wikipedia - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Google upgrades mobile search

  Google is moving to keep up with its mobile users, updating search on devices this week.

• Bing weaves more Facebook, Twitter data into search results

  Bing is incorporating more information from outside social networks such as Facebook and Twitter into how it displays search results involving people.

• Wikipedia may face disruptions as it is migrated to Virginia data center

  Online encyclopedia Wikipedia may encounter service disruptions as it is migrated to servers at a data center in Ashburn, Virginia.

• 'The Hobbit 2.0' -- How mobile technology would improve J. R. R. Tolkien's famous work

  "The Hobbit," J.R.R. Tolkien's famous story of which the movie version opens Dec. 14, was first published in 1937. The world of Middle Earth was set in an indeterminate time, but looked remarkably like an idealized early 19th-century England, though well-stocked with wizards, dwarfs, elves, dragons, trolls, goblins and of course hobbits. But techwise, it was, and is, the Stone Age of Middle Dearth.

• GoDaddy pulls its support from SOPA

  Giant domain name registrar GoDaddy.com has pulled its support from the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act after owners of several websites announced they would take their business elsewhere.

• Wikipedia hides Italian language edition to protest new law

  Wikipedia said it was hiding the Italian edition of the online encyclopedia to protest against a proposed new rule in the country, that will require websites to publish corrections within 48 hours of content being found objectionable, without review.

• Wikipedia Aiming For More Contributors

  Online encyclopedia Wikipedia isn't in danger of dying, but an extra dose of contributors would give it a much-needed shot in the arm.

• The 10 biggest hoaxes in Wikipedia's first 10 years

  Wikipedia will celebrate its 10th birthday on Saturday, with founder Jimmy Wales having built the site from nothing to one of the most influential destinations on the Internet. Wikipedia's goal may be to compile the sum total of all human knowledge, but it's also, perhaps, the best tool in existence for perpetuating Internet hoaxes. Let's take a look at the 10 biggest hoaxes in Wikipedia's history. (Did we miss any? Let us know in the comments).

• Wikidroid for Wikipedia

  Want access to the world's most popular encyclopedia -- wherever you are? Then get Wikidroid (free), which does an excellent job of putting the power of Wikipedia on your Android phone. You'll get full Wikipedia content, including live links and graphics, so you won't be giving up anything when you access it this way.

• Wikipedia in your pocket

  Many people are dismissive of Wikipedia. For example, back in 2005, as quoted in the Ideas in Action blog, Robert McHenry, a former editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia Britannica, argued: "Many revisions, corrections, and updates are badly done or false. There is a simple reason for this: Not everyone who believes he knows something about Topic X actually does; and not everyone who believes he can explain Topic X clearly, can."

• Wikipedia upgrades layout, features

  The Wikimedia Foundation has started rolling out a new look and upgraded functionality for Wikipedia that will be applied to all of the online encyclopedia's language versions over the coming weeks.

• Wikimedia child porn row escalates

  Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, has revoked some his site founder's privileges after contributors protested that he had deleted images of children without warning.

• Wikipedia a clue to solving Defence’s Riddler

  Defence is to embark on an information management project so confusing, it has turned to Wikipedia to explain it to potential tenderers.

• Wikipedia suffers global collapse

  Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation Web sites went down for hours on Wednesday in a global outage caused by a domino effect of technical problems.

• Wikipedia founder praises Google over China decision

  A co-founder of popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia praised Google for its decision to stop censoring Internet searches in China and called on other major U.S. companies, including Microsoft and Facebook, to follow.