Modern Communicator

What will they think of next?

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A perfect gift for the truly wired freak!

A wiki with real developing world potential!

Last night I attended the 'WikiWed', kindly hosted by PWC in Farringdon.

Amongst those present, it was fascinating to learn about the work that Jeremy Ruston is doing with his Tiddlywiki project. It's a beautifully simple to use collaborative working tool (with great navigation) and completely open source to boot.

What really blew me away was that the whole wiki runs off one html file and can save changes into the file itself. This opens up enormous possibilities for rural areas in developing countries who lack connectivity but want to extend their internet (currently community radio) to new levels. Imagine the scenario.... NGO's working in developing nations could potentially equip villages with computers discarded from the western world. Power could be supplied from a bicycle powered generator, and each machine comes equipped with a USB stick.

One of the great beauties with Jeremy's project is that the WIKI software (when online) will 'self update' when supplied with data, from say the USB stick.

Whilst there may not be full internet access across developing regions, there are almost certainly hubs. In theory, this facilitates a sort of 'asynchronous' internet community tool, which synchronises all the latest changes when the USB stick is plugged into any internet connected computer.

There's a lot of potential in this!!