WikiReader was a project to deliver an

offline In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity, and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed as "on li ...

, text-only version of

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

on a

mobile device A mobile device or handheld device is a computer small enough to hold and operate in hand. Mobile devices are typically battery-powered and possess a flat-panel display and one or more built-in input devices, such as a touchscreen or keypad. ...

. The project was sponsored by

Openmoko Openmoko is a discontinued project to create a family of mobile phones that are open source, including the hardware specification, the operating system (Openmoko Linux), and actual smartphone development implementation like the Neo 1973 and Neo ...

and made by Pandigital, and its source code has been released. The project debuted an offline portable reader for Wikipedia in October 2009. Updates in multiple languages were available online and a twice-yearly offline update service delivered via Micro SD card was also available at a cost of $29 per year. WikiReader versions of the English

Wikiquote is part of a family of wiki-based projects run by the Wikimedia Foundation using MediaWiki software. The project's objective is to collaboratively produce a vast reference of quotations from prominent people, books, films, proverbs, etc. and ...

Wiktionary Wiktionary (, ; , ; rhyming with "dictionary") is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary of terms (including words, phrases, proverbs, linguistic reconstructions, etc.) in all natural languages and in a number o ...

and

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital li ...

can be installed together on a user-supplied 16 GB Micro SDHC

memory card A memory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in digital portable electronic devices, such as digital cameras as well as in many early games conso ...

. Unlike Wikipedia itself, the device features parental controls. The device can also run programs written in the Forth programming language; a simple

calculator An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics. The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-si ...

program is included.

Specifications

* Display: Monochrome

Liquid Crystal Display A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other Electro-optic modulator, electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers to display information. Liq ...

(LCD), 240 × 208 pixels. * Interface: Capacitive

touchscreen A touchscreen (or touch screen) is a type of electronic visual display, display that can detect touch input from a user. It consists of both an input device (a touch panel) and an output device (a visual display). The touch panel is typically l ...

with on-screen keyboard. Four hardware keys. * CPU:

Epson Seiko Epson Corporation, commonly known as Epson, is a Japanese multinational electronics company and one of the world's largest manufacturers of printers and information- and imaging-related equipment. Headquartered in Suwa, Nagano, Japan, t ...

S1C33 E07

microcontroller A microcontroller (MC, uC, or μC) or microcontroller unit (MCU) is a small computer on a single integrated circuit. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and programmable input/output peripherals. Pro ...

with 8 KB + 2 KB internal memory * Firmware: 64 KB

Flash memory Flash memory is an Integrated circuit, electronic Non-volatile memory, non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for t ...

* Memory: 32 MB SDRAM * Storage: Removable

microSD Secure Digital (SD) is a proprietary hardware, proprietary, non-volatile memory, non-volatile, flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA). Owing to their compact size, SD cards have been widely adopted in a variety of port ...

card (SD and SDHC supported; 512 MB, 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB supported) * File formats supported: native format; a converter from

MediaWiki MediaWiki is free and open-source wiki software originally developed by Magnus Manske for use on Wikipedia on January 25, 2002, and further improved by Lee Daniel Crocker,mailarchive:wikipedia-l/2001-August/000382.html, Magnus Manske's announc ...

's XML export format is available. * Dimensions: 100 × 100 × 20 mm (3.9 × 3.9 × 0.8 inches) * Weight: * Languages: English * Warranty: 90 days * Power: Two AAA batteries * Battery life: 90 hours; equivalent to 1 year of normal use according to manufacturer

Limitations

* Text-only display: The WikiReader is strictly a "text only" display device. The device therefore does not store or display any Wikipedia images. * Tables: The WikiReader does not display article text which appears inside a table on Wikipedia. * HTML "special characters": Certain Wikipedia article text encoded using HTML special characters is stripped from the WikiReader's output. * Mathematical formulas: Original versions of the WikiReader do not display Wikipedia article information encoded as a formula using

LaTeX Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latices are found in nature, but synthetic latices are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a wikt:milky, milky fluid, which is present in 10% of all floweri ...

markup. This has been addressed with an optional firmware update, which is pre-loaded on newer WikiReaders. * Treatment of missing information: The WikiReader does not provide indications of sections where information has been removed from a Wikipedia article. Images, tables, mathematical formulas and other information that was not encoded as plain text in the original Wikipedia article is deleted from the WikiReader's output. * Search: The WikiReader's search capabilities are basic. There is no

full text search In text retrieval, full-text search refers to techniques for searching a single computer-stored document or a collection in a full-text database. Full-text search is distinguished from searches based on metadata or on parts of the original texts ...

capability. Only the titles of Wikipedia articles can be searched. The WikiReader does support incremental search of article titles, beginning with the first characters of each title. Search terms must be spelled correctly. Wildcard searching is not supported.

Discontinuation

In late 2014, the WikiReader website and project itself were abandoned, following Pandigital going out of business. Since then, other projects have taken up the idea, with varying degrees of success, of presenting Wikipedia content in an easier-to-access interface.

References

External links

WikiReader source code

Offline Wikipedia Reader
at Openmoko * by Techmoan {{Wikipedia, state=collapsed Open hardware electronic devices Openmoko Dedicated application electronic devices Wikipedia Computer-related introductions in 2009

Specifications

Limitations

Discontinuation

See also

References

External links