MakeUseOf Directory » wikipedia

Wikistream: View Wikipedia Updates In Real-Time

Israel Nicolas — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 23:01:09 +0000

If you are a fan of Wikipedia, you know how new content gets posted and edited, but may not have an idea just how fast Wikipedia is constantly updated. If you need a visual reminder, then you need to check out Wikistream. This tool shows a stream or real-time updates currently happening in Wikipedia.

Wikistream rolls the updates quickly, with each update a link to the edited Wikipedia article. In addition, you can filter updates by different languages, and categories. So this makes it easy for you to monitor updates from the French version of Wikipedia, or get only the updates from discussion threads.

This tool is especially handy for die-hard volunteer Wikipedia editors and contributors. It is also a great starting point of you just want to read the newest stuff on Wikipedia. As a bonus, you can also check out the hourly and daily trending articles on the website.

Features:

Real-time stream of Wikipedia updates
Stream updates by different by language versions and categories
View hourly and daily trending articles
Pause/unpause stream.
Similar sites: TrendingTopics, Wikirank and Wikirage.

Check out Wikistream @ www.inkdroid.org:3000

QRpedia: Get QR Codes For Wikipedia Pages That Appear In The Phone’s Default Language

Umar — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:01:48 +0000

Today’s smartphones can easily open up URLs received in text messages or extracted from images. But what if the page is not in your phone’s default language? Here to sort out this issue for Wikipedia pages is a web service called QRpedia.

QRpedia is a simple web tool that lets you share Wikipedia pages in a better way. The app generates a QR code for any Wikipedia page URL. This special QR code, when scanned by a smartphone, redirects the phone to the coded Wikipedia page. But before doing so, the default language of the phone is detected and it is this language that the Wikipedia page is displayed in. The app is currently being used in museums for easy sharing of knowledge regarding museum items – people can simply scan the QR codes and read about the item in their own language.

Features:

A user-friendly web service.
Generates QR codes for Wikipedia pages.
Scanned codes open Wikipedia in phone’s default language.
Being used in museums for easy knowledge sharing.

Check out QRpedia @ http://qrpedia.org (By Umar from AllthatIsApple)

WikiGuess: A Fun Wikipedia Game To Tests Your Knowledge [Android]

MOin — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 19:01:28 +0000

If you consider yourself to be somebody with extensive Wikipedia knowledge, then you will find WikiGuess thoroughly enjoyable. It is a fun wikipedia game that lets Android owners test their knowledge of Wikipedia articles.

WikiGuess is a free smartphone app for Android devices. Sized at 159KB, the app requires Android 1.6 or later. The app is basically a game that asks you to guess the Wikipedia article it displays. The article being displayed usually has a picture and the article’s keywords. You need to guess the article name in the give time. The more you score, the more Wikipedia know-how you can boast of.

Features:

A user-friendly game.
Compatible with Android devices.
Makes you guess Wikipedia articles.
Displays article picture and keywords.
Also read related articles:

Check out WikiGuess @ www.wikiguess.com/wikiGuess (by MOin from ThumbPress)

Qwiki: An Interactive Knowledge Wiki For Students & Teachers

Israel Nicolas — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 03:01:34 +0000

Wikipedia, the mother of all knowledge wikis, is unmatched in the breadth and depth of articles that it has published. However, if you want to have an awesome experience with knowledge-based wikis, then you should check out Qwiki. This a new website provides an interactive wiki experience with the help of a slick interface and audio-visual presentations for all its entries.

To start using Qwiki, just enter any topic in its search bar. Qwiki finds the most relevant page where you can listen to the text-to-speech generated audio and picture slides. You can also click the content tab to read the short transcribed description, find pictures of the subject, and view related qwikis. Hover your mouse over the the images in the presentation to enlarge and click through them. While you can’t change the text like in normal wikis, you can still improve an entry by suggesting a picture, YouTube video, or providing feedback to the audio quality.

Qwiki is a very useful tool for teachers looking for an interactive medium to teach grade school students. The way the audio, video, image, and text are packaged makes it one of the most effective learning tools online.

For more info watch the video below:

Features:

Cool interactive wiki online.
Improve Qwiki entries by suggesting photo and videos.
Watch presentations with photo slides.
Hover each photo to learn more about them.
View related Qwikis.
Similar tools: Ten Word Wiki, gdgt, Fotopedia, Navify and AgainButSlower.

Check out Qwiki @ www.qwiki.com

People Lookup: Search Highlighted names on Google, Twitter, Facebook & Wikipedia [Firefox]

Umar — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 21:01:54 +0000

Normally while searching for somebody online, you search for them separately on search engines and over social networks. This includes opening up separate tabs and typing the person’s name into all those tabs. But if you are a Mozilla Firefox user, you have a much better alternative available called People Lookup.

People Lookup is a Firefox browser add-on. After installing it, you can highlight any name on a webpage and then search for it on Google, LinkedIn, Facebook and Wikipedia. All you do is highlight the text and then click on the add-on’s options in the right-click menu. Alternatively you can use the keyboard hotkey shortcut (Ctrl + Alt + p). The searches are then opened in new tabs automatically, leaving the original tab intact.

