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I read books, but do not carry my laptop everywhere. This makes it hard to

  1. find definitions of words
  2. refer new concepts in Wikipedia/encyclopedia

For (1), I can probably buy an electronic dictionary. But what can be done for (2)?

I prefer not to buy an iPhone or any other mobile phone for this. Is there an 'electronic Wikipedia'?

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A bit off topic, but I actually turned off the iPhone version on my iPod Touch, it took away too much. – Macha Oct 17 '09 at 13:00
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7 Answers

up vote 11 down vote accepted

Yes, exactly that exists.

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Encyclopedia on a 5cm screen - ooh, the joy ! ;) – ldigas Oct 17 '09 at 12:50
Heh. I wasn't recommending it... just pointing out that exactly what the OP was asking for exists. :) I do hope Openmoko have more success with this project than they did with the FreeRunner. – retracile Oct 17 '09 at 16:09
Thanks! WikiReader is from the openmoko team! I should check this out when I return to Canada. – Sridhar Ratnakumar Oct 19 '09 at 12:44
I also wonder if it includes an usable dictionary. – Sridhar Ratnakumar Oct 19 '09 at 12:52
The thing I didn't like about this was that it's a 'static' representation of whatever Openmoko chose to upload to the device when they built it. You can pay for annual updates for $29, but that seems like more trouble than it's worth when I already have a cell phone. – DaveParillo Oct 19 '09 at 16:00
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up vote 9 down vote

From any SMS enabled cell phone, you can send a text message to 'google' (466 453) In the body of the message, put whatever you'd put in the search bar.

define Lexicographically

returns a concise definition.

convert 74 feet to m

returns 74 feet = 22.5552 meters. You can make more openended requests, but it may split into multiple messages, but in general gives good results for simple fact based requests.

wiki concept

returns this to my cell phone:

Concept - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A concept is a cognitive unit of meaning— an abstract idea or a mental symbol sometimes defined as a "unit of knowledge," built from other units which act ...

It split this response into 2 messages on my phone.

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+1 - one of those great tips that seems so useful but that I always forget when I'm away from a computer. – Chris_K Oct 17 '09 at 4:06
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up vote 4 down vote

Amazon's Kindle has a web browser and 3G wireless. It's only a matter of time before a Wikipedia dump is available as a hack-on.

Admittedly, the Kindle models are a bit expensive to use solely as an "electronic Wikipedia", but if you already have one or are thinking of getting one anyway, it might be a good option.

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I thought about the Kindle and the Sony thing last time I was in the US. I wish I had thought about the iPod Touch so I wouldn't have to buy one in expensive and tax-laden euros. – Yar Oct 17 '09 at 14:36
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up vote 0 down vote

If you already have a non-smart mobile phone, you could give Opera Mini a try. It's a very good browser for dumb phones. It's obviously not as good as mobile safari, but it handles wikipedia fine.

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up vote 0 down vote

I had been asking myself this and other, related questions -- like how can I read PDFs offline -- since I sold my iPaq (Windows Mobile). The answer is, buy an iPod Touch (less than $200 in the US, less than 200 euros in the rest of the world). This app will work for ya for the Wikipedia:

http://collison.ie/wikipedia-iphone/index-new

and also, you can check out Good Reader for PDF reading.

Plus, you have access to all iPhone apps and that... I also thought "who cares" but it turns out that there is some amazing stuff being done for the iphone.

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up vote 0 down vote

There are HTML dumps of Wikipedia available (see Wikipedia:Database download for details). Just put the dump onto any smartphone / ebook-reader / PDA / favourite computer gizmo. Just about any device can read HTML files.

I do this myself (though not for the whole of Wikipedia). If you want to get fancy, you could try finding some kind of Wikipedia app with searching (the page above lists some), but you might be fine just browsing the article files.

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up vote -1 down vote

You could consider a tool like wget (freely available Windows and Linux (and other OS versions) can be found online) to download wikipedia (I would expect it to be a LARGE download - I've never tried it).

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Expressly prohibited and even sounds like a bad idea: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download – Yar Oct 17 '09 at 14:33
yar's link mostly says "if you want an SQL dump, get it here". you could certainly use wget to grab the download. but PLEASE don't attempt to create your own mirror using wget. – quack quixote Oct 17 '09 at 16:54
@Yar - The link you provided does not "Expressly prohibit" the use of wget - indeed, to quote: "... try using wget version 1.10 or greater ..." under "Dealing with Large files". wget is not mentioned anywhere else on the page. @quack - WHY? WHY should you not use wget to do this. – Multiverse IT Oct 17 '09 at 20:00
@Multiverse IT: why? mainly out of kindness to wikipedia's servers. they offer an alternative means of mirroring the site, and politely request no web-sucking (such as what happens when you use wget to mirror a site). – quack quixote Oct 19 '09 at 13:35
@quack - I don't consider that a valid reason when their own web page suggests using wget (see my earlier quote). Wikipedia is, as I'm sure you're aware, a hugely popular site. If you're suggesting their servers cannot handle the occasional wget. Further, one could use the "--limit-rate=" option to limit the speed at which things are downloaded and further minimize the impact. I'm not suggesting this is the best option in light of the link originally posted as a response to my comment by Yar, but it is an option. Frankly, that link should have been an answer in itself. – Multiverse IT Oct 19 '09 at 15:34
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