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Campaign Raises Funds To Send Wikipedia Readers To Kids Without Internet

Posted by timothy on from the billions-of-words dept.

Eloquence writes "Remember the WikiReader? It was pitched as a device that would contain the text of the entire English Wikipedia, and run on two AAA batteries for months. Unfortunately it was sold to the wrong audience: people who already have smartphones, tablets and laptops. At a cost of $20 per device, Aislinn Dewey and Victor Grigas (who works for Wikimedia) are trying to raise funds to buy up the company's inventory and ship WikiReaders to kids in places without Internet connectivity."

3 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Re:.. and why .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Source code is available here:
    https://github.com/wikireader

  2. This does work by cphilo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There has already been experiments that show that this is a good idea. Children given access to computers/knowledge WILL learn and exceed expectations. http://www.npr.org/2013/05/03/179828483/can-schools-exist-in-the-cloud

  3. Re:WARING: GOATSE LINK by KGIII · · Score: 4, Interesting

    LOL Now that was clever. Anyhow, thanks OP for the post. I think I'm going to grab one to play with. I'd have to donate $250 to get one through the link in the summary. Actually, I'm going to get two of them at that price.

    It makes me wonder if maybe these folks are scamming?

    They say, in the video, that they contacted the manufacturer and that they would be able to get them in bulk for $25 with a "maybe less" caveat.

    The company, themselves it appears, sell that same device for $10 on Amazon and that is buying them one at a time, not in bulk. It would likely be less than $10 if they were buying them in bulk.

    So why are the prices so different? It makes me wonder if they're scamming. It would be unfortunate if they were.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."