This week's unveiling by
Openmoko of the
WikiReader, a single function handheld device containing content from Wikipedia, has garnered "oohhs" and "ahhhs" from a blogosphere typically moved to this extent only by Apple's latest designgasm or a video from TED. In a way, Wikireader somehow manages to tap both of these veins by doing very little, but perhaps doing it elegantly (the jury's still out). Taking the ubiquitous design cue from Cupertino (it's simple, sleek and touch-sensitive) and giving a nod to the open source community with its choice of crowd-fed Wikipedia, the $99 brick looks interesting enough, and cheap enough, to take a chance on.
This also happened to be a week when I am writing—slowly—on a post for
Changeism on the merits of aiming slightly lower than Internet-enabled laptops to boost students in development markets, perhaps with a refitted e-reader. Then comes this little gadget, even smaller and simpler than an e-reader, and one that could literally put a dynamic encyclopedia in the rucksacks of thousands of children. Even a handful per classroom might be interesting. Battery-powered with a low-consumption processor, and not needing to be connected to a network more than a couple of times per year for updates, this level of simplicity, resilience and information rolled into one.
It's just a thought, but one that follows along the lines of
my previous post: is complexity necessary, and are their simpler tools that might solve smaller problems that are more attainable now?
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