I wonder what the chances are of using one of these and coming across a wiki page that has been defaced and / or is somehow incorrect. With the online version you have the benefit of time tempering validity of most articles. With something like this, aren't you at the mercy of whenever the snapshot was taken?
Yeah, I did some back of the envelope calculations on this yesterday - approximately 4 million edits to Wikipedia a month, 4% of which end up being vandalism of some sort.
That ends up being approximately 160,000 instances of vandalism a month if you don't mind my hand-wavey oversimplification.
The median time to revert a vandalized article is 14 minutes.
I guess the question is "how many vandalized articles are in an average snapshot?" instead of "are there any vandalized articles?".
Forget daily charging, two standard AAA batteries (included)
will power WikiReader for about 12 months of normal usage.
Or put in those unused rechargeable batteries lying around
in the house. Those will work, too.
Sure, you can get an iPod touch or some smart device du jour, but that defeats the point. I'm sure reading text on that crisp b&w screen is far easier and with less distractions than on an iPod. But this is something you can throw in your bag just to have, or give to your niece or nephew or create a homebrew community around. Maybe its the nostalgia talking, but I have a fondness of these 'one use' devices that have just as much computing power as you need, don't need a wireless connection and don't need an power umbilical chord nightly.
If I didn't have a Kindle, I'd consider playing with one.
Don't want to come off too strong, as this device would have been awesome just a few years ago...but with how common smartphones are becoming, the market for people (without smartphones) willing to spend $99 on an electronic wikipedia device seems like it would be quite small.
I read the title and immediately thought that this is an outrageous price for something that my phone can do for a few dollars a month (cheap data plans in India), and then I saw the form factor, and the amazing battery life.
The question is: can it display the equations that Mobile Wikipedia + my phone have trouble doing?
Make it or break it for me might be images and math equations. Good idea though -- I actually thought of tying something like this to your GPS for roadtrips, and have it pop up the relevant Wikipedia article for the closest town/landmark, expandable to big cities/states/etc.
Anyone have an idea as to how hackable this thing is? A friend of mine and I are looking for a good platform upon which to build a programmable and pocket-sized RPN calculator.
Sure, you could pick up an iPod Touch for $199 but that's twice as much, has worse battery life, looks like it'd be far more fragile, and no way to prevent kids for accessing the more adult Wikipedia areas.
This looks like a great device you could give to your 9+ kids to help with homework.
The thing is that you need a data plan for an iPhone to work. This doesn't require anything. (I assume they have something similar to the Kindle)
edit: nevermind. The store page shows this:
"Annual Update Subscription $29 for two updates per year
Receive content updates for your WikiReader delivered to your door."
It seems to say that the content is loaded once and for all? Surprising… so, it doesn't require a subscription but the content is not live.
I agree the Wikipedia device is priced way too high, but you cannot buy an iPhone for $99, or even $199. The money you give Apple is just a down payment.
