Last week I introduced Qwiki, an interactive Wikipedia player that plays Wikipedia entries like a video with voice annotation and subtitles. Wikipedia’s potential is really unlimited, today I’ll introduce yet another web app that presents Wikipedia’s information in an innovative way.
Wikihood, today’s featured web app, combines Wikipedia and Google Maps to teach us history and geography.
A search in Wikihood gives two results together. I tried Shirakami-Sanchi, a beautiful UNESCO heritage site in Japan. On the left is the result from Wikipedia, on the right is Google Maps directed to the place you searched for.
Clicking on the brief introduction on the Wikipedia pane brings up a extended tab on the right showing relevant entries. These related topics are grouped under “Person” and “Culture”. You can find more about these related topics by clicking on them.
On the right pane, you may find marks surrounding the location you searched for. These are the landmarks in that region. Click on them to bring up relevant Wikipedia topics on the left pane.
Cross using these two panes, you can explore a place’s culture, history and geography. If you use location-enabled devices, Wikihood could show you knowledge about the place where you are. This is most useful for travelers. Forget about Lonely Planet, you have a much more resourceful guidebook. Wikihood has an iPad app, I think it definitely makes iPad a great travel companion.
