Games - Encarta

	Games - Encarta

Encarta is a digital multimedia encyclopedia published by Microsoft Corporation. As of 2005, the complete English version, Encarta Premium, consists of more than 68,000 articles, numerous images and movies, and homework tools, and is available on the World Wide Web by yearly subscription or by purchase on multiple CD-ROMs or DVD-ROM. Most articles can also be viewed online for free, a service supported by advertisements.

Microsoft publishes similar encyclopedias under the Encarta trademark in various languages, including German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian and Japanese. Localized versions may contain contents licensed from available national sources and may contain more or less content than the full English version. For example, the Dutch version has content from the Dutch Winkler Prins encyclopedia.

History

Microsoft initiated Encarta by purchasing non-exclusive rights to the Funk and Wagnalls Encyclopedia, incorporating it into its first edition in 1993 (Funk and Wagnalls continued to publish revised editions for several years independently of Encarta, but then ceased printing in the late 1990s). Microsoft had originally approached Encyclopædia Britannica in the 1980s, but Britannica, believing its print media sales would remain strong, declined. Encyclopædia Britannica, the gold standard of encyclopedias for over a century, was forced to sell the company at below book value in 1996 when its print sales could no longer compete with Encarta and the Microsoft distribution channel which gave away free copies with computer systems.

In the late 1990s, Microsoft bought Collier's Encyclopedia and New Merit Scholar's Encyclopedia from Macmillan and incorporated them into Encarta. Thus the current Microsoft Encarta can be considered the successor of Funk and Wagnall, Collier, and New Merit Scholar encyclopedias. None of these formerly successful encyclopedias is still in print, being unable to adapt to the new market dynamics of electronic encyclopedias.

Its standard and online edition includes approximately 41,000 articles, with additional images, videos and sounds. The premium editions contain approximately 68,000 articles and other multimedia content, such as 25,000 pictures and illustrations, over 300 videos and animations, and an interactive atlas with 1.8 million locations. Its articles are integrated with multimedia content and may have a collection of links to websites selected by its editors. A sidebar may display alternative views or original materials relevant to the topic.

Encarta's Visual Browser, available since the 2004 version, presents a user with a list of related topics. Its multimedia includes virtual 3-dimensional tours of ancient structures, for example the Acropolis; 2-dimensional panoramic images of world wonders or cities; and a virtual flight program which moves the user over landscape.

Encarta also includes a trivia game called "MindMaze" in which the player explored a castle by answering questions whose answers could be found in the encyclopedia's articles.

For years, Encarta came in three primary software flavors: Basic, Premium, and Reference Library (price and features in that order.) Beginning in 2005, however, Microsoft added Microsoft Student as the premier Microsoft educational software program, bundling Encarta with graphing calculator software and templates for Microsoft Office. In addition, the Reference Library was discontinued, absorbed into a newer, more comprehensive Premium package.

World Atlas

The dynamic maps are generated with the same engine that powered Microsoft MapPoint software. The map is a virtual globe that one can freely rotate and magnify to any location down to major streets for big cities. The globe has multiple surfaces displaying political boundaries, physical landmarks, and statistical information. One can selectively display different sized cities, various geological or man-made features and reference lines in a map.

The maps contain hyperlinks to related articles ("Map Trek") and also supports a "Dynamic Sensor" that provides the latitude, longitude, placename, population and local time for any point on the globe. Encarta also generates a visible-light moon atlas with names of major craters and hyperlinks. However, it does not include a planetarium.

In addition to database generated maps, many other illustrative maps in Encarta ("Historical Maps") are drawn by artists. Some more advanced maps are interactive, for example, the large African map for Africana can display information such as political boundaries or the distribution of African flora.

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Games - Encarta

History

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World Atlas

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