Features:

A user friendly tool.
Browser add-on for Mozilla Firefox.
Lets you quickly search for people/things on Google, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Crunchbase, Twitter, Facebook.
Provides a keyboard hotkey shortcut.
Similar tools: Webmii, Identify, 123 People, and Zabasearch.
also read: 15 Websites To Find People on The Internet

Check out People Lookup @ addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/264490 (By Umar from TechCityInc)

Wikipedia Book Creator: Create eBooks From Wikipedia Pages

Sharninder — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 21:01:43 +0000

Wikipedia is a great source of information. There is a page on almost any topic under the sun, but the only problem with Wikipedia is that it really doesn’t lend itself well to offline reading. If you’re the kind of person who likes to print lengthy Wikipedia articles to read offline at leisure, you should give the Wikipedia Book Creator a try.

The Book Creator is a new feature from Wikipedia that lets you select one or more pages from the online encyclopedia and add them to a PDF eBook that you can then download and read offline at your leisure. You can even get a printed book delivered to your doorstep, for a small fee.

If you would like to make some changes to the pages that you just saved, you can even download the eBook in the OpenDocument Text format.

Features:

Wikipedia ebook creator.
Free to use and doesn’t require registration.
Easiest way to read wikipedia articles offline.
Supported PDF and the OpenDocument Text format for output.
You can even get, for a small fee, your selected articles in a printed book.

Check out the Wikipedia Book Creator @ www.en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Book&bookcmd=book_creator

Mashpedia: A Real-Time Encyclopedia

Israel Nicolas — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 23:01:21 +0000

When we search for information online, we usually read wikis, search results, watch videos, read news and blogs, and sort through social network streams. But wouldn’t it be nice if all of these were located on one seamless page?

Enter Mashpedia, a real-time encyclopedia that aggregates multiple live web feeds about a specific topic and converts them into a structured and easily readable layout.

To start using Mashpedia, just enter any topic in the search field. Then the app can bring you to the exact page or give you a list of results for your search terms. Each entry provides a definition of terms, videos, Twitter feeds, and more. Mashpedia also offers semantic connections between articles.

You can toggle each box in the entry to show/hide them. There are also individual settings available for each section to allow you to customize the article. The Twitter stream for the topic is very useful since you can find real live updates alongside the wiki content. This provides a nice combination of time-context that complements the content that you are reading. You can also post and add comments to contribute relevant information.

Mashpedia is a great web tool for those who want to learn something new every day, or for people who want to stay on top of any topic.

Features:

Aggregates multiple web feeds about a topic.
Get information from Wikipedia, Google, Twitter, Digg, YouTube, and more.
Fast and seamless.
Free; no sign up required.
View and post comments for each entry.

Check out Mashpedia @ www.mashpedia.com

Ten Word Wiki: Wikipedia For The Twitter Generation

Sharninder — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:01:05 +0000

Wikipedia is great for finding information from around the world. They have detailed articles running into hundreds of words on almost any topic under the sun. That, in my opinion, is also one of the problems with Wikipedia.

If you only need to know a quick fact about a place, thing or topic, Wikipedia is probably not the right place for you. It is this niche that Ten Word Wiki aims to fill.

Ten Word Wiki is to Wikipedia what Twitter is to blogging. Instead of writing hundreds of words on a single topic, Ten Word Wiki aims to describe each topic in less than 10 words. For example, this page describing a bicycle on Wikipedia will easily fill 2-4 pages of a book, whereas Ten Word Wiki defines a bicycle as :

A human powered two wheeled vehicle, normally with pedals.

The authors at Ten Word Wiki aren’t always serious like the ones at Wikipedia. They also have a funny side as can be seen in their definition of Twitter:

A trendy virtual social network service with incredibly wordy posts.

Features:

Free to use, edit and create entries.
Can be used as a good reference if you’re short of time.

Check out Ten Word Wiki @ http://www.tenwordwiki.com

Fullwiki: Wikipedia and Google Maps Combined

jpot — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:01:41 +0000

Your standard Wikipedia article mentions a lot of places. Google Maps knows where they all are. Fullwiki aims to utilize Wikipedia’s textual content in a new way, it combines Wikipedia and Google Maps so that the precise location of anything mentioned is only a click away. For example, if a city is mentioned in an article, that city is given a link; click that link and you’re taken to its Google Map result.

The aim here is to supplement the textual information in Wikipedia with helpful maps; the result is often is a mess. Several articles on Wikipedia contain references to hundreds of locations, meaning the map you see is a world map so crowded with locations as to be useless.

Still, Fullwiki represents a new way to check out Wikipedia articles, and is a great supplement if you want a better geographic understanding of a particular article.

Features:

Wikipedia’s articles combined with Google Maps.
Click icon to locate any location mentioned in article.
No pictures on articles that feature maps.
Wikipedia content used legally as per Wikipedia’s license.

Check out Fullwiki.

Wiki: Search Only Encyclopedia and Wikipedia Type Websites

azim — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:11:04 +0000

Online encyclopedias are great place to get a structured, factual and complete information on pretty much any topic. It’s better than using search engines. Now at Custom Google Search based Wiki.com, you can search only encyclopedias and Wikipedia type websites. The search engine scans most of the big online encyclopedias like Britannica, Encarta, InfoPlease, Wikipedia etc., as well as other smaller independent wikis.

While users can search all sources at the same time, there are also options to limit search to Wikipedia online, all online wikis, or search only on conventional online encyclopedias.

Features:

Searche for information on online encyclopedias.
Sources include popular online encyclopedias like Encarta, Britannica, Wikipedia and several others.
Similar sites: Wikiwix.

Check out Wiki.com @ www.wiki.com