Google Launches Google Print 245
Rescate writes "As reported by Reuters,Google is launching Google Print, which will show book excerpts next to regular Google search results. A spokesman said, "We're trying to index every book there is, and make it searchable for our users." Even though this competes with Amazon's A9 search which also searches within books, Google says the two companies will continue to work together, and that Google Print will link to Amazon, as well as other sellers, to buy books listed in the search results. Google will demonstrate the technology Thursday, Oct. 7 at the Frankfurt Book Fair."
See also... (Score:5, Informative)
See for your self (Score:5, Informative)
Re:See for your self (Score:3, Informative)
Re:See also... (Score:5, Funny)
If Google uses those idea I hope I get a kickback, I'd take Google stock.
Re:See also... (Score:5, Interesting)
Google is really stretching it ... (Score:3, Funny)
What's next? - Google searching our hard drive? Oh wait
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Google is really stretching it ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, but spectacularly badly. So badly in fact, that in practice most people don't do it. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are pursuing desktop search because they realize just what a chasm there is between a "proper" search engine, and what's available right now for personal search.
If you've only got a few dozen docs and a few hundred emails
Re:Google is really stretching it ... (Score:5, Informative)
And of course, your endorsement of aforementioned products would not have anything to do with being the CEO of the company that makes them, right?
Re:Google is really stretching it ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Google is really stretching it ... (Score:2)
print.google.com sounds more like... geez, what did they call those microfiche that indexed the content of magazines and journals? I can't even remember. Anyway, 80% of the time they were more frustrating that useful because the library didn't carry the journal in question.
I mean, really, what are you supposed to do with these search results? Buy every book that looks promising and wait a couple weeks until the
Re:Google is really stretching it ... (Score:3, Informative)
Musty Libraries a Thing of the Past? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now there is a clever piece of irony. Google is pioneering toward a paperless library and they show it off at a book fair. Authors will surely love this technology while publishers might not like it if it makes them redundant. How many of you remember the musty smell of an old library filled with books? Today's libraries have improved, yet tomorrow's libraries may have no books at all, only a small cube in the middle of it that wifis texts to people from their homes. It's only a matter of time before we don't need to scan thousands of pages to write papers (or even learn something for that matter), and it will make everyone much more productive and intelligent. Publishers have pretty much accepted electronic book formats, so what's wrong with the RIAA and the MPAA?
Re:Musty Libraries a Thing of the Past? (Score:3, Funny)
I think they have got digital formats already...
*continues watching Shrek on DVD*
Re:Musty Libraries a Thing of the Past? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've thought about this before as well. I think the two things that libraries do have going for them are those who cannot afford net connections themselves, and the fact that reading something on paper is still easier than reading something on the screen. Of course Xerox's e-paper could also take care of the latter while free net connections could take of the former, thus allowing your prediction to come true faster than I would think.
There are many out there, myself included, who will never get rid of books. They are just too cool to ever be fully rid of. Of course if there is some type of massive paper famine in a couple years or so, that will change I'm sure, but I have a very hard time parting with any of my books.
Re:Musty Libraries a Thing of the Past? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Musty Libraries a Thing of the Past? (Score:2)
Problem is however that I can't hold it, take it to the bathroom, or glance at it when I'm typing. Really sucks.
I've only used it maybe 3 times for school and every other time I prefer web sites that are actually formatted for the screen.
Re:Musty Libraries a Thing of the Past? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Musty Libraries a Thing of the Past? (Score:2)
Yet another ingenious google idea!
Re:Musty Libraries a Thing of the Past? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Musty Libraries a Thing of the Past? (Score:5, Interesting)
I dont know... I just sit in front of these damn screens for so many hours. Nothing seems to go in anymore. I read document after document, online papers, articles, blogs. None of it seems to have the same weight as a decent book that I can read without distraction, whether that is in the corner of my house or a library quiet room. Maybe it's because half of the content out there is rubbish (Publishers actually do something you know!) or maybe it's just the format, but I really don't like electronic books.
I'll live without it thank you, and I'll thank you to stay away from my musty books. This isn't progress!
hold up (Score:5, Funny)
Re:hold up (Score:2)
Re:hold up (Score:2)
Regardless, I think google has the technology and business practicality to make a killing on pornography. Either way, I'm still a huge google fan.
Re:hold up (Score:2)
Re:hold up (Score:2)
Huh? Maybe you're referring to some service level cap imposed by your ISP?
Launched? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Launched? (Score:4, Informative)
An example search for The time machine ?
Time machine [google.com] Shows the book.
The pages are shown as images and u can read upto 3 pages in this case.
