The often controversial Google Books program, Google’s effort to scan and digitize every book ever printed has an interesting new addition: hand scans.
It appears that the Google employees scanning 3000 books a day may be under a bit too much pressure to get the job done as this image from the 1855 copy of “The Gentleman’s Magazine” would suggest (link):
According to the Sydney Morning Herald a similar image appears in The Trial and Death of Socrates by Plato as well, but unfortunately they didn’t narrow down which edition; Google Books has numerous print versions of the classic tale on file.
If you’ve spotted any other hand scans in Google Books let us know.
Haha, at least it was “hand” scans and not something else!
Talk about giving somebody the finger …
What is on the first two fingers ?? Cool finding
http://www.goforads.com
Those are finger condoms.
If im not wrong is Google in its rush to digitise the corpus of human knowledge, inadvertently createing a new type of “digital” database. ???
Parul
http://www.bhopu.com
Thats definitely an Indian hand. Google does have a secret sweat-shop in India.
talk about a boring job-scanning all day.
i’ve been there and it sucks. it’s okay if you’re the only one in the office and you can rock out to some good music and read a book.
sincerely,
angela hayden
art goddess
How can something be “often” controversial? It’s either controversial or it’s not.
How can something be “often” controversial? It’s either controversial or it’s not.
Its often contriversial because some love it, but publishers hate it, so its often depending on who you ask
The “Hand Book” for the National Municipal League has a similar image — is that a coincidence? Actually can be found on the Wikipedia entry for “Google Books”.
I saw this on Reddit, and other news sites. My opinion hasn’t changed – this isn’t news.
Why is this a news story?
Am I allowed to ask that question?
Well I’d rather read such news than anymore Facebook stuff.
“Well I’d rather read such news than anymore Facebook stuff.”
A tech blog shouldn’t be a choice between bad and worse though. I understand that they don’t have the resources of a full news organization, but come on.
this is so old!!!!
i saw it like last year with another hand’s person. Whats going on with techcrunch?
just type “hands google books” in google images and you’ll se more, lame story
This may be one of those “easter egg” type of things. There may be scans of some “other things” between the sheets (of paper).
In other news giant alien bug seen on Google Earth maps, this is TC frontpage worthy!
http://googlesi...antalienbug.jpg
cool ,wats on two fingers
Are we to the point that we’re just waiting for Google to make a mistake? There’s breaking news every time they fart. Oooooh, they accidentally scanned a hand! Oh heeeeell no.
Two rubbers on the hand = A Good Hand Job
I don’t know why so many of you guys just keep posting questions! Its the author wish to post a blog or article he likes to, what bothers you.. if you are not happy.. just skip.. why do you piss of them asking silly questions.. enough of facebook and enough all crap. It not you, someone in 1000’s of visitor like to know whats happening around.
Give them freedom! Don’t kick them everytime a new post comes! LoL’s!! Its for all your Anit-TC Guys!
Finger Condoms.. OMG! Does something like that exist ????
Cheers!
Of course they exist, ever seen rubber gloves before? [rollseyes]
Google, one bad idea after the other! lol
It’s not as revealing as the photo above, but here’s another one:
http://www.subc...d.asp?Id=523267
An interesting aspect we can tell from this image is that Google have not choosen to outsource this scanning to China/India. Based on the image of that hand, that’s an american high-class woman doin’ the scanning.
Some of you should lighten up. We all should enjoy a good laugh now and then at techcrunch–especially in this case as it relates to a technology juggernaut such as Google.
yeah, we should all enjoy news like this from last year
what about youtube and that big acquisition from google? i want to hear about that again
I work at Google, and have spent a great deal of time in the book scanning project (not as a scanner, but performing other, more typical functions). I can tell you a few things about this:
1) Yes, they are finger condoms. They help protect the books from oils in the skin, as well as make it easier to turn the pages with your fingertips (can you imagine having to lick your finger to turn that many pages in a day? Nasty).
2) They’re moving pretty quickly, so yes, a hand or a finger makes its way into the scans once in a while.
3) They do have QA people to catch most of this, but they are human as well, and also have boring jobs, so they will makes mistakes too.
4) Google is not perfect. No company is. No person is. You’re not. I’m not. Get over it.
How much Google stock does she have?
Do I hear a well-known Jewel song coming on?
Cheers,
Doug
@31, since you know so much about this, some questions:
- So the people who do the scanning don’t use lubricants? No K-Y?
- Who makes those rubbers, Trojan?
- How do you prevent small people from stealing those rubbers?
Some other questions I forgot:
- What type of experience is requested from the people who scan?
- On using those finger rubbers, do you have a training video you can share?
It is certainly some news to me, in that, the scanning operation depending on human intervention (wonder how much percentage dependency) certainly differs from what was commonly made known to the public (by Google) that the scanning was a hi-tech operation.. eg., the (2006) NHK (Japanese) video footage (viz., “Google Revolution”, presumably on youtube too?), the books-scanning operation (of Google) was done fully automatically via robotic arms (as the page turner)… this finger condoms thing obviously tells the other (low-tech) side of the story…
From my experience as a book scanner for a rival project, I second Anonymous Googler’s explanation. You’ve got to be quick, and sometimes slips like this happen (and QC’s never perfect). More often, it’s a little tiny fingertip at the edge of the page, rather than a whole hand, but hey.
Angela’s right, it is a boring job, but I was able (encouraged, even, in the interview) to listen to audiobooks and podcasts while I worked and so the shifts flew by. It sure beats working retail…
Wouldn’t it be a better idea to have the workers unbind the books and use a scanner that can be fed a stack of sheets?
I am sure this is an indian hand
Wow… they should can all the book from Fortaleza Ceará Brasil
Jesse: That’s only a “better” idea if the institution that owns the book doesn’t mind them being, you know, destroyed.
Is there blood in her finger condoms?!
There’s a hand in this book too:
http://tinyurl.com/3y8b66
hand on this one
Here’s another: http://tinyurl.com/kp3krx
The Philosophy and History of Civilisation By Alexander Alison – 1860 – Between Pages 465 & 466 there are scans of pages 464 & 465 which show a hand and the page turning in action. Exciting!!!
I found a hand here: http://tinyurl.com/pvew2e