Wikipedia is arguably the world’s greatest encyclopedia. Its most famous attribute — that anyone can go in at any time and add or change an entry — has worked in its favor, making it extensive and exhaustive. A company called Openmoko believes that Wikimedia is so useful, there could be a need for an inexpensive device dedicated solely to reading Wikimedia’s 3 million+ topics.

It’s called the WikiReader, and it’s small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. It has just three buttons (search, history, and random), but features a touchscreen with a virtual keyboard for searching through entries. …read more

When the blessed Steve Jobs descends from on high to impart his world-changing Apple touchpad computing device upon us mere mortals, we all know it’s going to be revolutionary. But we didn’t know how revolutionary until now.

Gizmodo is reporting insider information that the iPad will do a lot more than surf the web and run iPhone apps. Apple is looking to take on Amazon’s Kindle, too — and redefine what an ebook is. A big push of the iPad will be into the arena of college textbooks, where Apple believes it can present a more appealing opportunity to textbook publishers …read more

Now this is interesting.
Microsoft is often caught in the unenviable position of playing catch-up to the sexier electronics releases of companies like Apple and Sony. But the company’s been making recent strides into overcoming that old stereotype. The Zune HD, which has been getting rave reviews. The long-awaited Surface multimedia table, which is mind-boggling in its capabilities. And the just-leaked Courier “booklet” (aka, 2-screened tablet), which packs a serious wow factor.
A new patent (see image below) has turned up online that could likewise find Microsoft suddenly in the driver’s seat on a leading new innovation. The patent depicts an insanely …read more

While the world continues to wait for Apple to announce its inevitable tablet device, its competitors keep jumping into the marketplace with Internet/media touchscreen tablets of their own. Archos is the latest to up the ante, with its new Archos 5 Internet Tablet, which runs on Google’s mobile operating system, Android.

The Archos 5 comes with a full list of features — WiFi, 3G bluetooth, built-in GPS, a multitude of media formats codecs — but the real story is Android. Because the device’s use of Google’s OS means that the Archos 5 will eventually have access to Android apps. The device …read more