Larry Ellison

Google Books: Primitive

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Google Books

Have you tried to go through the books? They have tried their best to give you the "book" experience. You turn over the page. The dirty white look is there. The whole nine yards.

I understand these are books only available in print format. So you are doing the best you can, fine. But if you can scan the words, maybe you can present them like regular webpages.

Or maybe have two versions. One would be what you have. Another would be for new authors, new books. Say you are an author, and you wrote a college textbook for Physics 101. You don't want to go to any publisher. Instead you want it directly published online. Instead of a blog, you have a book. So the presentation will have to be different. I mean, you can tweak the current blog templates, and you can alread do that, but it is still too tech-heavy, not still author friendly.

An author should be able to sign up and publish easy. The process should be as simple as possible, with as few steps as possible. The difference between Geocities and Blogger is not that much, technically speaking, but for the average user it is huge. Similarly, Google Books should offer an option that makes it super easy for authors to go online on a lookout for a global audience.

The end products should look like a webpage, navigable, searchable, with ads that make money for authors. Google should perhaps tweak its ad offerings to make it better for book authors, perhaps a 70-30 split in favor of the author.



You could take the book reading experience to a whole different level. If you are a reader who is signed in, you should be able to highlight through the books, online. You should be able to save books in your account, books you might want to read later, you should be able to bookmark to the point you have read.

Is there technology that would make it not possible to copy more than 100 words at a time? Or give the authors the option to turn off the copy feature altogether?

The technology is already there. We just got to make the leap.

Produce books that look like webpages, not like old books. Make navigation webby, not bookey. Let new authors bypass the whole publishing mechanism. Let them have total control. Not all will be read as widely, but let anyone publish.

In The News

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Video, Software Enhancements Mark Cisco Conference PC Magazine
Nasdaq Threatens to Delist Dell SDA Asia Magazine
Have You Seen? Google Start Page Now Bundled With Dell PCs Web Host Industry Review
Hewlett-Packard gets 5-year postal service pact extension MarketWatch
January Set As 'Month Of Apple Bugs' InformationWeek
Intel Develops E-Quran, Saudi E-Curriculum Tech2
Intel Chairman unveils Egypt's first 'Digital Village' ZDNetIndia
Ericsson buys Redback to challenge Cisco Register
Review: ThinkFree Office Suite Attracts Users -- And Google InformationWeek
Google and Orange to create ’Google Phone’ mobile phone. OneCompare
Google's Latest Partnership Is Out of This World Motley Fool
Analyst Still Sees Rough Times For Yahoo! Forbes
Market Ratings Put Google on Top, Yahoo! Close Behind SDA Asia Magazine
IBM joins growing ranks in ending options for directors MarketWatch
IBM to End Stock Options for Directors Houston Chronicle
IBM to boost director retainer to $200,000 per year MarketWatch
Oracle: All Business, No Show Motley Fool
Oracle Offers New Licensing Model Baseline
Stench still hangs over Wal-Mart Chicago Sun-Times

Google's Latest Partnership Is Out of This World Motley Fool
YouTube and Google Video Subscriptions in Outlook Email Search Engine Watch
Google’s book-scanning efforts trigger philosophical debate Boston Herald, United States an alternative project promising better online access to the world’s books, art and historical documents. .... A splinter group called the Open Content Alliance favors a less restrictive approach to prevent mankind’s accumulated knowledge from being controlled by a commercial entity ....... the Open Content Alliance will not scan copyrighted content unless it receives the permission of the copyright owner. Most of the roughly 100,000 books that the alliance has scanned so far are works whose copyrights have expired. ..... The company will only acknowledge that it is scanning more than 3,000 books per day - a rate that translates into more than 1 million annually. Google also is footing a bill expected to exceed $100 million to make the digital copies - a commitment that appeals to many libraries. ...... None of Google’s contracts prevent participating libraries from making separate scanning arrangements with other organizations ..... Despite its ongoing support for the Open Content Alliance, Microsoft earlier this month launched a book-scanning project to compete with Google. ....... All but one of the libraries contributing content to Google so far are part of universities. They are: Harvard, Stanford, Michigan, Oxford, California, Virginia, Wisconsin-Madison, and Complutense of Madrid. The New York Public Library also is relying on Google to scan some of its books.
Google's book-scanning efforts trigger philosophical debate Hindu
Google, splinter group face-off on e-books Business Standard
Google library: Open culture? CNN International
Alternative to Google Image Search? Techtree.com, India
Facial Recognition Software to Find Familiar Faces GameSHOUT
New firm aims to be a Google for photos CNNMoney.com
Face Recognition Coming to Image Searching Digitaltrends.com
Internet Archive expands book digitizing effort Computerworld, MA
Google Book-Scanning Efforts Spark Debate Washington Post, United States
Google’s e-Book Project Sees Challenge SDA Asia Magazine, Singapore
Google Book-Scanning Debate Heats Up Redmondmag.com, CA

PC

The PC market is not as sexy as it used to be, both on the hardware and the software end. A Windows release does not carry the same excitement. Many of the Office products can be had for free online these days. If there is no large scale migration yet, the online products still need polishing up, and businesses are reluctant to let go. And there is sheer inertia. And like a Microsoft top dog said recently, you can't do video editing online. There are things that will stay on the PC, no matter how fast your internet connection. I doubt that claim will hold at substantially higher speeds though.

