untangling_the_web

DOClD: 4046925
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as a true visionary: "Imagine being able to analyze the changes to the English
language over time. Imagine being able to use the hand translated versions of past
books as a way to train automatic translation technologies so we can more
effectively translate any book into any language. Imagine being able to analyze the
interrelation of papers through their footnotes and links to find new patterns of
thought. Each of these projects is already proceeding using the digital holdings of
the Internet Archive by researchers.t'?" You have to love this guy.
Microsoft and Yahoo both threw in with Kahle and the Open Content Alliance (OCA)
during 2005, Microsoft in advance of its new Live Book Search. This occurred as
Google was embroiled in not one but two lawsuits to stop its book digitization
project. The OCA has thus far avoided any such suits because it is only indexing
books and other content in the public domain. But Microsoft has made it known it will
not be content to stick with public domain content, which will put Microsoft on the
horns of the same dilemma as Google. It will be interesting to see how OCA and its
members handle copyright and other infringement issues.
Open Content Alliance
http://www.opencontentalliance.org/
While some of its members may view the OCA project as a way to take on Google ,
Kahle is not at all unhappy about competition from other digitization projects. Quite
the contrary, he sees his efforts as augmenting more commercial ventures while he
openly seeks to emulate in the public domain Amazon's approach to full-text search.
Any way you look at it, this is great news. Sometimes with all the petty annoyances
in our everyday lives, it is hard to remember we really are witnessing and even
participating in a revolution in human knowledge .
And just how does Kahle envision storing all these treasures? He worked with
Capricorn Technologies to design what is called the PetaBox, basically a very large,
affordable data repository that can store a million gigabytes of data. Capricorn
shipped the first of its PetaBox products to the Internet Archive in June 2005.
All that data is accessible to users in a variety of ways, none more interesting or
useful than the Wayback Machine. Using the Wayback Machine, you may very well
be able to retrieve a page or an entire site even if it disappeared from the web years
ago. Also keep in mind that Yahoo also offers an excellent way to search the
Internet Archive to its fullest.
105 Kahle.
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