Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Plan Would Allow Text Search Of Books
emmastory writes "The New York Times is running a story (free registration required) about a new development at Amazon - they plan to assemble "a searchable online archive with the texts of tens of thousands of books of nonfiction." Users would only be able to read a certain portion of the text from any one book, but it sounds promising nonetheless. The Times article suggests that this is part of a larger strategy to compete with Google and Yahoo by making Amazon an authoritative source of information on everything book-related."
Shouldn't somebody patent this process before Bezos does??
I remember when doing a search on Amazon for "Database Admin" returned the number 1 response of "The fine art of vaginal fisting" and the reviews that it prompted ... pushing this book up into the top 100 bestsellers. Now what would the ability to read some text from books do ;-)
I always find it annoying when reading a paper boo when I can't Ctrl-F to find a certain segment.
Now I can just hop online to amazon, do the search, it will tell me what page it's on, and I can go read it!
no comment
And minimum wage laborers in 3rd world countries find themselves scanning books into computers and correcting the text using crappy OCR technology for 12 hours a day. This is one job I'd be happy to export to India.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
and if you look for "TEH", will you be redirected to Salshdot ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Any returns of C or C++ code might get SCO's law team on your ass..
Trolling is a art,
Isn't this a violation of the privacy of all the people who have biographies for sale at amazon? John Ashcroft could search the text and find out anything they want about Abraham Lincoln! This article should be listed under "Your Rights Online".
This will then prompt publishers to include several pages at the beginning of every book with nothing but "sex sex sex sex sex sex..."
"Of course this *could* be great for college paper researchers, looking for a quote or two to stick in a research paper. Depends on how much meat you can really get at."
College is great in this respect. No matter how crazy, ill-conceived, or outlandish your premise is, there are a thousand nut-jobs out there with nice quotations to support it. This would make it even easier to back that dribble up. Especially late the night before it's due, when you need to support that last flimsy claim in order for your paper to make sense.
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search a little, store a little. Search a little store a little more.
Pretty soon you'll have the entire book.
They'll have an app out to search the pieces out and stich them together into one complete book..
Yeah, this will work, thanks for the free ebooks Amazon..
Crikey - you're right - I bet Amazon didn't think of that. We should get Jeff Bezos on the phone right now and tell him.
Oh no, hang on, it seems that they have thought of it. Thank goodness for that - no need for an eagle eyed Slashdot reader to point out the error of their ways.
It seems that, because Amazon has the entire publishing industry over a barrel nowadays, just a few quick calls from Amazon to their biggest suppliers, and a notice in publishers' weekly, and they can go ahead and do whatever they like with the content of the books they sell.
You know, in some music stores, you can go up to listening points and hear music, on demand, without paying for it. D'you think the RIAA should be told? I bet they'd be really keen to sue their key supply channel for this obvious copyright infringement...
*Accessing http://www.amazon.com/search*
Enter your search criteria:______________
*Enter search "Moby Dick"*
Search Complete:
Moby Dick
by: Herman Melville
Call me...
Would You Like to Read More? This title can be purchased for $14.95 through our...
*Back Button*
Enter your search criteria_____________
*Enter search "Tale of Two Cities"*
Search Complete:
A Tale of Two Cities
by: Charles Dickens
It was the best of times, it was the...
Would You Like to Read More? This title can be purchased for $29.95 through our...
*Back Button-Back Button-Back Button-Close*