Re:Launched? (Score:3, Informative)
Gutenberg (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Gutenberg (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Gutenberg (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Gutenberg (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gutenberg (Score:2)
Google could make 100% of GP project pages available instead just a few since most GP projects are in the public domain. It also would be a great philanthropic gesture for Google to sponsor PG's work, if they don't already.
Highly Useful (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Highly Useful (Score:2)
Book indexing sure has advantages. The only thing I still have trouble understanding is how they do it. Not the searching or indexing, but the book scanning. They either get real good contacts with editors or they have a room filled with monkeys and scanners.
Good for google... (Score:2, Interesting)
but what does it do for me? If I'm intrested in a book I go to amazon and a few other shops if I don't find it there. They have this search box on amazon, which is handy for finding what I need. Kind of like google, only on the site itself and on their database itself showing me how much they still have in stock, etc.
I don't know, it just seems so reduntant to be able to do this on google as well now.
Re:Good for google... (Score:5, Insightful)
One single unified interface to find anything you might think of. This is the ultimate goal of Google.
It's good for the user because it's easy to learn.
It's even better for Google, who litteraly ends up re-branding the whole world.
Copyright Concerns? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Copyright Concerns? (Score:2)
they share ad revenues with publishers
this will help
Re:Copyright Concerns? (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, I'm still curious how this will work out. There are many issues. For one, it will have to gain a critical mass of books to be more than a novelty. And if it really works as described above, they rely on others to bring books to them. With anyone else, I'd be very sceptical, but Google does have the sheer brand power to actually get publishers to send in books. On the other hand, maybe sent in books are just part of it and they also index books out of their own volition, which as you said brings up copyright concerns.
If that works out, I'm curious to see how they will enforce the viewing limitations. It says that you'll be able to view the two pages before and after the one you found. It also says it records data to track which books you've already seen, assumingly to prevent you from seeing more than those 5 or another number of pages of any book, ever. It does not say whether or not you're required to log in an account, but that would seem to be the only way to prevent people from simply refusing a cookie or clearing them to see another 5 pages. Of course, Google is using accounts for most of it's add-on services, at least as an option, but I think it'd be a first for an account required to gain access to a certain search engine feature.
And of course even with accounts, they wouldn't be very safe at all from malignent users, who could run multiple accounts, or groups of users who pool their pages to get the whole thing. Granted, it would take many users and more importantly a lot of time to get a 300 page novel, but groups working together to violate copyrights using an enormous amount of technical know-how are hardly new to the Internet. It's probably simpler to just scan and OCR the whole thing yourself, though.
Google everything! (Score:2, Insightful)
camel (Score:5, Interesting)
I know it's already all in digital format, it's just a matter of emailing it to google.
go, tim, go.
Re:camel (Score:3, Insightful)
Example... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=mozclient&ie =utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=mastering+digital+photograph y [google.com]
Available *now* (Score:2, Informative)
Project Gutenberg isn't useful to Google because they display picture of every page. You can even see the book covers.
Google really does know its business (Score:5, Interesting)
Now what would be really sweet would be for Google to convince the music and movie industries to let it index song lyrics and movie scripts. That would be just another nail in the coffin for Google's competitors and it probably wouldn't be that difficult to do.
smart move (Score:4, Insightful)
it seems they are going to succeed again
In case Google gets slashdotted... (Score:3, Funny)
It's funny, laugh.
A Plagiarist's Dilemma (Score:5, Interesting)
Saving the content (Score:2)
What can I do with books that I find?
Well, you can browse a few pages, learn more about the topics explored by the book, buy it, or commit a selection to memory. To further protect your book content, printing and image copying functions are disabled on all Google Print content pages.
Everyone seems to be assuming that the book text will be there on the page as plain text. Nope -- it looks like it will be an image, and Google will be putting in whatever tech they can to prevent you from sav
The publishers are adamantly against this (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem, ultimately, is that showing the page you are looking for, plus or minus two pages, is often all the pages you need to see for a great many bookes e.g. books that are randomly accessed in a reference fashion. As an example of this, my girlfriend routinely searches cookbooks online using this very feature. It shows her the recipe she was looking for from an expensive cookbook, and plus or minus a couple pages, which means she gets the entire recipes -- the primary benefit of the book -- online for free. And she uses this as an example of why her publishing houses won't participate.
For STM publishers and similar, 90% of their product line could be used this way. Letting Amazon (or Google) give away book content in a searchable format five pages at a time would dramatically eat into their sales without generating any revenue. Most of the books you do see in this system are either 1) books from minor publishers too stupid to have thought this through, or 2) a very short list of throwaway books from major publishers to prove to Amazon and themselves that it actually eats sales rather than driving them -- the consensus of the publishing industry. It would have died a long time ago except that it is the pet project of someone high up in Amazon.
