Google library project named as one of ten most important emerging technologies for humanity by futurist Mike Adams

The Global Electronic Library, Adams envisions, would be funded by world governments and made freely available to every citizen, either through their home computers or online workstations at public facilities (such as brick-and-mortar libraries). At the time he wrote the book in the Fall of 2004, Adams was unaware that Google would step up to the plate and fund the project on its own.

"It's remarkable," says Adams, "that a commercial entity would have the courage and financial resources to take on this project." Construction and deployment of the Global Electronic Library is an enormous task, Adams explains, "...and yet I can think of no organization more capable of succeeding with this project than Google."

The Global Electronic Library is only one of ten emerging technologies cited by Adams as important for humanity. Others include augmented reality systems, where humans can interact with their natural environments through the help of virtual overlays that project objects, content, and even animated, interactive human characters onto the real world.

Superlearning systems, practical robots, vibrational medicine and fuel cell technologies are also cited in Adams' book. In all, the book offers a 63-page tour of technologies that promise to make a lasting difference in the quality of life for people everywhere. "If Google can complete the first item on this list," says Adams, "it will have a significant positive impact on the direction of human civilization."

For more information or to download, "The Ten Most Important Emerging Technologies For Humanity," visit TruthPublishing.com.

• Consider Oremus thrilled that Stanford has partnered with Internet search giant Google (GOOG) to digitize library books, which eventually will be searchable from dorm rooms.
• "If it was possible to access things online without leaving my room, that would be a huge help," he says.
• "For research papers, there's lots of books you can only get at the library.
• Google is picking up the estimated $150 million tab to have employees on-site at the Harvard, Stanford, Oxford and University of Michigan libraries, plus the New York Public Library, begin scanning books, page by page.
• Digitizing a book can be almost as tough as writing one.
• Automated scanning machines, much like copy machines, do exist.
• Recently, start-ups such as Kirtas Technologies of Victor, N.Y., have introduced automated book-scanning machines that can turn pages.
• Kirtas' book scanner uses a robotic arm to flip pages past a 16-megapixel Canon digital camera.
• 2: Clean and crop the image A computer program processes the image.
• The picture can be posted online, but searching through the text is impossible.
• "If we offer a better search engine, that will lead to more users," she says.
• The first wave of books in the program are long out of print and in the public domain, so there are no copyright issues.
• But Google says it will underwrite the cost of digitizing books for out-of-print authors who want to have their books in the Google index and will split advertising revenue with them.
• University of California-Berkeley professor John Battelle, who runs the influential Searchblog, says Google's library project has huge implications.
• At the school level, the popularity of the Internet and easier access to information has made teachers concerned about a rise in student plagiarism.