h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There should be a wireless h2g2 program for personal digital assistants with internet capabilities. If those here remember, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in the books was a small electronic book, much like a graphing calculator in appearance (although those didn't exist when the book was written), which was portable and could instantly access a huge wealth of information. Although it doesn't make sense to recreate this book in real life, I think it would be a good idea to make a program for PDAs that allows the user to access the h2g2 database from anywhere, much like the fictional Guide. I would get a PDA just for that purpose (if I could scrounge up the cash). If anyone else agrees with me, respond to this message.

There is already a WAP service see http://www.h2g2.com/A317530
and if you look at the h2g2 business plan it would appear to be one of the main aims http://www.h2g2.com/A158672
Not having a WAP phone myself I can't say if its any good yet, but it strikes me that the technology isn't quite there yet to make such a service truely viable.
Even though the manufacturers have been talking it up, I think its still in the real soon (RSN)now catagory, which means they have the ideas and it works in the lab but they havent worked out how to implement it in a meaningful way yet.

I'd be interested to here how the powers at the towers see this coming on in the medium term.

If you want to see what the WAP service looks like on phone, have a look at (URL removed by moderator)


Launch their emulator and go to the h2g2 On the Move URL (http://mobile.h2g2.com).

If you choose the Nokia 7110 emulator you get a very accurate idea of how the real thing works (only without mobile phone call costs...).