Wikipedia Goes Mobile

eldavojohn writes, "Webaroo has added Wikipedia to their services on mobile devices. There have also been open source efforts to deliver it to the iPod (also check out the wiki) or a PDA. I guess if I were still a bartender, this would be a necessity in solving bar disputes before they escalate to fisticuffs." Wikipedia requires 6 GB of free space, 10 GB recommended. And remember: Don't Panic.

Comments

No need for all that space

[Zouden]

Just connect to Wapedia with your phone/PDA.
Seriously, that's the only reason I ever use the internet on my phone.

Re:6 GB?

[EPAstor]

Sorry, but I actually know something about this... My job this summer revolved around this issue, and seeing how much of Wikipedia we could cram into about 10 MB. (Hint: OLPC is using a subset of Wikipedia as its primary out-of-the-box reference material.)

The images on Wikipedia as of this January are about 76 GB in size. Now, assume we can switch to low-quality JPEGs and cut the size down to 5% of its current - about the size you'd get from switching all the images to black-and-white, in fact. Making that jump is a big assumption, but even that only gets you down to about 4 GB.

Text-wise, the Wikipedia database containing all current article info (no discussion pages, no history, etc.) is 1.7 GB - compressed. It's significantly larger when uncompressed.

There - 6 GB total. And that's an achievement...

Wikipedian Pocket-Encyclopedia

[Pi_r_ed]

Why doesn't Wikipedia make their own mobile? It could be updated when connected to the computer, like an iPod, and I'm sure ads for it would replace any mentionings of donations...