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Wikipedia In Your Pocket, $99

Posted by kdawson on from the or-are-you-just-glad-to-see-me dept.

An anonymous reader notes the announcement by Sean Moss-Pultz (Openmoko, Inc.) of a new geek device: The $99 WikiReader. All of Wikipedia in your pocket with no Internet connection required. Works in bright sunlight. 3-button interface. You can update the information in the WikiReader either by mail (they ship a microSD card) or by downloading a 4+ GB file.

3 of 412 comments (clear)

  1. Which Search Software Does This Employ? by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Love the idea but I'm a little cautious of Wikipedia's search engine. Not sure if they're rendering the php the same way and using MediaWiki's built in search engine but I have problems with that if they are. For instance if I search for hottest pepper the answer is the seventh result. On Google, it's the second result but also found in the first (being on the page for Scoville scale on Wikipedia).

    The time this would be really useful to me is when I get into arguments at bars or restaurants with friends. I'm a bit concerned about how well the search part of this device will work for that, I'd probably need to rethink a lot of my searches to start at an obvious Wikipedia page and then lead me to my answer.

    Probably wonderful for just reading through Wikipedia on a bus or plane though, too bad it doesn't seem to have the images, videos or audio.

    --
    My work here is dung.
  2. a 4G+ file? by loftwyr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Have these people never heard of a diff? How about just letting me download the changes! The Wiki can tell them what they are.

    That's worse than useless if I have to redownload all of wikipedia to keep it up to date.

    Luckily I have a smart phone with internet access.

  3. It's a postapocalyptic civilization rebuilder! by 7Ghent · · Score: 4, Interesting

    1) Huge compendium of human knowledge.
    2) Runs off of commonly available, easily stockpiled batteries
    3) Runs for a whole year off of one set of batteries (swap Lithium for alkaline, it should run for a decade)
    4) Sunlight-readable
    5) Compact, sturdy and durable

    Hell, at those kind of power usage levels, you could hack a small solar cell into it and it should work anywhere you've got sunlight. Imagine a complete breakdown of civilization as we know it. Books are heavy and inconvenient and make good kindling. Without electricity, compact digital forms of information retrieval become impossible. What do we use to rebuild civilization after a couple generations of this send us back to the dark ages? This thing! It's PERFECT.