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Google Print:
A New Era For The Search Engine When Google
said its mission was to make all the world's information searchable,
it wasn't kidding. On Monday afternoon the company announced
plans to digitize and make searchable portions of the collections
of five of the world's leading research libraries.
Over the next few years Google will scan and index nearly
all the 8 million books in Stanford's collection and the 7
million at the University of Michigan. It will do the same
for portions of the New York Public Library and libraries
at Harvard and Oxford.
The effort, the largest of its kind ever attempted, will
create searchable database of some 50 million titles.
Within six years we will be able to view online the full text
of a vast assortment of titles in public domain and excerpts
from those still under copyright. In each case text will be
presented with full bibliographic information and pointers
to libraries or online merchants where the books can be found.
It's a project of unparalleled scope, one all the more astonishing
because Google is underwriting a large portion of it at a
cost some estimate to be $10 per title. "Going as fast
as we can with the traditional means of doing this, it would
take us about 1,600 years to do all 7 million volumes,"
said John Wilkin, associate librarian at the University of
Michigan, where Google co-founder Larry Page received his
bachelor of science degree in engineering. "Google
will do it in six years. If we were to do this job ourselves,
it would probably cost us $600 million. That's just the human
cost of preparing the material for scanning, packing it up
and sending it out to vendors and then quality-control checking
of the results. This is easily a billion-dollar effort. I
can't imagine there's anything out there on this scale. Nothing
has been conceived on this scale. It's access to a research
collection that we never would have dared imagine possible.
Anyone with an Internet connection now has access to a vast
research library." Google
Print
Anti-spam ruling nets ISP
$1.3 billion December 19, 2004
A federal judge has awarded an internet service provider more
than $US1 billion ($A1.3 billion) in what is believed to be
the largest judgment ever against spammers.
Robert Kramer, whose company provides e-mail service for about
5,000 subscribers in eastern Iowa, filed suit against 300
spammers after his inbound mail servers received up to 10
million spam e-mails a day in 2000, according to court documents.
US District Judge Charles R Wolle filed default judgments
Friday against three of the defendants under the Federal Racketeer
Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act (RICO) and the Iowa
Ongoing Criminal Conduct Act.
AMP Dollar Savings Inc of Mesa, Arizona, was ordered to pay
$US720 million ($A944.6 million) and Cash Link Systems Inc
of Miami, Florida, was ordered to pay $US360 million ($A472.3
million).
The third company, Florida-based TEI Marketing Group, was
ordered to pay $US140,000 ($A184,000).
"It's definitely a victory for all of us that open up
our e-mail and find lewd and malicious and fraudulent e-mail
in our boxes every day," Kramer said after the ruling.
Kramer's attorney, Kelly Wallace, said he is unlikely to
ever collect the judgment, which was made possible by
an Iowa law that allows plaintiffs to claim damages of $US10
($A13) per spam message. The judgments were then tripled under
RICO.
"We hope to recover at least his costs," Wallace
said.
AP
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