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The Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print
It was probably inevitable, but on Tuesday, it became official: the Encyclopaedia Britannica is finally going out of print. The news was confirmed yesterday by Jorge Cauz, president of Chicago-based Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., who told the New York Times that his company has decided to completely abandon print operations, in favor of its online platform. The announcement marks the end of a remarkable 244-year run for Britannica and its leather-bound tomes, which at one point stood as a hallmark of middle class living rooms and libraries. In fact, it's been barely two decades since the company reached its high water mark, when it sold some 120,000 sets back in 1990. Once the internet came into full bloom, however, Britannica's sales soon plummeted. In 2010, the publisher sold just 8,000 sets, leaving an additional 4,000 unsold copies to gather dust in a warehouse.Tuesday's announcement may mark the end of an era, but Cauz seems to have come to terms with Britannica's decision, calling it a "rite of passage." He's also eager to devote more time to his company's website, which will look to chip away at Wikipedia's market hegemony. Cauz, however, believes the two platforms can (and must) co-exist, because they fill two different roles. "We cannot deal with every single cartoon character, we cannot deal with every love life of every celebrity," he explained. "But we need to have an alternative where facts really matter. Britannica won't be able to be as large, but it will always be factually correct."
Google's 'continuous gesture' patent application runs circles around copy and paste
You know the drill, you're browsing an article about volcanos on your phone and want to know more about Eyjafjallajokull. You've got two options, commit that bad-boy to memory, or fiddle with copy and paste. Well, Google not only feels your pain, but has some medicine for it too -- if a patent filing is anything to go by. The application describes a two-part continuous gesture for easier searching on touchscreens. Imagine drawing a "g" with your finger, then circling the text or image you want to search in one motion, and you'll get the basic drift. It's also indicated that different letters could be drawn to search different sites, "w" for Wikipedia, "y" for Yahoo and so on. The patent also includes methods to search for multiple words from the same text, or even words and images. Certainly it's not too much of a stretch to imagine this becoming a standard part of Android, but, as always, we don't know for sure. That said, chances are we'll still be typing out our Icelandic friend's name by the time we do find out.
Orange offers free Wikipedia access to mobile users in Africa and the Middle East
There are more than 70 million Orange customers across Africa and the Middle East, but only about 10 million are able to access the web from their handsets. That gap may be narrowing, though, now that the provider has decided to offer free mobile access to Wikipedia for users throughout the region. Under the program, users with an Orange SIM card and a web-enabled phone will be able to access the site as many times as they want, without incurring any data charges. Heralding the partnership as the first of its kind, Orange says its new initiative should make it easier for emerging market consumers to access the online encyclopedia, which Wikimedia Foundation director Sue Gardner described as a "public good." The offer is slated to roll out across 20 countries in Africa and the Middle East, beginning early this year. Find more details in the press release, after the break.
Google, Wikipedia and others protest SOPA / PIPA
At this point, SOPA needs no introduction. But if you've been diligently ignoring it up until this point, good luck getting through January 18th as an uninformed citizen. Google, Wikipedia and a host of other websites are either going dark or making huge, unmistakable statements on their homepages in protest. Google's tagline? "End Piracy, Not Liberty." Pretty much says it all, really. If you've spotted another site rebelling today, shout it out in comments below -- and while you're in the shouting mood, give your local officials a holler and let 'em know just how much you disapprove.P.S. - An amazing breakdown of this whole thing can be found here at reddit.
Go Daddy pulls support for SOPA amidst backlash, too late to satisfy Wikipedia
It looks like the prospect of widespread boycott was more than Go Daddy was willing to face as a result of its support for the Stop Online Piracy Act -- the domain name registrar announced today that it has officially withdrawn its support for the controversial bill. In a statement, the company said that "fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation - but we can clearly do better," adding that it will support new legislation "when and if the Internet community supports it." That move proved to be too late for a number of prominent Go Daddy customers, however, including Wikipedia, which coincidentally announced today that it will be moving all of its domain names away from Go Daddy due to its stance on SOPA. Go Daddy's full announcement is after the break.
