Google Book Search has, up until now, provided images of text; these were fine for reading, but not so great for anything else. So the service is taking a step forward and offering true “text layers” of many of its out-of-copyright books.
Google’s DoubleClick Buy Draws EU Criticism
The latest concerns come from the European Consumers’ Organization (BEUC), which found plenty of reason to worry about DoubleClick and Google merging their consumer databases and mining them.
Google Takes Another Shot At Transliteration
Translating something from Spanish to English is a neat trick, but both languages use the same alphabet. Google’s looking at something tougher – transliteration – to bridge the gaps between America and several different markets.
Google Blogging, Good And Bad
Google may have lost the last of its innocence with an ill-advised rah-rah blog post for the healthcare industry, but made an effort to recover with a redesign of its philanthropic Google.org site.
Google Sorrier For Sicko Comments
Google’s apparently very, very sorry about Google Health Advertising blogger Lauren Turner’s comments criticizing Michael Moore’s film Sicko – so sorry the company’s PR department put out a statement and resident star blogger Matt Cutts put out a guide to corporate blogging.
Google Docs To Get More Reference Sources
Piece o’ news number one: Google intends to make Encyclopedia Britannica, as well as Merriam-Webster’s dictionary and thesaurus, available in Google Docs. Piece o’ news number two: if you don’t feel like waiting on the Mountain View-based company, you can access those same resources right now.
Golf Club Company Takes A Swing At Google
Four major domainer firms are being sued for filling (otherwise unused) sites with ads. One other corporation – Google – has also been named in the class action complaint; Google provided the ads.
Google Expands On Net Neutrality Issues
Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel Google has put together a three-part blog post outlining Google’s approach to Net Neutrality, what the company feels is okay for broadband providers to do, what’s not okay, and where they have misled the public.
MapJack: Google Street View For San Francisco
If you live in (or are going to visit) San Francisco, there’s a neat new website for you to use. If you live anywhere else, well . . . there’s a neat new website for you to look at. MapJack, which can be compared with Google’s Street View, only works in that one Californian city.
Google Maps Gets Drag-and-Drop Options
There have been a number of times that I’ve doubted a mapping service’s wisdom – perhaps I think it’s better to use Leader, instead of Virginia, Avenue. Another scenario involves me finding my final destination, but then deciding to park a block or two away. A new drag-and-drop feature in Google Maps has the flexibility to handle both these situations.