The hardware has also been sluggish. It has become a mature industry. Dell is not the razmatazz name it used to be.

There is only so much innovation and inundation possible within a set paradigm. Like Larry Ellison once said, the software industry will morph into something akin to what the utility companies are like today.

It is not exactly a dud, to be sure. Things are still happening. We will still see mini-waves, like the iPod wave. You tweak and twan and create a lifestyle.

And there is this vast ocean of humanity to speak of that is still not connected, that huge no-PC world to be harnessed. It will be innovation enough to find ways to get them into the casting net, not all of it technological.

So what is the next big thing? It is not Windows, for sure. I mean, with Windows, they keep adding bells and whistles that can be had online for free. They play a little with the graphics.

Google's innovations are not of the PC era. Google is a whole new cloud.



I keep thinking, since Google can not do everything, it needs to license out its ad mechanism so other startups can use the same model to provide other services to consumers, like free PCs and free wireless broadband and stuff.

On The Web

A New Breed in the Computer Biz BusinessWeek
Hardware Pioneers: The Next Generation These next-generation computers are faster, less expensive, and more energy-efficient.
Blade Servers: Beyond the Cutting Edge
A Peek at Tomorrow's Coolest Tech
Solving the Superspeed Dilemma
Predictions for PC Makers hardware vendors are trying to offset the negative impact on profits by offering services, servers, and storage that carry wider margins .... all the PC vendors are competing on price, due to the highly commoditized nature of the mature PC industry. .... computer makers are trying to get the PC to be like your TV -- just plug it in and go.

Predictions for PC Makers
Lenovo Sees Itself as Top PC Maker in Five Years PC Magazine ... Top Chinese personal computer maker Lenovo Group will start to sell its namesake personal computers outside China in the first quarter of next year as part of its long-term plan to build the world's leading PC brand ..... its $1.25 billion acquisition of International Business Machines Corp.'s PC unit. ..... The acquisition has made it the third-biggest global PC vendor behind Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. ..... The company spends 1.5 percent of its revenue on research, about twice the standard rate for the industry. It has plans to set up research centers in North Carolina and Beijing. ...... Emerging markets in India, China, and Brazil will be major growth areas. ..... Cross-borders mergers are notoriously difficult to carry out. The Lenovo-IBM deal is particularly challenging because the drastic difference between East and West cultures. ...... During early meetings, Western managers were very engaged in the discussion while people from China were generally quiet. When they speak, they tend to ponder, sometimes resulting in five-second pauses. .... "We are teaching our Western colleagues to be comfortable with silence in a conversation and Chinese colleagues to be 'rude"
Dell: Two Top PC Makers Will Die This Year Dell grew more than 40 percent in the fourth quarter, year-on-year, compared with an average of only 9.2 percent for the entire industry.
HP back on top of PC market | CNET News.com January 14, 2004 .... Hewlett-Packard overtook Dell to become the world's largest PC maker in the fourth quarter in a market that is both growing and growing more difficult. ..... In 2000, 140.2 million PCs left factories and accounted for an estimated $226 billion in value ...... In 2003, a record 152.6 million PCs were shipped ...... Dell doesn't sell many PCs through retail stores and typically gives up some ground to competitors during the last three months of the year as a result. ..... HP and Dell have traded off the lead a number of times since HP completed its merger with Compaq in spring 2002. ..... eMachines jumped into the top five manufacturers in the United States, according to Kay, passing both Gateway and Apple Computer ..... Shipments in Japan slowed to single digits after the passage of a recycling law.
Dell expands lead in still-growing PC market | CNET News.com
Slashdot | HP Regains Throne as Top PC Maker
PC World - Software, Hardware, Electronics & Gadgets Reviews ...
Apple enters top 5 US PC makers - Mac - Macworld UK
PC Pro: News: The UK's top PC makers revealed - and much more
HP passes Dell as top PC maker - Systems & Components - www.crn.com.au