Wiretapping Act could spell 'finito' for Italian Wikipedia
This week, lawmakers in Italy are debating a controversial new bill that could have disastrous implications for Wikipedia. Yesterday, the encyclopedia posted a lengthy letter on its Italian portal, informing visitors that the site may be shuttered within the country if parliament passes the proposed DDL Intercettazioni, or "Wiretapping Law." If ratified, the legislation would require all online publishers to amend any content considered objectionable or defamatory within 48 hours of receiving a complaint. Offenders would face a fine of €12,000 (about $16,000), and any requested corrections would not be subject to review. Of course, this presents obvious problems for the crowdsourced (and crowd-edited) Wikipedia, which characterized the law as "an unacceptable restriction of [its] freedom and independence." The site took particular umbrage at the bill's apparent disregard for third-party review, pointing out that the "opinion of the person allegedly injured is all that is required" to force a re-write, "regardless of the truthfulness of the information deemed as offensive, and its sources." At the moment, the portal is still up, but masked by Wikipedia's letter. If the Wiretapping Law progresses further, however, the organization says it will have no choice but to delete its Italian platform altogether. [Image courtesy of Toutlecine]
The Soapbox: Defining the word "grind"
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. Ravious has a post about grind and content over on the blog Kill Ten Rats, which started a great discussion that immediately attracted me like a rare earth magnet. Ravious presented a fake quest example and asked readers whether it equated to grind. Like he says, grind isn't a new concept, but revisiting it has the word-nerd in me hashing it over. Can we all agree on the term? On some level I think we can, but when it comes into use as a way to describe specific details about the grind itself or other aspects of MMOs that are affected by grind, confusion can easily set in. What I wanted to do was congeal my thoughts about this term, what its purpose is or should be, what I think it should mean, and why I dislike Wikipedia's entry on grinding. Maybe in the end we can all come to terms with it.
Wikipedia celebrates 10th anniversary, co-founder Jimmy Wales opines on app stores
Did you know that Wikipedia is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week? It is, on January 15th! It's hard to believe that the 'edited by the everyman' encyclopedia has been around that long... or maybe we're just getting old. Either way, co-founder of the site (and man of many personal appeals) Jimmy Wales took the opportunity to answer some questions about the past, present and future of Wikipedia, and, when asked about the growing prevalence of mobile apps and app stores, well, Wales had plenty to say, including that models such as the iTunes app store can represent a dangerous "chokepoint" and that they could be "a threat to a diverse and open ecosystem." He also added that mobile devices are owned by people, and those people should control their own devices. We can see where Jimmy's coming from in some ways -- apps are a wholly new, untested way of ingesting content, but we have a hard time swallowing wholesale that the app store model could threaten internet freedom more than an issue such as net neutrality. But you know, if you ask us nicely, Jimmy, we might just take your word for it. Hit up the 'more coverage' link to check out a video of Jimmy Wales waxing philosophical about the birthday celebration.
Hyper Facts for iOS: A powerful and fun database query app
It's amazing what you can find with your iOS device. With the whole internet in your hands, vast databases are yours to explore with a couple of taps. Hyper Facts is a new way to more easily manage these searches, and overall it works pretty well. You type in a search term, a name, or an event (like a historical event) and off goes the app to do a search. The app searches 4 different databases, although the ones used aren't specified, and there are also links to Wikipedia. If you click the 'nearby' icon, the app gets your location via GPS and tells you interesting things around you, with links to articles. %Gallery-111988%
The Game Archaeologist's fear and loathing in the Kingdom: Joshing with Jick
Here at the Game Archaeologist Labs, we've been dissecting just what it takes to make a hit MMO that defies normal conventions -- a homemade startup that loves its wordplay long time even in an age when only about 12% of internet forum posters are fully literate. Kingdom of Loathing is an anomaly for all these reasons and more, and yet it's succeeded when MMOs boasting $100+ million budgets have bit the dust. Like Batman and Robin, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Taco Bell and grease, and "That's what" and "she said," the two creators of Kingdom of Loathing are absolutely inseparable. Where there is Jick, there is Mr. Skullhead, and vice-versa. The pair comprise the public face of the game and are so adored by Kingdom of Loathing's fans that I received a ransom note the other day telling me that I'd never see my cat again if I didn't lavish enough praise on the duo. This was weird to me, as I don't own a cat, but that's neither here nor there. In our final week of plumbing the depths of Kingdom of Loathing, I had the pleasure of probing Zack "Jick" Johnson's mind, and I haven't quite recovered yet. I have looked into the abyss, and it looked into me -- and winked. Oh, you flirty abyss! So let's do this thing -- hit the jump and find out just what makes KoL tick from the inside out!
