Google buys ReCatpcha to help in faster book scanning

ReCaptcha's technology is mainly used to prevent automated signups for online accounts and such. Those funny numbers and letters you must type in to do some things on the web are what we're talking about here. Only a human can recognize those odd combinations, not machines.

Terms of the reCaptcha deal were not disclosed, but as the company commonly uses old books and publications to present those odd word combinations as a security precaution, Google's ambitious "scan as many books as possible" was just shifted into overdrive.

A Google blog post said "having the text version of documents is important because plain text can be searched, easily rendered on mobile devices and displayed to visually impaired users." As Google continues walking on publisher's eggshells and angering copyright holders as well, the process of digitizing what isn't digital won't abate in any way. Although quite a bit of what Google does has raised copyright and privacy ires with countless groups and individuals in the last 18 months, its shares haven't suffered -- they sit at a one-year high of nearly $493 this afternoon.