No Google isn't going to launch anything to the moon. Well at least not soon that I know of, nor in this instance. Their "Moonshot" refers Google's mind-boggling undertaking to scan every book ever published.


The book search works just like Google's web search with an advanced options for things exact phrase, which when I can, I use almost exclusively to narrow the results scope and weed out unrelated junk. Give Google Book Search beta a test drive.

What you can view depends on the book. All include an "about this book" which is title, author, publisher, date pages, etc. If the book is out of copyright or permission has been granted you can page through the entire book, and when you can't read the entire book many will have a review. The review is set up pdf style using the hand to navagate about, or you can use the page turner supplied. Links are provided to buy, plus if they are reviews or full text also you can use the chapter links. All books will have either full view, limited preview, snippet view, or no preview available.

I don't know how long the book search beta has been available, but because I read a lot of books, technical as well as romance novels, I find it helpful, fascinating and much more usable than a web search. The target is to have all book scanned in about ten years. Google asserts that about twenty per cent of all books are in the public domain, but a lot like government publications were never copyrighted.

Via KurzweilAI.net

On one of the tech forums that I occasionally visit I posted about Intel's 80-Core Chip that I blogged about here last Thursday. A responder said, "I feel that multicore technology will bring computers closer to the biological workhorse that is the human brain." Not only is he correct but it probably is a gross understatement. We are already building prototypes of artificial neurons, while memory density along with computing power and speed keep increasing. The real shocker will come when we humans merge with our technology.

I take issue with some of Ray Kurzweil predicitions in his book, "The Singularity Is Near" however I believe he is correct when he predicts the merging of our biological brain with future computer technology. It is my belief that technology is presently undergoing one of Kurzweil's predicted paradigm shifts. With the continuing evolution in nanotechnology and molecular scale circuitry an unimaginable future lies ahead. We are literally going to take our evolution into our own hands.

We are already building self-organizing neurons, real brain cells with nanotube axons and dendrites. Could this become the means to interface the brain and computer? Once the brain is efficiently interfaced with technology it isn't the technology that is enhanced as much as it is the human mind. Human defined intelligence would be off the chart interfaced with an equally complex, but magnitudes faster computer. Where would IQ stop? 1000? 10,000? Now, imagine interfacing that mind to the internet.

*blink*       Yes, rather mind boggling isn't it?

Of course this opens the Pandora's box of responsibility and ethics. Also we have to ask what would happen to emotions under that much super intelligence? And we have to insure that the many new benefits created will be extended to everyone and not just a few elite. We will have free-range self-replicators to make just about anything imaginable for good or evil on our desktops. Competing super minds in opposing countries will be able to start a super high tech arms race. Maybe not with bombs, but with yet to be imagined technology that can eliminate any people or groups of people swiftly and with exact precision. Especially bad emotions like anger can stir super malicious intent. The movies "Lawn Mower Man" and "The Terminator" come to mind as not quite so far fetched after all.

Or what if our technology gets away from us through no intent on our part. If you are a Trekie you undoubtedly remember Next Generation episode where ensign Crusher's had two experimental nanites escape and get into the computer. There they evolved, reproduced and ran amok in the computer system eating core chips, and threatening the safety of the Enterprise. I don't think any of our technology that got out of hand could become sentient like Wesley's nanites. This is where I disagree with Kurzweil that machines can become sentient and had a cross blog discussion with Dean here and here. However there is still the real danger of inadvertent destruction on a large scale.

------ Further information ------

To delve deeper read Ray Kurzweil's book, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.

Visit the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN) for more on the issues and solutions.

Keep up to date at the Responsible Nanotechnology blog with what is going on in nanotechnology.

That's right 80 cores, compared to todays dual and quad core CPU a real powerhouse. Don't look for one to build that powerhouse system yet though, this is just a prototype Intel has produced for research purposes only. Besides the functionality of using this many cores is limited until they can figure out how to make that many cores communicate with each other.

This will be a major departure from dual and quad core CPUs, and have teraflop performance capability while it uses less energy than a quad core. Specifics will be released at next months Solid State Circuits Conference (Febuary 11-15 2007). The energy usage is quite low for so many cores because compared to dual or quad cores, because these cores are much simpler. Yet because of their numbers they can still do the same complex manipulations as smaller chunks as the more complex cores.

And I suspect that although todays cores are well suited for complex tasks, they also waste a lot of time on meanial simple operations that would be well suited for a simpler core. In another 5 to 8 years (when the 80 core CPU is projected for production) I'm guessing that by then they may have a few complex cores suppored by a few dozen or so of these simple cores.


Other than quantum computing, this is one of the most exciting changes in CPU technology I have read for a long time. Expect to see this same technology applied to graphics processing as well.

Via KurzweilAI.