Google mashes up books and maps

[Mercury]

Book entries may include Google Maps with pins indicating places mentioned in the text

January 26, 2007 (IDG News Service) -- Google Inc. has started integrating its popular mapping service with its controversial books search engine to let people plot on maps references to places they find in books.

Now, book entries in Google's Book Search may include a section called "Places mentioned in this book." The section includes a map from Google Maps with pins indicating places included in the text. Below the map is a list with the name of the places, linked to the pages in which they are mentioned, and an excerpt from the text.

Some books whose entries include this new feature are
Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace and Charles Sanford Terry's Bach: A Biography.

"When our automatic techniques determine that there are a good number of quality locations from a book to show you, you'll find a map on the 'About this book' page," wrote David Petrou, a Google software engineer, in the official Book Search blog on Thursday.


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[dgridley]

Good idea.. I also like that Skype has a plugin allowing you to click and call any phone number displayed on a webpage. This sort of interactivity can only be good for users in general.

[Lyte]

Sooner or later there will be very little you can't do from your computer!

Lyte