Swearch brings style to the iPhone web app
I guess you could say that it finally happened: Someone built a web app for the iPhone so beautiful that it's nearly indistinguishable from something natively run. That person is Steve Streza, and that app is Swearch. Swearch does one thing, and it does it very well. It allows you to search Google, Twitter, Wikipedia, and Flickr quickly. Thanks to resource caching, Swearch is lightning fast once you add it to your homescreen (with a spiffy retina-ready icon, to boot!). Navigation is done through a card-like interface that allows you to swipe through the selection of search engines much like one would swipe through pictures in the Photos app. Once you type in your search, the results are displayed inside the app and are cleared automatically to keep Swearch ready at all times. I've been beta testing Swearch for quite a while now, and let me tell you this: If they'd let me pay for this web app, I would. It's really that good. Try it out for yourself over at Swearch.me. And one last thing: The clouds on the Twitter search page move! How freakin' neat is that? I'm giddy over it. The polish on this app is incredible.
Mongoliad project has launched, apps still coming soon
Neal Stephenson's Mongoliad project has launched -- you can go browse the website right now and read through the offerings available. As Cory Doctorow posts, the project is a series of episodic stories and materials portraying a universe put together by Stephenson and a few other author friends. The idea seems to be that you pay a subscription fee ($5.99 for six months, or $9.99 for a year), and then get access to whatever fiction content is being posted at that time, as well as a giant online Wikipedia-style database of the universe's background. There's not much about the story itself, but Doctorow calls it "epic, a swashbuckling swordplay novel with the sweep, charm and verve of the major Stephenson epics, such as System of the World." That right there sounds interesting enough to pay six bucks and see what's going on. Unless, that is, you want to actually wait for it on the iPhone. Originally, this was announced as a project that would make its way to mobile devices (like the iPhone), but it looks like we'll have to wait for that. The main page of the project says that they'll "soon be taking subscriptions for app delivery to some of the most popular mobile devices," so I'll probably wait on paying any money until that service comes up -- don't want to pay twice. But we'll keep an eye out for it and let you know when it's available.
Visualized: world's most trafficked websites and their favicons
We knew Google Search was an iconic service (we had to), but seeing it dwarf the rest of the web like this is pretty humbling. This here map of the internets uses Alexa data from earlier this year to assign the favicon dimensions of each of the top 288,945 sites around the world. Oh, and if you don't have an icon sidled up next to your URL, tough luck, you're not on here. See how many you can spot before your eyes start bleeding, then hit up the source to look up your favorite sites. As to your absolute favoritest site of them all, you can spot us somewhere in the space between vBulletin and Wikipedia.
Hyperspace Beacon: Don't be surprised if your website is mentioned here
The Hyperspace Beacon is your guide through the various twists, turns, and barrel-roles of the yet-to-be-released game Star Wars: The Old Republic, which is being produced by the super-duper developers at BioWare-EA. As we all wait anxiously for the open scroll of Star Wars: The Old Republic, more fansites are donning their Jedi robes and igniting their lightsabers. Some have have been around for a while now, and others are just getting off the ground, but all these holocrons of SWTOR lore are finding their true destiny in webspace. Some of these websites stand out as potential Jedi Masters, and I would like to take a moment to take note of them. A few months back, the first Hyperspace Beacon was launched. It recognized sites like Darth Hater and the Jedi Archive. Since then, more have proven to be beacons of light in the blackness of cyberspace. So, in an effort to keep the SWTOR community page up to date, I have explored the reaches hyperspace to find beacons of new hope. Set your navicomputer to follow me after the break. As Matt from TOROCast may say: Don't be surprised if your website is mentioned here.
TUAW's Daily App: Articles
We've talked about Articles here on the site before. Out of all of the apps that won Apple Design Awards this year, I would say it's probably the most underrated and most useful. It's a Wikipedia reader, which doesn't sound like much since the mobile version of Wikipedia is pretty good already. Having a dedicated app for the open source encyclopedia makes a surprising difference, though, and it allows you to consume all of that content in a really focused way. There are integrated maps and photos and lots of different ways to browse information, including shaking the iPhone to see a random page. The new update doesn't hurt either; version 1.3 adds a language picker, a new Table of Contents sheet, and an orientation lock that even works on the iPhone (a previous update already made the app all ready for iOS 4.0 and the Retina Display). Articles is US$2.99, which might seem pricey to browse content that you can already read for free. However, if you've participated in a few marathon Wikipedia sessions just by following a few random reference links, it's well worth the purchase.
