Encyclopedia

A worldwide zombie invasion is the perfect hypothetical setting for survivalist tips, and Jeff and I can't help but explore a few of them after watching this week's episode of "The Walking Dead."

After we get that out our system, the rest of today's rundown consists of AOL laying off the majority of its AIM unit, waving goodbye to the printed Encyclopedia Britannica, and a city in the U.K. shaming away loitering youth with pink lighting that exposes acne.… Read more

Gone are the days of walking over to the bookshelf, grabbing an Encyclopaedia Britannica, and flipping through the pages to look up whatever piqued one's curiosity. The leather-bound print edition set of reference books is now defunct, the company announced today.

However, Encyclopaedia Britannica is also quick to say that this change isn't its swan song. Now, in the digital age, the company will focus on its online encyclopedias and educational curriculum for schools.

"In spite of our long history with print, I would like to point out that no single medium, neither books nor bits, is … Read more

As "Doctor Who" prepares to celebrate its 50th birthday and cement its status as the longest-running science fiction TV show of all time, Digital agency Brandwidth and BBC Books have released a new high-tech compendium to the show's long run--well, almost.

The $7.49 Doctor Who Encyclopedia for iPad is a high-tech record of the show's heroes, villains, monsters, and stories. The app includes more than 3,000 separate entries written by former Doctor Who script editor Gary Russell, as well as interactive portals for the Doctor, Amy, Rory, River, and other major characters.

Unfortunately, the app ignores the long history of the series, focusing only on the "rebirth" of the show since 2005.… Read more

Let's just get this out of the way right up front. The best "Star Trek" series was the original. Second-best: "Star Trek: Voyager." Worst by far: "Enterprise."

I say that so you know who you're dealing with: a lifelong Trekkie who has strong feelings about the shows and movies. (I also thought J.J. Abrams' reboot was good, but not great.)

Assuming you're still reading (most people shun me after hearing of my love for "Voyager"), you'll be glad to know there's finally an official Star Trek PADD app for the iPad. And by official, I mean produced by CBS Interactive (which owns both Paramount Pictures and, it should be noted, CNET).

The highly prescient Personal Access Display Device featured prominently in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and later series. It employed the still-sexy Library Computer Access/Retrieval System, or LCARS, interface, which the app reproduces like never before.… Read more

Wikidroid gives you one-tap access to Wikipedia--the world's favorite online encyclopedia--allowing you to satiate your hunger for knowledge on the go and without delay. It's very simple, and it does exactly what you need it to do: pull up Wikipedia entries at will. Plus, it adds a few nice touches that make your researching experience just a little bit more pleasant. You can save pages to SD card, and share them via other applications. There's also a nice "Pin title bar" feature, which keeps the search field at the top of your screen as you … Read more

With just 20 simple words and two entries, it began: "Hello, world." And "Humor me. Go there and add a little article. It will take all of five or ten minutes."

Written by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales on January 15, 2001, those four sentences ushered in one of the most widely used and important reference projects in history, let alone on the Internet: Wikipedia.

Tomorrow, Wikipedia turns 10 years old. It's hard to imagine that a tiny, user-created project founded by two unknowns behind the online expert-written encyclopedia Nupedia could have grown into a … Read more

Wikipedia users will be getting new tools for uploading, editing, and viewing video very soon. According to a Beet.TV interview with Erik Moller, who is the deputy director of the Wikimedia Foundation, we'll see all of these things shortly. However, what's more interesting is the Web encyclopedia's choice of video formats and how it fits into a fracas in the browser world.

Wikipedia has been working on video support for years, and is putting considerable effort into making it easier for users to upload video--specifically, to bridge a video format divide. Moller says that while Wikipedia … Read more

In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Encyclopedia Britannica President Jorge Cauz said that the encyclopedia's free, online version, Britannica.com, will soon be allowing user edits and additions to its pages. This system is not yet live, but according to the Herald should be within the next day or so.

Registered users will be able to make corrections, or add entirely new sections to encyclopedia pages--much like Wikipedia. The big difference, however, is that Britannica.com's editing and approval system will be managed by its own editors and contracted staff instead of power users. According to … Read more

When you want answers, Wikipedia is the place to go. This simple app for BlackBerry leaves the bells and whistles to other developers and dives straight in to creating a bare bones, but effective doorway to Wikipedia.com. The replicated search interface will help you feel right at home as it quickly grabs and displays your search results in your phone's default browser.

Click "Go" to pull up the closest-matching article or "Search" to see all possible Wikipedia matches. Until Wikipedia or another developer creates a richer, fully native Wikipedia reader, this app is just … Read more