In Kenya, Wikipedia articles are now available via SMS.
The Wikimedia Foundation has announced a partnership with the international operator Airtel, within which it is planned to provide free access to Wikipedia articles to people in Africa using ordinary mobile phones.
While on the continent some telecom operators provide a “zero traffic” service for accessing mobile versions of Wikipedia, the project is primarily aimed at people who do not have a smartphone and, all the more, have an active internet connection. According to the available statistics in Kenya, approximately 60% of the population have mobile phones, but spending on them amounts to almost a quarter of monthly income. Thus, free access for them to the network encyclopedia (even taking into account the fact that this smartphone is access to the network) can be very helpful. Kenya was selected as the country for the pilot program.
SMS Wikipedia works in the same way as other SMS services. The owner of the phone needs to send a USSD request * 515 # and wait until the system asks to enter a topic of interest for him to search:
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Next will be shown Wikipedia articles containing the entered word. Like that:
And, finally, it will be possible to select sections of the article selected at the previous stage:
As a result, all these manipulations will come up with a 270-character-long SMS-message based on the results of previous requests, with which you can continue reading the article with the help of:
The SMS access program itself is still pilot in nature and is launched to understand the popularity of the service and how it will work in principle. If the results are positive, then “the service will be widely available to the billions of people who have mobile phones, but do not have access to the Internet.”
[ Source ]
While on the continent some telecom operators provide a “zero traffic” service for accessing mobile versions of Wikipedia, the project is primarily aimed at people who do not have a smartphone and, all the more, have an active internet connection. According to the available statistics in Kenya, approximately 60% of the population have mobile phones, but spending on them amounts to almost a quarter of monthly income. Thus, free access for them to the network encyclopedia (even taking into account the fact that this smartphone is access to the network) can be very helpful. Kenya was selected as the country for the pilot program.
SMS Wikipedia works in the same way as other SMS services. The owner of the phone needs to send a USSD request * 515 # and wait until the system asks to enter a topic of interest for him to search:
')
Next will be shown Wikipedia articles containing the entered word. Like that:
And, finally, it will be possible to select sections of the article selected at the previous stage:
As a result, all these manipulations will come up with a 270-character-long SMS-message based on the results of previous requests, with which you can continue reading the article with the help of:
The SMS access program itself is still pilot in nature and is launched to understand the popularity of the service and how it will work in principle. If the results are positive, then “the service will be widely available to the billions of people who have mobile phones, but do not have access to the Internet.”
[ Source ]
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/199132/
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