EVE Evolved: A community guide to EVE Online
Some time ago, Massively started up a whole slew of new weekly columns, each covering a specific MMO. Each week, they bring guides, editorials, interviews and community news in a similar way to what I've been doing with EVE Evolved over the past two years. Each of the new columns started with a definitive community guide showcasing handy links to useful websites, blogs and tools. This week it's my turn to give EVE Online the community guide treatment. This article will be updated periodically with new links as they make themselves known. If you have a useful EVE link you think would belong in the community guide, leave a comment with it. Skip past the cut for a breakdown of some of EVE's most important community links.
TomTom reveals plans for App Store in battle against smartphone navigation
You know how TomTom is moving to a WebKit-based UI with its new flagship Go Live 1000 satnav? Well, there's good reason for it. While TomTom called it a "platform for innovation" at Tuesday's press event in Amsterdam, going so far as to show a few in-house developed prototype apps for Facebook, Wikipedia, and live street cams, it stopped short of revealing its true plan: an app store it can cuddle and call its own. Pocket-lint had a sit down with TomTom CEO Harold Goddijn who revealed TomTom's plans to launch the app store by the end of the year. Apps that will easily migrate to its in-car platform, and to and from other WebKit based devices. In essence, it's TomTom's consumer-focused survival plan against free turn-by-turn offerings from Google and Nokia. While there's no doubt that dedicated satnav devices offer greater functionality and better performance compared to their part-time smartphone navigating competitors, selling the average consumer (not hardened road warriors) on the need for two devices won't be easy. Besides, are Facebook updates really that critical when driving? Pics of the Wikipedia and street cam sample apps after the break.
Four widgets for learning
While the app store ecosystem for the iPhone, and now iPad, are filled with a host of useful apps to help students convert, translate and calculate figures and words, there may be times where an iPhone or iPad app just don't fit into your workflow. Back when Mac OS X Tiger was launched, which happened to be back when we all had to walk through 10 miles of snow to get to school, came the advent of Dashboard. In addition to the bundled widgets provided by Apple, one can access a robust library of widgets provided by third parties. Here are four useful Dashboard widgets for learning.
Articles: Wikipedia with class
If you frequent Wikipedia -- and appreciate an interface that's both beautiful and highly functional -- Articles is an iPhone (and iPad) app you should try. Going beyond just being a wrapper for the less-than-beautiful compendium of user-generated knowledge, it offers a very pleasing way to navigate the tomes. In addition to normal browsing, Articles offers integrated maps and uses geolocation to offer items of interest around you, or around any location you specify. It also has support for multiple pages, a la Mobile Safari, so you can follow multiple lines of research without losing your place. Automatic spelling suggestions help you locate your information, and an integrated chapter browser helps you navigate. You can bookmark pages, and organize bookmarks in folders, as well as search your history by day. Recently-viewed articles are even available offline. I haven't played with every Wikipedia app out there, and I've heard some great things about others like Wikipanion. Within my experience, though, Articles is a very complete solution and definitely worth a look. Articles is available for both iPhone ($2.99US) and iPad ($4.99US). I've only had the opportunity to play with the iPhone version, which is beautiful, but I'm really looking forward to trying it on the iPad, where its gorgeous interface and fluid usability will really have a chance to shine.
Openmoko brings improved keypad / scrolling and math equations to WikiReader
It sort of blows our mind that OpenMoko has managed to sell more than a smattering of its $99 WikiReaders (you know, considering just how limited in scope this thing is), but evidently there's a huge demand out there for improvements. The company has just rolled out its Spring 2010 update, which adds math equations, fluid scrolling, and enhanced navigation. Reportedly, the latter comes in the form of an improved touchscreen keypad, which is said to make "finding Wikipedia entries easier and faster and makes enjoying one of the largest reference archives known to mankind even better." We won't bother pointing out the gross exaggerations in that there comment, but at any rate, existing users can download the update today free of charge. Don't all hurry over at once and crash the servers, okay?
