Google has launched a bunch of new features to Google Books in an effort to promote interactivity between readers and the online books.
1. Embeddable previews of books: This new feature allows you to embed a preview of a full view or partner book in your websites or blogs, just like you would with a YouTube video. You can also copy and paste a url link in an email to share the book with your friends.
2. Ramped up in-book search: For public domain and partner books, Google has made the ability to search for a term within a book a little bit more user friendly. When you search for a term on a book, you can now see an image from the part of the page on which it appears. You can also click on those images to navigate directly to the pages inside the book. And you can filter search results by relevance in addition to page order in the book or magazine.
3. Thumbnail view options: You now have the option to click on the thumbnail view button to see an overview of all the pages in a public domain book or in a magazine.
4. Contents drop-down menu: Via a contents drop-down menu, Google Books will now allow you to jump to chapters within the book–or articles within a magazine (the same technology supports the mobile version of Google Books).
5. Plain Text Mode: Google’s made it easier to see the plain text versions of Google Books. The tool bar now includes a ‘Plain text’ button to see the HTML version of the text, which Google says is especially useful for visually impaired users, who can use this format for text-to-speech and other types of software.
6. Page Turn Button and Animation: In addition to scrolling through the book, you can now also click the page turn button at the bottom of the screen. Google also has implemented an an animated line to move with the page turn to make it easier to keep track of your location in the text.
7. Overview Page Overhaul: Google has added an assortment of data about the book on its overview page, including reviews, ratings, summaries, related books, key words and phrases, references from the web, places mentioned in the book, and publisher information.
Last October, Google signed a $125 million settlement with the Author’s Guild to pay authors for copyrighted works it has scanned and made available on the Web through its Google Book Search project. More than 7 million books have been scanned by Google so far, a large portion of them out of print. The Settlement, though the site is up and running, is still up in the air, facing an antitrust investigation by the Department of Justice. And the settlement has draw its fair share of critics, including Jeff Bezos.
I really like the new features. How long until complete book embedding though?
Cool features. Google seem to be doing a lot of innovative stuff these days. Yes, how long will it approximately take for complete embedding?
Yup Google is cool. I could begin tracking my hacker with gmail service. ha ha … but I still need some help.
My gmail account got hacked, and by the ‘Activity Log’ feature of Google, I could figure out the IP address from where my email account was logged in.
The IP was 204.15.23.171
I do not know how to figure out which browser is this. Is there any software that can figure out whose machine is this where my account was opened and emails were tampered?
How to track down this hacker with IP 204.15.23.171 ?
goog is calling passerby devil into house. they always stretch what others has given. their agreement with book publishers maynot allow such crappy things like embedding.
google is bad ass….
gmail is really ticking me off today – cant open in firefox………anyone else?
its working fine for me. It was giving me trouble yesterday.
Nice to see improvements besides the legal battles.
Google is so yesterday. I am tired of new features, can someone please invent a new fuel that will replace gasoline in a week. Hopefully this will drown: Heads up new features on there way!
Of all, I like only the overhauling of the Overview page. It did require a major face-lift. Now there is more clarity and better comprehension of the book.
Mad props for the TinTin Icon. I grew up loving the comics. Also got in trouble for stealing one or two.
As Google’s collection soars Amazon will find it hard to stay afloat.
Will this work with a Kindle?
yes, and with your fridge.
this is looking good but when u want to use it the you have lost in options
my getting stuck.
awesome!
I’ve been hoping Google Books would develop an embed feature!
what are they doing? reading my diary???
=)
awesome! good new features ..great ..Google books..!