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MSN to Launch Book Search
Techtree News Staff, Oct 26, 2005 1713 hrs ISTMicrosoft's aim is to build a rich index of information, which will deliver trusted content from the best sources.
MSN Search has announced that it will launch "MSN Book Search", to help people find content on the Web, including book content, periodicals, academic materials, and other print resources. An initial beta of "MSN Book Search" will be released next year.
Plans are also in the offing to join the Open Content Alliance (OCA), and work with the organization to scan and digitize publicly available print materials, as also protected materials after obtaining necessary legal rights.
Incidentally, the OCA is a collaboration of cultural, technological, non-profit and governmental organizations across the globe, which aims at building a permanent archive of multimedia content and multi-lingual digitized text.
Christopher Payne, corporate vice president - MSN Search, Microsoft, said, "With MSN Book Search, we are excited to be working with libraries worldwide, to digitize and index information from the world's printed materials, taking another step in our efforts to better answer people's questions, with trusted content from the best sources."
"We believe people will benefit from the ability to not just view a page, but to easily act on that data in contextually relevant ways, both online in the search experience and in the applications they are using", said Payne.
Brewster Kahle, digital librarian and founder, Internet Archive, said, "We are proud that MSN is working with the OCA, in the shared vision of creating a better, more relevant search experience for people around the world."
MSN will first digitize and make available books, that are in the public domain. It will then work on other types of offline content. While digitizing content, MSN will respect all copyrights and work with partners, towards developing mutually agreeable copy protection rights.
Microsoft says "MSN Book Search" will enrich people's search experiences, and facilitate book club interactions, informal family reading, indexing of images, using of graphics & keywords, etc, thus making for faster and better retrieval of information.
Microsoft's larger aim is to build a rich index of information, which will deliver trusted content from the best sources, not just Web pages.
"We are committed to working with various institutions, to combine our technology and software innovation to deliver rich, treasured content that is not broadly available today. By combining our deep software investments in advanced reading technologies, productivity- and community-based applications, such as MSN Messenger, and new capabilities in the Windows platform, will combine to make a powerful book search experience, that will help people access new information and interact with it in entirely
new ways", said Payne.
While on the subject of book searches, last week, 5 publishing houses reportedly filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that Google is engaging in wilful infringement of copyrights, for its "Google Print" Library Project. The Author's Guild, an advocacy group for published writers, had filed a similar suit against Google in September.
Google has countered, saying that the library project is legal as it allows copyright holders to opt out of it.
Meanwhile, despite all the lawsuits, some obscure and first-time writers are lining up on Google s side, arguing that the benefits of inclusion in the online database, outweigh the drawbacks.
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Plans are also in the offing to join the Open Content Alliance (OCA), and work with the organization to scan and digitize publicly available print materials, as also protected materials after obtaining necessary legal rights.
Incidentally, the OCA is a collaboration of cultural, technological, non-profit and governmental organizations across the globe, which aims at building a permanent archive of multimedia content and multi-lingual digitized text.
Christopher Payne, corporate vice president - MSN Search, Microsoft, said, "With MSN Book Search, we are excited to be working with libraries worldwide, to digitize and index information from the world's printed materials, taking another step in our efforts to better answer people's questions, with trusted content from the best sources."
"We believe people will benefit from the ability to not just view a page, but to easily act on that data in contextually relevant ways, both online in the search experience and in the applications they are using", said Payne.
Brewster Kahle, digital librarian and founder, Internet Archive, said, "We are proud that MSN is working with the OCA, in the shared vision of creating a better, more relevant search experience for people around the world."
MSN will first digitize and make available books, that are in the public domain. It will then work on other types of offline content. While digitizing content, MSN will respect all copyrights and work with partners, towards developing mutually agreeable copy protection rights.
Microsoft says "MSN Book Search" will enrich people's search experiences, and facilitate book club interactions, informal family reading, indexing of images, using of graphics & keywords, etc, thus making for faster and better retrieval of information.
Microsoft's larger aim is to build a rich index of information, which will deliver trusted content from the best sources, not just Web pages.
"We are committed to working with various institutions, to combine our technology and software innovation to deliver rich, treasured content that is not broadly available today. By combining our deep software investments in advanced reading technologies, productivity- and community-based applications, such as MSN Messenger, and new capabilities in the Windows platform, will combine to make a powerful book search experience, that will help people access new information and interact with it in entirely
new ways", said Payne.
While on the subject of book searches, last week, 5 publishing houses reportedly filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that Google is engaging in wilful infringement of copyrights, for its "Google Print" Library Project. The Author's Guild, an advocacy group for published writers, had filed a similar suit against Google in September.
Google has countered, saying that the library project is legal as it allows copyright holders to opt out of it.
Meanwhile, despite all the lawsuits, some obscure and first-time writers are lining up on Google s side, arguing that the benefits of inclusion in the online database, outweigh the drawbacks.
SMS REV to 59995 to get expert reviews on latest phones, laptops, cameras and more.
SMS TIPS to 59995 to get Tips and Tricks for phones, laptops, cameras and more.
Rs. 3 per SMS
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