Primer

cf. A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

A universal primer, or a guide to Life, the Universe, and Everything, is one of the grails of modern visions of independent schooling and education. A famous example in modern fiction is a protagonist in Stephenson's Diamond Age, which involves tremendously detailed resources, a progression of tasks covering all walks of knowledge, and a skilful AI embedded within a book, along with an [optional] connection to human actors to supplement realism of the scenarios.

Resources

• A multilingual dictionary/interpreter -- a 100 language translation dictionary, with usage, is O(10GB).
• Text-to-speech and vice-versa -- databases of O(10G) per language; processing for speech-to-text.

• A multilingual encyclopedia
• Atlas of the world : O(10TB) of images at 100m detail?
• Atlas of biology : O(1TB) of images for man; a wide range available for other species
• Atlas of the sky : O(10GB) for eye-visible elements

• Telescope/Microscope : what is the weight/size/cost/mag envelope here? include 10x and 100x.
• Sensors : Heat, Light, Sound, Video, Electrical?

• Search : a smart query/association engine that helps you associate relevant things to an idea stream or work