Calling it a small but important step forward in their mission of making all the world’s information accessible and useful, the Official Google Blog announced that they “are now able to perform OCR on any scanned documents that we find stored in Adobe’s PDF format. This Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology lets us convert a picture (of a thousand words) into a thousand words — words that can be searched and indexed, so that these valuable documents are more easily found.”

PDFs have been indexed for some time but scanned materials are more difficult for a computer to read since they are essentially a picture of printed words.  Now Google is able to perform OCR on any scanned documents in Adobe’s PDF format and include them in search results.  Try this sample Google search for Mumps and Severe Neutropenia and note the document excerpt in the search results, along with the full text presented after the ‘View as HTML’ link.

MSN City Guides notes that “throughout American history, the desire for libraries has inspired cities, architects and robber barons to build, not just boxes for books, but secular temples to the worship of words,” and selects 10 libraries they think are the coolest.

The Seattle Central Public Library is the first listed.  It has achieved fame for its award winning architecture and an innovative book stacks design that lets readers browse 75 percent of the library’s collection on one continuous ramp.

Enjoy a slide show of the selected libraries.  Seattle Central interior photo by wheelo50411 . Creative Commons license.

Windows 7
Microsoft revealed some features of the next version of its operating system, called Windows 7, which the company said will make it easier for PC owners to use their computers, reported the Seattle P-I.

Independent analyst Peter O’Kelly said that with Windows 7, Microsoft has “leap-frogged” rival Apple in some ways.

Some of the features in Microsoft’s upcoming operating system include:

• A customizable taskbar
• Added search features
• A feature that allows users to quickly set up home networks
• Device Stage, which manages external devices, such as printers and music players
• Gadgets, such as the clock, can be moved anywhere on the desktop
• An Action Center that allows users to control alerts
• Support for multitouch

Web-based Office apps
Lightweight versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint will be available online from Microsoft in a bid to compete with online office sources such as Google Apps and Zoho.

Janice Kapner, Microsoft’s senior director of information worker group communications, said, “I think you will find our experience is a very rich experience compared to that [Google Apps].”

The company does not believe that Web-based programs would cannibalize sales of its existing software, noting that there were one billion PC users but 500 million users of Office.  Microsoft did not reveal how much it will charge for the Web-based versions of its Office programs, but Kapner said the company was considering ad-based or subscription-based models or both.

The Web-based programs will go on the market along with the next release of Office. They will run on Internet Explorer, Safari and FireFox.  A release date has not been set.

See Microsoft’s press release about Windows 7 and online Office apps and other news from PDC 2008.

Introducing a service designed to make it simple for developers to create programs that run on remote servers accessed by users through Web browsers, cell phones or PDAs, Microsoft named “Windows Azure” as a key shift for the company from desktop-based products to online services.  The announcement was made at the 2008 Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.

With Azure, they have “jumped into a new era in which programs such as e-mail and word processing are increasingly accessed online,” states a Seattle P-I article.  We have seen a lot about “cloud” computing recently, especially from top competitor Amazon, about which Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief software architect said, “I’d like to tip my hat to (Amazon CEO) Jeff Bezos and Amazon.”

Azure is Microsoft’s shift to a “software plus services” strategy, which will entail online — or “services” — components in all of its offerings.  The company sees several advantages for itself:  a large group of developers familiar with Microsoft’s tools and a huge data storage capacity.

“There are many applications that people would like to build,” Robert Muglia, Microsoft’s senior vice president, said.  With Azure, the applications will be hosted in Microsoft’s own vast data centers.

eWeek’s Microsoft Watch also has the story.

A teleconference today will discuss a settlement agreement (PDF) between Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers on behalf of a broad class of copyright holders.

The deal would expand online access to millions of in-copyright books and other written materials in the U.S. from the collections of a number of major U.S. libraries participating in Google Book Search, notes TechCrunch.  The settlement is still subject to approval by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The Guild had sued Google in September 2005, after Google struck deals with major university libraries to scan and copy millions of books in their collections.

Google says that once the settlement has been approved, “you’ll be able to purchase full online access to millions of books.  This means you can read an entire book from any Internet-connected computer, simply by logging in to your Book Search account, and it will remain on your electronic bookshelf, so you can come back and access it whenever you want in the future.”  Many of the books are otherwise out-of-print.

Convert PDFs to Word Online
PDF UNdo Online is easy, free and works on any computer with no registration, says Lifehacker.

