stealth-mode technology startup" which obviously means something very clever ... personally I use WinHTTrack on a small number of sites, now if someone offered pre-downloaded WinHTTrack sites ...maybe to order ... ... "What do Daleks have for a snack? ...
Anyway, more importantly - Dr Who is due back on UK TV soon I think (slightly disappointing end to last series - shame to to see Chris E leave) so here's a joke that Webaroo might like to to 'cache'
Dalek bread..." geddit? (thanks to a kids radio show for that one).
I've heard that a technology for seeing news offline already exists. It's very cheap, disposable (so don't worry if you leave it on the train) and can even keep you dry for a short period of time if it starts to rain. What's more - it's made from trees! How clever is that!!!
This actually isn't by any means a new idea.
If you've ever written or read html, you know that html doesn't care if links start file:// or if they start html://. HTML has always been quite neutral on whether it was linking to a local file system or getting something over the internet. Of course, most people don't use html extensively for local content. So in theory, this isn't a new idea at all.
In practice, I don't see a lot of points for it. I can imagine that some people might want a map of a new city, with clickable pictures and informations about various services there. Most features of a city map are going to stay the same for at least six months, so this is the type of thing that could be done staticly. But even with this, internet access is so widespread, that it seems like a solution for a minor problem. Also, if you want a handy city guide, it would make more sense to me to write it from scratch rather than use a cludge of cached web pages.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Technically, they make a copy and the ISP doesn't.
Isn't the ephemeral copy in the RAM of a router still a copy? And don't operators of automated caches have a fairly broad exemption under United States copyright law, 17 USC 512(b)?
How are they to justify selling other peoples' websites? What about the sites' lost ad revenues?
But not in the way they think. TFA mentions two points, but doesn't explore them in depth. The first is their algorithms they use; let's face it, Google is starting to fall to the SEOs. If they have a new algorithm that was able to actually follow your web browsing all the way, they'd be able to provide much better results. Google claims to do this, but they can't follow you more than your first link. Second, they seem to pick up that most people find their entire information on the second or think link they visit.
Combine these together, and the program could offer you 80 gigs of data to just sit on your computer and be sifted through at yuor leisure. It would be able to follow you through, and find exactly how you get through your data. When it needs to, it can spider into areas that it might think you'd want to go (Been looking at a lok of Wikipedia? Next time you connect, it goes an picks up some wikibooks).
The best part, is that all the "Big Brother" information is being stored on YOUR computer, not their servers. You want that info, Bush? You'll have to supoena every user.
If they tergeted this more towards a desktop-search type thing with better search algos than Google, this could just work.
Archives are good and this can be a useful service. Providing 80 select gigs on a hard drive to libraries and schools is a useful until US networks get where they should be. Their software can keep those 80 GB up to snuff at night. When you leave the cache, you ... gasp ... get the new content. In the mean time, things are much faster when it matters. Mirrored content will always be a good idea. Look at the debian distribution system, for example.
Good luck to the people at Webaroo. So long as they don't apply for stupid patents that give them an exclusive franchise to distribution systems, they are AOK.
The road warrior thing will flop, though. People are going to stay where there's a network or pay the $10. It's the one piece of live information that requires the hook up. The speed of the rest is gravy for those people.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Even if this is doable and legal, it runs entirely counter to the spirit of the Internet. The Internet on a hard disk is no longer a network, it becomes a passive entity with no possibility of interaction.
At the moment, we are seeing a return to the interactive origins of the Internet, prime examples being blogging, Wikipedia, and even Slashdot! If this projects takes off it will be harmful to interaction and will turn the Net into a glorified television.
However, I find it unlikely that Webaroo will gain currency, precisely because we have become dependent on an interactive and living Internet. When I use the Net, I want to be able to read and respond to my emails, to check my bank balance, shop online, and read the latest news. Why on earth would I want to have a static Internet on my laptop?
Phoenix, Boston, Little Rock, see a pattern?
wget (while they're waiting in the airport).
All's true that is mistrusted
Five? You must live in the sticks. 162 Starbucks within five miles of me right now, according to the store locator... not that there aren't other places I'd rather be.
Cripple fight!
Frankly, I could see a market for this *maybe* 10-12 years ago. It just doesn't make any sense now. The internet is not solely about static content. Also, the thimble of data provided in each pack will be underwhelming and perpetually out of date.
I mean, if I know I won't be online for a week, what stops me from just CURLing or WGETing whatever I plan on reading for the next couple of weeks? And that goes only for static content like books and articles. Everything else is cannot be simply cached.
For shorter flights within the UK and Europe, it's safe to say I can cope without internet access for two hours.
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