When you think of Wikipedia, you most likely imagine being on your desktop or laptop and typing in your search terms. This is all going to change in a very Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy sort of way. Here is the new Wiki E-Reader. It is small, portable and a sexy piece of equipment, being both an e-reader and an electronic book.
According to Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide is "A sort of electronic book, it tells you everything you need to know about anything. That's its job." The Hitchhiker's Guide is supposedly compiled by a large group of roving reporters that continually add new information. Thinking about Wikipedia's use of crowd sourcing and open editing it is easy to make a comparison to that famous, fictional book. Wikipedia is the first completely user created knowledge repository, it is always changing and allows virtually anyone to add information.
The Wiki E-Reader was created by OpenMoko in partnership with Wikipedia, and is available with a starting retail price of $99. Wiki creators describe the device as "palm-sized electronic encyclopedia containing the more than three million English language articles of Wikipedia". And the content isn't static as it offers free download codes to update the content on a regular basis, keeping the information current and never going out of date. This device certainly makes the old collection of World Book Encyclopedias that I grew up with look like dinosaurs.
The folks at OpenMoko have designed the E-Reader to have a sleek look with easy to use controls. Looking at the device, it is easy to draw references to the Hitchhiker's Guide. Douglas Adams describes the Guide as "hundred tiny flat press buttons and a screen about four inches square." The E-Reader's screen is roughly the same size but has only three buttons, Search, History and Random. All of the other controls are done via touchscreen process.
The Wiki E-Reader is being sold through Amazon's online store and is proving to not be much competition to Amazon's Kindle. The Kindle is an e-reader that also allows users to access Wikipedia using Amazon's Whispernet 3G service. Given the low cost of the Wiki E-Reader, it is an excellent device to have and a wonderful gift for students. I just want one so that I can engrave “Don't Panic” on the back.
By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a freelance writer and regular contributor to several websites and other publications, a volunteer, a full time mom and an active job seeker.
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