Google's Book Scanning Technology Revealed

blee37 writes "Last March we discussed Google's patent for a rapid book scanning system. This article describes and provides pictures of how the system works in practice. Google is secretive, but the system's inner workings were apparently divulged by University of Tokyo researchers who wrote a research article on essentially identical technology. There are also videos of robotic page flippers and information about how Google wants to use music to help humans flip pages."

Missing the point?

[johnw]

Google is secretive, but the system's inner workings were apparently divulged by University of Tokyo researchers

Surely the whole point of the patent system is to grant exclusive use for a period in return for publishing full details of how whatever it is works? How can you have a patent without divulging the crucial information?

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Re:MRI technology?

[SnarfQuest]

When the book is closed, the ink from facing pages will be mashed together, shouol you will need to be able to tell which page the ink is attached to. Since the ink mostly sits on top of the paper (if it soaks through you wouldn't be able to read the other side veery well) it is a very thin layer. Your scanning technology would need to be able to sense very small volumes of ink. I don't think we are anywhere close to the necessary precision yet.

Re:Missing the point?

[pclminion]

I work for a company with a lot of patents. Our products are protected partially by patents and partially by trade secret information. In other words, to recreate our product you would need to license the patents AND figure out how we did the other stuff, that is NOT patented, but is secret. There's no reason you can't mix patented and trade secret technology in one solution.

Re:MRI technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have to insert a piece of paper in between each page, wouldn't it be easier just to image the pages while they're open?

Re:MRI technology?

[Daley_G]

MRIs have resolution down to 90nm.

Simpler/faster solution would be to insert a piece of paper in between all the pages to be scanned...

Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of using the MRI to begin with? Inserting ONE sheet of paper between EVERY page in a book doesn't seem like it would take much more effort than flipping the page and photographing it.

Re:MRI technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

just filed vague patent for that