Campaign Raises Funds To Send Wikipedia Readers To Kids Without Internet 97
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."
I use my wikireader regularly (Score:4, Interesting)
When I just need some text from wikipedia, I pick up the wikireader and stab at it and lo, I get it very quickly. I also have wiktionary installed so it does that as well. And I own a mobile phone with wifi and multitouch, so I could use full wikipedia. I can get results from my wikireader while I'm still waiting for the browser to load, in little more time than it takes to wake my phone up and unlock it. It's far and away faster than waking up a netbook and doing the same thing, since the ones I'm using now lack SSD...
Re:WARING: GOATSE LINK (Score:5, 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.