The major criticism of the service is the inaccuracies in the meta data taken from the books. It is not the basic information such as the title date or author that can be provided by libraries and publishers; what is problematic however is the data collected by Google through the indexing of the content of the pages of the books.

However the question is will the purchase of reCAPTCHA solve (or at the very least start to solve) the problems faced by Google in indexing the pages of the world’s books. The issue for Google is that no matter how good no OCR software is good enough ot recognise all characters and words in all books therefore meaning there will always be errors that can only be picked up and corrected by the human eye, a hugely labour intensive process. So how will reCAPTCHA solve this?

It can be said almost for certain that at some point you ave come across one of these:

This image is referred to as a CAPTCHA and is used to try and stop automatic input (often from spammers) usually into websites forms. The difference between a normal CAPTCHA and the reCAPTHCHA service is this:

‘reCAPTCHA improves the process of digitizing books by sending words that cannot be read by computers to the Web in the form of CAPTCHAs for humans to decipher. More specifically, each word that cannot be read correctly by OCR is placed on an image and used as a CAPTCHA. This is possible because most OCR programs alert you when a word cannot be read correctly.’

Source: reCAPTCHA

http://recaptcha.net/learnmore.html

This means that you can actually feel good about solving these CAPTCHAs as your helping to digitise books and if your a webmaster you can sleep easy knowing that some of the best OCR software in the world cannot read the characters in the box and so it is unlikely that and spammer can build anything to read these yet further distorted words. However there is still undoubtedly some doubt as to exactly how Google fits into this whole process.

Google offers the Google Books service which seeks to scan and index books from all over the world including some of the out of copyright books of great university libraries such as the Bodleian in  Oxford and the library of Harvard University. So with the new acquisition of reCAPTHCHA it would seem Google has solved it own problem of inaccurate meta data. By using the collective human eyes of all those who solve a reCAPTCHA to correct the incorrect scanning of words a much more accurate index is created and we all benefit from better searches of those books Google has already scanned. This means that through the use of reCAPTCHA even those tasks that seem most trivial can have some lasting and useful output.

For more information on reCAPTCHA (and to use it on your site for free) read the reCAPTCHA site and for more information on the acquisition of reCAPTCHA by Google read the official Google blog

However there are challenges to this belief, one book that put forward a challenge to the conventional wisdom is Grown Up Digital by Don Tapscott. The Economist suggests that preventing ‘net generation’ for accessing Facebook at work is ‘the equivalent of forbidding older staff to use their rolodexes’.

Following the study by Tapscott of 8000 people in 12 countries he presents a different picture to that normally associated with those who spend much of their time using computers and playing video games. The issue, it is suggested, is not with the current generation but with the baby boomer generation before them. The two generations are so far removed from each other that they are unable to understand each other.

Contrary to the baby boomers beleif that video games and other activities of the net generation have ‘robbed today’s young of the ability to think’ research would seem to suggest otherwise. Instead video gomes are increacing visual processing abilities of the new generation and the internet in enabling the mass mobilisation of the young.

The recent campaign of Barack Obama has demonstrated this ability with Obama having 3,187,755 supporters on Facebook alone and millions more emails on the campaigns email list. This led to 66% of voters aged 18-29 voting Obama (according to an exit poll reported in The Guardian see the picture here). Further the same statistic would seem to suggest that the Obama campaign has used this mass of esupporters not only to gain existing voters but encourage new registrations aswell with 68% of first time voter choosing Obama.

The Economist quotes Taoscott’s eight characteristics which define the ‘net generation’. These suggest that this new generation values freedom and choice in what they do as well as entertainment in all parts of their life (including work). This would suggest that it is those firms which choose to allow facebook and other sites in the work place are not providing a carte blanche to staff to waste time but instead are making use of one of the internets newest communication tools.

Tapscott does have worries. The first not a new one, being the failings of the worlds education systems. Although many are doing well out of these systems those who aren’t are further behind than before. Secondly is a lack of regard for privacy.

Lack of privacy is something that could be seen as one of the drawbacks of the internet with many sites requiring personal details (sometimes without justification) and a willingness from all to give out such information without any regard for where it might go and what might be done with that information. Further this lack of privacy on the internet is something that almost all employer have made use of. Employer now check the online footprint of prospective employees and the pictures of your drunken antics is unlikely to be the first impression with which you wish your prospective employer to be presented.

Tapscott suggests that the education of children on the dangers of the internet is very much the job of parents using the very low tech means of family discussion. However it is also the current internet users who unthinkingly spread the contents of their lives liberally across the internet who really need education as to the hidden dangers as well the many wonders of the internet. Isn’t it?

This site uses data from pole to try and estimate which candidate is likely to win each state and offers datails for each individual state. More on they do it can be found here. Plus if you don’t like it you can enter your own number.

Although this is only one of many sites that claim to be able to be able to predict the outcome of the election this site would seem to be trying to create something resembling a fair estimate. However it is easy to ask if this can ever be done, the simple answer being no. So everyone is left to wait for the outcome of the election.

What surprises me is the lack of pro-Palin literature I have come across. Whilst I’m sure it’s out there and is equally as well written it’s not the information getting most exposure.

Now I have to mention my limitations on the subject, while I may have access to international new sources and both on the internet and in print the coverage of the US election in the UK is minimal in comparison to the massive coverage received in the US itself. Further with the massive cutting back of the republican convention means they are not giving themselves the same opportunity to get their side out there as the democrats had. Although I should also mention that I have not gone looking for these anti-Plain articles and that I have not seen as many negative pieces about any of the other candidates (including McCain) so it would seem that Palin is genuinely unpopular?

My dislike* of Palin however (regardless of the articles and the references they offer) does not come from her. Instead my dislike came from watching Channel 4 news as a republican party representative was interviewed. The representative did that thing that all politicians (and people of that type, i.e. their spokespeople) do where they don’t answer the question but instead choose to answer a question that is completely unrelated such as what the weather is like or what they might be having to eat later. It was more the fact that there must have been a good way of answering the question  (because that is what those people get paid to do, right?) and if there was no good answer, even with copious amounts of spin, is there a real problem?

I welcome comments about Palin both for and against, so comment away.

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* I say I dislike Palin but this must be qualified by the fact that I dislike all politicians for their ability to not answer the question and so this dislike is no more than usual (in the same way that the only reason I like Jeremy Paxman is that he keeps asking them the question)
At this point I bring in a comment by Mark Watson he makes in his book ‘Crap at the Environment’ where he said that he often finds himself in a position where he is informed on both sides of an argument and so is left with no other choice than to sit on the fence.
Now whilst I may not be well informed on all subjects and certainly am often unable to gather information on both side of an argument I am willing to concede that it is almost always true that there is at least one counter argument to any argument and so I find it hard (well I don’t I do it all the time) to make statements without assuming that there are likely facts I am unaware of on the other side of the argument. So whilst I may be unaware of these facts and may take sides I urge you to please not see anything I write as a basis for your beliefs/position.