I was actually at the talk Rasmussen gave at the University of Sydney. He gave quite a good explanation of how it all works. I wrote about it here: http://freespace.atomicscript.com/. Note, however, that I'm not a web developer or particularly good with javascript, so my interpretation of what he said could well have errors.
For all those saying that repeated searches would allow you to read the entire text of copyrighted books, this is simply not true. Google has three sets of pages for each book that is not public domain: there are a few pages which are unrestricted, anyone can view them; there are more pages which you can view only by logging in with a Google account - and Google keeps track of how many you view and only allows you to see a certain number - and there are pages that are never available to anyone, logged in or not. There is no way you can read the entirety of the book.
More information here:
http://print.google.com/googleprint/help.html
(of particular interest are questions 2, 3 and 4)
Slashdot Mirror
In Australia, someone patented the wheel.
They even won an Ig Nobel prize for it (Technology, 2001).
I was actually at the talk Rasmussen gave at the University of Sydney. He gave quite a good explanation of how it all works. I wrote about it here: http://freespace.atomicscript.com/. Note, however, that I'm not a web developer or particularly good with javascript, so my interpretation of what he said could well have errors.
For all those saying that repeated searches would allow you to read the entire text of copyrighted books, this is simply not true. Google has three sets of pages for each book that is not public domain: there are a few pages which are unrestricted, anyone can view them; there are more pages which you can view only by logging in with a Google account - and Google keeps track of how many you view and only allows you to see a certain number - and there are pages that are never available to anyone, logged in or not. There is no way you can read the entirety of the book. More information here: http://print.google.com/googleprint/help.html (of particular interest are questions 2, 3 and 4)