In The News

Dell wrestles with its accounting MarketWatch
Dell to hike India investments Daily News & Analysis
HP, Dell earnings are spoiled by scandal BusinessWeek
Hewlett-Packard names Wachovia CEO to board, fills void after spy ... Canada.com
Smoke and Mirrors at Hewlett-Packard: Fool by Numbers MSNBC
Ahead of the Bell: Hewlett-Packard Down BusinessWeek
Apple Shares Soar on Sales Outlook BusinessWeek
Apple’s new 13″ MacBook is a good buy, but in specific cases ZDNet
Intel Raises Vietnam's High-Tech Profile FOX News
Intel Inside Out Motley Fool
Notebook News: Systemax Releases Intel Core2 Duo Processor ... MobileTechReview.com
Cisco Steals a March TheStreet.com
Chambers Becomes Cisco Chairman CRN
Cisco separates offices of CEO and president Reuters
Microsoft the enemy to Red Hat and Linux community iTWire
Readers blast Ballmer for his "Linux users owe Microsoft" ... Computerworld
Yahoo Answers 120 million times: ‘Struggling’? ZDNet
IBM and DOE to Collaborate on Supercomputer Research Technocrat.net
IBM Invests $100 Million in Collaborative Innovation Ideas SYS-CON Media
Oracle's packaged software lacking, report says SearchOracle.com
Spread the word on Fusion, Oracle users urged ComputerWeekly.com
SAP ready to fight Oracle in 'hot' markets Search SAP
Oracle — the new EMC kid on the block Enterprise Networks & Servers
Fusion lost on many Oracle users IT Week
Securent Could Be a Fine Addition for Oracle InternetNews.com
Wipro Infotech wins outsourcing contract from Dena Bank Hindu
Wipro on track for 7% revenue boost Gulf News
Wipro Makes It To FinTech Top 25 EFYTimes
Walking in a Walmart Wonderland Washington College Elm
Circuit City to sell $100 Compaq laptop on Black Friday engadget If you agree to get a Vonage subscription for a year and can handle the assorted rebates, then this lappy is yours for a Benjamin. ..... a Celeron M 420 CPU, 15-inch screen, DVD and CD burner, 512MB RAM and a 60GB hard drive. .... but we'll wait until the price drops that low organically, sans rebates and subscription plans, thanks.
Sun Microsystems open up java to the world. Kenya London News

Microsoft ushers in the dawn of Vista CNet News.com he said Office can be better adapted for Internet-connected mobile devices. And the next version of Windows should aid software developers in creating applications that run on machines with several processing "cores" on a chip. ..... The next Windows should also include features for "state separation," where individual applications are separated in terms of execution and settings ...... installing applications from a CD-ROM is a practice that should be replaced by Web-delivered software. .... "The biggest thing that Vista can do is provide a safe environment for interaction on the Web" ....... people will rely on their PC to edit media files and then post them onto the Web. ...... "What the PC is good at, the Web doesn't have as its core strength, such as really fast UI (user interface) regardless of the connection speed and reliability"
Web 2.0: Looking out for No. 1
Google accidentally sends out e-mail worm
Microsoft's Ozzie: Vista, Office adjusting to Web
AOL says portals are passe a provider of real-time information to the financial services industry ..... AOL was interested in acquiring YouTube ..... AOL's decision to get out of the Internet access business ....... "On-demand video over IP (Internet Protocol) will be the...biggest form of (video) viewing in single digit years"
Ning brings social networking to the masses we give you your own video site like YouTube, or social-networking site like MySpace ..... the site is fully programmable by developers
DirecTV service recommends personalized programming
Mozilla fixes 'critical' flaws
Wal-Mart kicks off holiday season with $398 laptop "We're probably going to see a $199 notebook on Black Friday"
Sub-$30 video cell phones on the way, says TI In the future, it will be a whole lot easier to post videos to YouTube from places like Ghana...... sub-$20 phones will come out in the relatively near future ..... In Mali, radio stations have set up e-mail services that can rapidly send messages between villages and news agencies. ..... 400 million of the billion-plus people in China are current cell phone owners ...... "In many cases, it (a cheap cell phone) will be the first time they connect to the network."
Sundance puts cell phones in the spotlight
200 pages of Diebold machine vulnerabilities Techdirt
The top 100 tech innovations of 2006 Popular Science
Using tech to fight terror BusinessWeek
Visual search for better online shopping Technology Review Each image is broken down into 10,000 numbers that represent more than 30 features of the item--for example, the full spectrum of colors that appear in a handbag, its lumps and curves, and the glossiness of its exterior.
China's satellite navigation plans threaten Galileo New Scientist a 35-satellite constellation .... it would be available free to all Chinese citizens and to other countries whose governments strike a deal to use the signal in satellite navigation devices. ..... Galileo, the US-run Global Positioning System, and Beidou ...... China's behaviour towards Europe is not so different to how Europe behaved with us when GPS was the only game in town a decade ago
Cell phones still mostly for talking SiliconValley.com Verizon is in talks with YouTube to bring user-submitted videos from the Web service to Verizon's wireless customers ...... But do people want to watch? ...... to make up for declining revenue from simple voice services ..... Consumers tend to want to watch video on the biggest screen possible. But it's hard to meet that expectation when, at the same time, consumers have been demanding smaller and lighter handsets.