Re:The publishers are adamantly against this (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, having books online for browsing increases sales. Just think about going to the book store and paging through a book before you buy it... You are much less likely to buy a book that is shrink-wrapped, because you have no idea of the quality of the book.
Re:The publishers are adamantly against this (Score:2)
This is what has happened with the Baen Free Library [baen.com], and it's also happened with my own books [lightandmatter.com], and books from some some other publishers [theassayer.org]. It may not be universally true for every type of book, however. For instance, some college textbooks are so overpriced that students really are motivated strongly to photocopy them, etc. This book [amazon.com], for example, is $134, which is just insane.
Re:The publishers are adamantly against this (Score:2)
If I'm randomly browsing, I'm more likely to get sold on the book by touching, reading, being entertained by the pretty photos. I've mentally own the book.
If I go to Google, its because I'm searching for some information. Once I get it, in the 1 or 2 pages, I'm done.
Re:The publishers are adamantly against this (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The publishers are adamantly against this (Score:2)
Re:The publishers are adamantly against this (Score:2)
Re:The publishers are adamantly against this (Score:4, Insightful)
There are many ways to go around the problems described in the message from the publisher, but all of them require a re-thinking of the publishing business and their economic model.
Re:The publishers are adamantly against this (Score:3, Insightful)
How many dead tree encyclopedia's are being sold these days?
Google seems to be pretty good at killing stupid business models, so I for one look forward to watching these particular dinosaurs die.
Re:The publishers are adamantly against this (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The publishers are adamantly against this (Score:2)
Re:The publishers are adamantly against this (Score:3, Interesting)
An information shift is arriving (Score:2, Insightful)
Piracy (Score:2, Informative)
From Google Print's FAQ:
Can I read an entire book online?
No, afraid not. Google Print is designed to help you discover books, not read them from start to finish. It's like going to a bookstore and browsing - only with a Google twist. Google searches across entire books in order to find the pages that are most relevant to your search. Once you're on a book page, you can 'flip' two pages forward and back, view other information about the book and even conduct ano
Re:Piracy (Score:3, Interesting)
Example:
I search for the book, go to the first page. I then download/save the next two pages. Then, I search for a line of text on the second page, go to that page, and then have the NEXT two pages available to me. If I keep doing this, I can read the entire book, although it may take a while.
Re:Piracy (Score:2)
GBrowser!
Just to put this out there (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just to put this out there (Score:2)
Truth Stranger than Fiction? (Score:2, Funny)
(for the humor impaired, the above is a joke)
Hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
If google were interested in following "Don't be evil", wouldn't they make this feature a seperate search form, rather than placing their advertisements right in the middle of my search results?
Maybe I just misunderstand.. Correct me if I'm wrong
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
If you RTFL ( http://print.google.com/googleprint/about_example . html ), these aren't "advertisements;" they're actual excerpts and descriptions of the book. It might even contain the info that you want (e.g. a quotation). The advertisements are on the side (left rather than right) of the linke
Re: (Score:2)
That's too bad really (Score:3, Insightful)
Let them put that in sponsored results if they want, but I don't think anyone will buy the stuff.How do I know the books is good if I can not look at portions of it I consider important in a bookstore?
Re:That's too bad really (Score:2)
My brand loyalty for google dies the second they waste as much of my time as it takes me to change my bookmarks and firefox search engines to point to a less spammy search engine.
Easily Circumvented Copy Protection (Score:2, Informative)
".theimg { background-image:url("http://print.google.com/pri n t?id=[really long semi-gibberish name]")"
and copy the url, obtaining a plain image that you can do whatever you want with... uhm, within the law,
FAQ #5 -- Google's DRM for your web browser (Score:5, Informative)
Google for Mastering Digital Photography [google.com] and you'll see a Google Print link up front. The page is shown as a graphic, with search hits highlighted in yellow. Google somehow (probably a though a CSS hack) manages to substitute a 1x1 white pixel
I'm not sure I like this. This is fairly innocuous (they can't stop a screen capture), but it still bothers me a bit that a company whose motto is "Do No Evil" is dabbling in DRM...
Page Limit (Score:2, Informative)
Thank you for using Google Print.
You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.
