Growing Google library
Google is now permitting free PDF downloading and printing of classic and obscure books—in addition to out-of-copyright books. However, Google will still only provide snippets around search terms for materials under copyright, unless permission is extended by the publisher. link (Gary Price timely points out other sources for free book printing.)
AT&T hack exposes 19,000 ids
A hack on one of AT&T’s systems has exposed the personal data, including the credit card numbers, of 19,000 identities. link
Flickr added a geotagging feature that in its first day gained more than 1.2 million geotagged photos. As you might guess, they’re thinking very hard about how to scale “over a million new photos being added on a good day… [and the] billions of bits of data that go into the search (more than half a billion tags alone), along with privacy controls, group membership, and so on.”
WikiPatents is a new community site where the public can contribute commentary and organize around U.S. patent issues—including reviewing pending applications and voting on their merits. The first site of this kind, it’s the brainchild of the US Patent Office own efforts to improve the technical merits and legal backing of patents. The user-base is now composed of “examiners, law firms, future litigants, licensees, potential investors, inventors, and patent owners.”
Search driven charity drive
The local search engine iBegin, now servicing Toronto — is donating 50 cents to charity for every new review and picture uploaded by users through September 15. link (This caught my eye because at first I thought it was a search engine for charity giving– someone make that! Update: http://www.goodtree.com, thanks Alberto.)