Lesson plan

Wireless Application Protocol

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is an obsolete technical standard for accessing information over a mobile cellular network. Introduced in 1999, WAP allowed users with compatible mobile devices to browse content such as news, weather and sports scores provided by mobile network operators, specially designed for the limited capabilities of a mobile device. The Japanese i-mode system offered a competing wireless data standard. Before the introduction of WAP, mobile service providers had limited opportunities to offer interactive data services, but needed interactivity to support Internet and Web applications. Although hyped at launch, WAP suffered from criticism. However the introduction of GPRS networks, offering a faster speed, led to an improvement in the WAP experience. WAP content was accessed using a WAP browser, which is like a standard web browser but designed for reading pages specific for WAP, instead of HTML. By the 2010s it had been largely superseded by more modern standards such as XHTML. Modern phones have proper Web browsers, so they do not need WAP markup for compatibility, and therefore, most are no longer able to render and display pages written in WML, WAP's markup language.

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Article summary

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is an obsolete technical standard for accessing information over a mobile cellular network. Introduced in 1999, WAP allowed users with compatible mobile devices to browse content such as news, weather and sports scores provided by mobile network operators, specially designed for the limited capabilities of a mobile device. The Japanese i-mode system offered a competing wireless data standard. Before the introduction of WAP, mobile service providers had limited opportunities to offer interactive data services, but needed interactivity to support Internet and Web applications. Although hyped at launch, WAP suffered from criticism. However the introduction of GPRS networks, offering a faster speed, led to an improvement in the WAP experience. WAP content was accessed using a WAP browser, which is like a standard web browser but designed for reading pages specific for WAP, instead of HTML. By the 2010s it had been largely superseded by more modern standards such as XHTML. Modern phones have proper Web browsers, so they do not need WAP markup for compatibility, and therefore, most are no longer able to render and display pages written in WML, WAP's markup language.

Key claims

  1. date of foundation: 1998 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95
  2. release date: 2002 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95

Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. The record states that the date of foundation is "1998". What evidence would count against this claim?
  3. The record states that the release date is "2002". What evidence would count against this claim?
  4. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  5. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

  1. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1369366112

Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.