Giving a DIY Book Scanner Tech Talk at Google on Sep 9, 2010

[univurshul]

ping!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYalB2SphY4

Yeaaaa!

Actually, th questions were average. "Why dont you use webcams"? How much does it cost? Etc. Clearly, the GBS team was not in the room.

Yeah, I did wonder about that coming from Google; if they appeared more interested in the crafting of the builds or the processing of the images.

[daniel_reetz]

I spoke with engineers (again, not from the Books team) afterwards, and they were interested in image processing, but from the familiar software-guy approach of "why do we need all this hardware... so what if the pages move a little" end of things. They see the world through a software lens. That's alright, I wish them the best in making their ideas come true. As a hardware guy, a piece of glass looks a lot easier than dejittering.

I also made some really great contacts with some really smart people. One is working to enable the scanning of lots of private/religious collections around the world. The other is working on enhancing the use of humans in the digitization process (think recaptcha, but ten levels up). Good to meet these superbrain types.

[rob]

Awesome! I like how your talks evolve. Just when one thinks, "Oh, he's given this talk before" one realizes that the previous talk has been compressed, and new material added on!

Thanks for showing that funny picture of me, and for mentioning my mechanical computer project

I wonder if the Google Book engineers were told not to go there or interact with you for, you know, legal reasons and whatnot.

[daniel_reetz]

Glad you liked it, Rob! I had to plug your project in there somewhere. There were eyebrows raised in the crowd when I said "mechanical computer". I have been trying to shorten things, and not to repeat myself too much. Wish I had more practice sessions before giving this one, I hate being all stumbly and missing points.

[daniel_reetz]

Oh, and the Books people were invited, though they weren't out in the main room (I refused NDA).

[StevePoling]

You should have done the NDA. Then footnote any fact you learned at Google as coming from some other source. Ideas have this way of getting around, being independently derived. Years back, some of the spookiest things NSA kept in their basement (literally) were also splashed across the pages of the Washington Post. And featured a few years later in a Tom Clancy novel/movie. If anyone gigs you about blabbing about fact X, make sure you couch all mentions of X with a footnote, "i saw in <<insert publication here>> that ..."

[daniel_reetz]

I want a good relationship with Google, if any; and good for me means an open one. No NDAs for me under any circumstances.