Today Microsoft plans to introduce Live Search Books, a new beta service which enables users to search the full text of books via the Internet. Initial offerings will include books scanned from collections at the University of California, the University of Toronto, and the British Library; Microsoft plans to add additional content through partnerships with the New York Public Library and the American Museum of Veterinary Medicine, according to Microsoft’s Cliff Guren on the company’s Live Search blog; other sources have Microsoft in conversations with Cornell University as well.
Microsoft’s Live Search Books will compete with Google’s ambitious Book Search, which has drawn the ire of some copyright holders and publishers as a copyright infringement. Although Google does not make the full text of copyrighted works available via the Internet, publishers argue the mere act of scanning the entire book in order to provide “fair use” samples to searchers constitutes a violation of copyright. In contrast, books currently searchable via Microsoft’s Live Search Books are either out of copyright, or the copyrights are held by the partner institutions, although Microsoft apparently plans to work with publisher and copyright holders to secure permission to include copyrighted works in its service.
Microsoft plans to integrate advertising with Live Book Search, as well as strike revenue-sharing deals with book sellers. Over time, the company plans to integrate Live Search Books search results with its more general Live Search service, so search results from books will appear side-by-side with Internet, news, and other search results.
In 1950, Alan Turing asked whether machines can think. Rather than argue over definitions, he turned the question into a party game, where an interrogator trades typed messages with hidden players and tries to work out who is who. Since then, chatbots have gotten so good that they have already fooled humans in modern versions of the test.
So, four researchers from Paris Cité University asked the obvious follow-up question in a new study published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports: can AI at least catch its own kind?
Mozilla is giving Firefox’s Smart Window two new tricks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Smart Window is an optional AI mode in Firefox with a built-in chat that helps you get things done while you browse. With this update, it can fill out online forms using details from your tabs and keep an eye on websites for you.
Tired of typing the same details into every form?
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.