Google protects works that are under copyright by restricting access to certain pages and restricting the number of pages you can view. You may continue to take advantage of Google Print by clicking on About this Book. Thank you for using Google P
Re:FAQ #5 -- Google's DRM for your web browser (Score:3, Insightful)
First, they set display:none; on the containing div for media:print. Second, the image is a css background-image, which may be hard to grab with the context menu. (and yo
Sometimes you can search too much (Score:2, Informative)
I actually preferred Amazon's default search algorithm before they introduced "Search Inside the Book", because it limited its searches to the bibliographic data. Now when I do a search I get lots of books that contain the words I'm searching for, but that's not usually what I want. Annoying, and I have to go to the advanced search page for what I want.
I think keeping Google's Web index separate from the Print index is a good thing, based on this experience.
Eric
Why the Vioxx recall is good for Google [ericgiguere.com]
Augmented Memory (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the problems I have with reading books is that I'm so used to using my PC to augment my memory (that is, I use search instead of remembering things), that when I read a book and come across a name, I instinctively want to Ctrl-F it to find the last occurence so I can fill my short-term memory with backstory on that character.
Fortunately, amazon.com has full-text searching that gives you the page number of your query, making finding the last occurance super easy.
Now we have this. Awesome++
Great idea...rock on, Google (Score:2, Interesting)
A request to Google (Score:4, Interesting)
There are plenty of books that are out of print with no copyright restrictions on them. Since google has plenty of resources and aims to put all available information in the hands of users, would they please consider putting up the entire text of such books online? (Since there is no copyright on these books, there should be no '2 page backward -2 page forward' restrictions on them.)
It would be awesome since there are some really great books which one cannot purchase anymore since they are out of print (unless you are really lucky and find them on eBay). Having Google put up full text versions (or pdf versions) would be the ultimate feature.
See Gutenberg for complete text to many books. (Score:3, Informative)
Project Gutenberg [gutenberg.net] already does this.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as if Google can search Gutenberg texts. In this case, you could always download the texts from Gutenberg and index them yourself. Gutenberg texts have expired copyright
Other new google stuff (Score:2)
Basically with my ineptitude to use the one button mouse I accidently clicked on some whitespace in gmail or something and got to a login screen. I took a note of the URL so that I could post it on slashdot, but didn't keep up with my notes after my story got rejected.
I logged in with my gmail info and was given access to the google store (really cool) and google answers (google answers is already know
Uh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or should we also stop using text for the content on web pages? Should slashdot convert all text to PNGs?
(and how long until OCR makes that useless anyway?)
Re:great... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Steal book (Score:2)
#
# Does Google keep track of the pages I'm viewing?
In order to enforce content viewing limits, we must keep track of page views by users. We do not associate any of your searches, or the specific pages you view, with personally identifiable information about you, such as your name or address. We're only concerned with the number of pages you've viewed in the particular book you're looking at. As always, we strongly encourage you to read our Privacy Policy (and everyone el
Re:Steal book (Score:2)
If the have to resort to attempting to maintain state with users in order to restrict the number of pages a certain person can load per book, they will find all their books being ripped off very quickly.
Re:Steal book (Score:2)
Re:This Just Proves it! (Score:4, Funny)
skynet.google.com is still in Alpha. hal.google.com might be a little closer, but it keeps calling me 'Dave' for some reason.
Why Google Still Isn't Evil (Score:2)
First it was the web, then usenet, then everyones email, and now the sum of our written words as well.
Ah, but see, Google still isn't evil. Microsoft is evil, because they use their position to establish lock-in -- producing services that don't interoperate and so forth. However, Google just makes better systems than their competitors. Google has no exclusive deals or access that would prevent anyone from sett
Re:mine a book through google (Score:2, Funny)
Does anybody know if they're using texts from Guternburg for this? It'd be a good combination.
Re:mine a book through google (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think Google is using PG for this, but PG does use Google for their '"Nearly full text" search (the first 100K or so of .html, .txt, .pdf, etc.)' (see PG's Catalog [gutenberg.net] page.) If you want to search it directly from Google, try using something like
Unfortunatly, while it works, it could be much better...
Re:Download An Entire Book? (Score:2)
Re:Download An Entire Book? (Score:2)
*the other problem with this is that it's not accessable -- good luck trying to use Google print if you're blind or u
Two attacks (Score:2)
There are two obvious attacks on this system. The first is automatable, and just involves searching for common words like "the", "and" and "but" and scraping the results to work out which pages you're getting. Keep on at it until you have every page (or at least every page you are interested in) and you can rebuild an entire chapter or even an entire book locally. Since the highlighting is predictable it would be trivial to have a mapping from the highlight colors to the non-highlight colors.
The second att
Re:Two attacks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Download An Entire Book? (Score:2)