One part inexpensive uC, one part touch-screen, one part Internet knowledge-base all come together to make up this Wikipedia reader. It functions in a very similar way to commercial versions by parsing XML dumps from the popular website to an SD card for use on the device. This is not limited to Wikipedia, but could just as easily be an e-reader. [Rossum] developed the package using an NXP ARM Cortex M0 model LCP1114 microcontroller. They cost just a couple of bucks but pack a 50 MHz punch with 32 KB of program memory and 8 KB of SRAM. If the nanotouch and the AVR iPhone concept didn’t convince you that [Rossum] knows what he’s doing, the video after the break of this newest creation will seal the deal.

OpenMoko, the company behind the FreeRunner open-source phone, released their latest product today: WikiReader. It’s a small mobile device for browsing Wikipedia. Rather than use a wireless network to pull data off of the web, it has local copy of the database on a 8GB microSD card. This approach has been used before, and it lets the WikiReader be compact and really cheap. It uses a Kindle-esque touch-screen display that allows it to run on 3 AAA’s for about a year. The device itself costs just $99, but you can choose to receive updates by snail mail for just $29/year. Alternatively, you can just download the +4GB file and dump it on the card.

Like the FreeRunner, this project is also open-source. The code isn’t available yet, but they say it will be released soon. With luck, the device will be really easy to hack.

This project is particularly amusing. It doesn’t have a whole lot of practical use, but it makes up for it in style. They have an SD card with Wikipedia from 2003 downloaded to it. This is accessed with a Parallax propeller microcontroller based system and displayed on a small retro looking screen. We like it. We don’t think we would ever actually use it, but we would definitely keep it around.

Poor Man’s Checkuser exposes the IPs of quite a few user accounts. There is a wealth of data here which can be used as a base for your own tools. Potential Sockpuppetry is a good example of using this data; it shows what IPs are associated with multiple accounts and could be run by the same person. It takes data from the Poor Man’s Checkuser and arranges it by organization and IP range. Beaver Scope keeps an eye on edits coming out of all specific locations on MIT campus. The author used this list of MIT IPs to monitor MIT’s activity during the Caltech-MIT pranking season. It is able to pinpoint exactly which building an article is being edited from. The team hopes to see people develop new tools from the Poor Man’s Checkuser data.

In the new version, [Virgil]‘s team developed a Poor Man’s CheckUser. If you spend too much time editing a talk page, your session could end and when you hit save it attaches your IP. Most regular users will then log in and remove their IP. They found 13,000 username/IP address pairs by searching for IPs being removed and replaced with usernames. These are some of the most active users. Using this list, they could potentially uncover sockpuppets or potential collusion by top editors.

Another update to the Wikiscanner is based on the trademark database. In 2.0, companies are now associated with edits to their respective products. Link distance is also taken into account. So, pages that link to a corporation page are also tracked.

As part of a joke, [Virgil] compared a list of IP addresses that were specific to each MIT building. You can see exactly which building was editing the “tentacle rape” page. No, really, that’s a real example.

Finally, [Virgil] showed some wiki tools that others have built: a tool for building graphs from arbitrary data, a tool that shows the age of text for credibility, and another that does an overview of all page edits.

He begins by covering early 20th century “sterile” technology like tabulation machines that were rented by the census bureau. The machines didn’t encourage any sort of innovation. Next he talks about “generative” technology like the internet and modern OSes where anyone can build whatever they want. The final step is the more recent move to what he calls “tethered” technology. These are the systems with upgradeable firmware where devices can ship with unfinished features and remove features after the consumer has already purchased the device. He uses the iPhone as an example of this walled garden that could hurt innovation. Watch the video for his thoughts on this new world and how he thinks it could be fixed.