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Microsoft Releases Book Search

Posted by samzenpus on from the bill-can-find-that-book dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft is releasing its Live Search Books, a rival to Google's Book Search, in test, or beta, version in the US. The digital archive will include books from the collections of the British Library, the University of California and the University of Toronto. Books from three other institutions will be added in January 2007. All the books currently included in the project will be non-copyrighted but later it will also add copyrighted work that publishers have given permission to include in the project."

7 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Wasn't this expected? by El+Lobo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And you mean that Linux (an Unix CLONE!!!!!) is better in originality? For crying out loud :-)

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    It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
  2. Duplication of Effort by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What a wasted duplication of effort. I'd rather have both companies get together and make one good product for all of us to use at either half the cost, or twice the breadth and quality.

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    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
    1. Re:Duplication of Effort by silentounce · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If both companies got together then prices most likely wouldn't be less and the quality wouldn't be near as great. Keep it the way it is.

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      There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think. -Victor Hugo
    2. Re:Duplication of Effort by Stinky+Fartface · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Nonsense. Competition is good for the industry. While Microsoft are hardly known for being innovators, they have proven an ability to evolve an established idea. Google's book search will become better because of the competition Microsoft poses.

  3. Oh, for Pete's Sake by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Please Microsoft, do something new that's not copying Apple and Google.

    Let's all now go look at Google Labs and predict the next 12 Microsoft products....

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  4. Re:The thinnest of books by archen · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Lack of innovation jokes aside, what does this buy Microsoft exactly? I can understand Google's craziness due to their goal of indexing the world's information - and as such Google also tends to have many projects that don't yield profitable results. But Microsoft? This is a software company first. Maybe a search engine company in a way. Yet I don't see how indexing books gains them ANYTHING, aside from just doing what Google is doing... because it's doing it. Much like a little little kid who emulates his father hammering things to "fix" them, but not understanding the purpose of the hammering, nor doing it in a manner that actually fixes anything.

  5. Re:Wasn't this expected? by Kopl · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you want to show anger towards linux, I recommend choosing a different path than complaining about it being built to standards like Posix and SUS.

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