Conversation:

Ok, i for one would be willing to work on a project to bring h2g2 to the mobile markey. Especially in conjunctio with something like consume.net, wireless/mobile access to h2g2 is really what we are trying to acheive isnt it? Even if we have to trawel h2g2 and extract the content by parsing tags, a wap/cut down version is deffinitly possible.

Contact me if your interested or have already started something like this

rayh

Haven't already started anything, I think this is the first reply I've rec'd for some time... but sure, I'm interested.

-- Chad

I haven't got a PDA, and have no intention of buying one. I hope that the BBC continues to work on the WAP problem, as I was an early WAP user, and the BBC Online WAP site was one of the best, and then it disappeared; and now the only other WAP site that was entertaining and seemed to work has gone. I am very disappointed. Have you got anywhere on the WAP front yet? Please don't dump the idea.

The WAP version of Google's search engine provides HTML to WML translation, so you can view the text of real web pages on a WAP phone. It's not ideal but at least you can read the guide on the move although you can't search. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A627464 for details.

Q:
Is there an AvantGo page yet?
Also, is it possible to download massive amounts of the database to a local machine (pda/laptop etc) so it can be searched at will?

_LEE

(I'm afraid I don't know anything about AvantGo)

Downloading... you'd have to do it manually, perhaps by creating a list of h2g2 entries and putting it into a download manager. This is far more efficient than visiting all the entries and saving them to your disk.

Well at the risk of re-igniting an old thread, I see that the BBC site presently states:
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If you have a WAP-compatible mobile phone, you can access our specially-optimised news service for mobiles.
Go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile.
You will need to key in that address as a bookmark into your mobile phone.
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So, no silly "BBC can't do WAP" excuses now then are there? Anyone know what (if any) plans there are?

This is a year old, but I'm kinda new here. What's the status of this? Of the AvantGo version? Also, has anyone thought of creating an updatable TealInfo version for palms? Thanks,

Matt

Here's my understanding of the situation. When the BBC bought h2g2, once an independently run site, the plans to offer a version of the site for handheld computers and/or cell phones got kiboshed. The BBC is apparently restricted by its charter from offering free services that compete with other potentially for-pay content on emerging media. While h2g2 might not be competing with anyone, I don't think the BBC wants to risk that this would eventually be the case.

Traveller in Time mobilising the Guide
"Well, the BBC did actually, perhaps a change in charter?


< <./>F77636?thread=?thread=624257</.> > Launch of a mobile, < <./>/dna/h2g2/pda/</.> >

"

i was just about to ask for a wap version of this excellent site.

i can almost get to it with my cell phones browser but the memory can't cut it..

maybe someday someone will decide to just make a smaller html version of h2g2 without all the graphics.. that seems reasonable to me..

Traveller in Time low on memory on one leg
"Have you tried < <./>/dna/h2g2/plain/<./> > ?
It has a much smaller footprint.

Or even
< <./>/cgi-bin/education/betsie/parser.pl</.> >
Just luck if 'Betsie' does the job.

Remember some pages are just big (Personal Spaces) where others are really 'small' < <./>Browse</.> > "

The PDA skin is still HTML, it's just simple HTML with fewer images and a specialised stylesheet. WAP is actually a different MIME type, isn't it?

TRiG.