4) News – Commentary

Google is in the final stages of it’s re-architecture of it’s search engine called “caffeine”. It is expected to be released incrementally starting some time in November.

Here is a short video from Matt Cuts interview with WebPro News on the implications of caffeine to web site promotion.

The video below showcases a rather interesting piece of technology from Google. It has been developed by the Google Books division that has managed to digitize more than one million classic books available from Google Books online for free.

There is some controversy surrounding the project, because Google choose to digitize not only books that are out of copyright, but also those that are out of print, without discrimination between the two. Google plans to sell books through online retailers as well as direct to consumers.

As an author, I’m sure you would have some objection to your out of print work being digitized by Google. Apparently royalty issues will all be worked out in court between Google and the groups representing writers. A ruling ix expected sometime in November, but a final settlement may not be reached until sometime in 2010.

Anyway, here is a rather marvelous printing and binding machine that can print a small Google book in about 3-4 minutes. Rather cool, don’t you think ?

See also a recent update on the status of the court decision from Bits – NY Times Google Books Decision Delayed Indefinitely

Interesting story from Bits – NY times