Find an Adobe PDF document on your computer, click to convert it to Microsoft Word, then click to download the converted file.  If the PDF is password or copy protected, you will not be able to alter it.  If not protected, it is now editable with any app that supports Word docs.  There is a free desktop PDF converter that you can download, as well.

Also take a look at PDF Online which converts your edited files back to PDF (as well as other tricks).

More expressive Gmail with new emoticons
Noting that the black and white days of text-based emails have had their day, Gmail blog announced a slew of new emoticons to help you express yourself if you use the rich-text mode to compose your emails.

Consider the possibilities.

Here’s a wonderful tool for those wanting to create and share drawings without having the skills themselves.  Amit Agarwal at Digital Inspiration calls it “brilliant” and I have to agree even though it is pretty limited yet — hopefully it will continue to develop and continue to be free.

dabbleBoard is a whiteboard tool that you can share over the Internet or via email, with multiple people working on it simultaneously if you like.  You just use your mouse to approximate a shape and the app automatically makes it a perfect oval, rectangle, etc., which you can then resize, move around, change color, or delete.  Add lines, arrows, freehand drawings, your own images, choose text size, copy items from your own library of drawings or from the toolkits provided.

Take a look at the video tour and the various options available.  I did a super simple, quick and easy flow chart of a blog post.

I was particularly moved by a New York Times story that appeared today in the Seattle P-I, reminding me of how privileged I am to have almost unlimited access to reading materials of all kinds.  Many do not, and the courage and determination of a rural Colombia school teacher to bring books to the hinterlands is inspiring.

Every weekend for a decade, Luis Soriano has gathered his two donkeys packed with books and a sign - Bibloburro - and taken books to people in small villages.  He started with his personal collection of 70 books but now has more than 4,800, thanks to donations.  He lives with his wife and three children in a small house with books piled to the ceiling.

“This began as a necessity; then it became an obligation; and after that a custom,” Soriano explained.  “Now,” he said, “it is an institution.”

He created it out of the simple belief that the act of taking books to people who do not have them can somehow improve this impoverished region, and perhaps Colombia, says NY Times writer Simon Romero.  The area has been blighted by Colombia’s long internal war between paramilitary bands, leading to clashes with guerrillas and intimidation of the local population.

“Into that violence, which has since ebbed, Soriano ventured with his donkeys, taking with him a few reading textbooks, encyclopedia volumes and novels from his small personal library.  At stops along the way, children still await the teacher in groups, to hear him read from the books he brings before they can borrow them.”

Robin Good’s new Sharewood Guide features free web site creation services that let you create a web site without knowing HTML.

The services are free, user-friendly, and don’t require you to write code to create and organize the layout of your web pages.  After you register (if necessary), choose a name for your new web site and edit all your content through a visual interface.

The comparison used the basic characteristics below:

• Registration: If needed, you have to provide your personal information to utilize the service
• Flash - Widgets Support: If present, you can embed multimedia objects like flash movies or widgets
• Ready-Made Templates: Allows you to select a pre-made look for your web site
• SEO Friendly: Creates friendly URLs for easier indexing into search engines
• RSS Support: Enables users to be updated when you add new content to your web site

The post lists and briefly describes such choices as Google Page Creator, which at the moment is no longer accepting new sign-ups and suggests you use Google Sites - also on Good’s list - Weebly, SynthaSite, Freewebs, and more.

There’s a useful comparison table (snippet below) to help you decide what might work best for you.

A new version of iGoogle was officially launched yesterday after months of testing, posts Google Operating System blog.  In addition to putting tabs on the left, a “canvas” view has been added that allows gadgets to become full-fledged applications.

“Canvas view allows developers to deliver richer content, games, and UI to users on iGoogle as well as the opportunity to monetize.”   Not all gadgets are ready for this view, but many are, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and, of course, Google Reader, Google Calendar, Gmail, and weather.  Although you can use Gmail without leaving iGoogle, it lacks some features that would have made it a good replacement for the full-featured Gmail, such as links and attachments which are stripped from messages.

The next big thing for iGoogle, the blog states, is support for OpenSocial that will make Google’s personalized homepage more social.

If you’re a user of Google Book Search, you will appreciate them taking advantage of the canvas view with their new iGoogle gadget, notes their blog.

It allows you to manage your Google Book Search Library and receive customized recommendations based on the books you save, no matter your subject preference.  With the release of canvas view, you now have more space to explore recommendations, or, once you’ve found a promising book, to preview and read books right inside the gadget using the new embedded viewer API.