Google has acquired reCAPTCHA, one of the providers of spam prevention CAPTCHA. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed, but Google had hinted that it was previously working on its own CAPTCHA service as well as looking at reCAPTCHA as an acquisition target.
The reason behind the acquisition is purported to be reCAPTCHA’s ability to recognize and transcribe text. Through its service as a CAPTCHA provider, reCAPTCHA has been able to essentially crowdsource the transcription process. This can be applied to Google’s own initiatives across at least two of its applications, Google Books and Google News.
For Google Books, reCAPTCHA’s technology can be used for transcribing text for the books that Google makes readily available for download through its free service. For Google News Archives Search, a similar process can be applied. With both applications, the error rate is expected to drop significantly, improving Google’s ability to provide accurate search results.
I think the acquisition of reCAPTCHA hails an important development in the digitization and overall provision of printed content. In decreasing the error rates associated with the transcription and search capabilities of text, Google will be able to increase the distribution potential of digital book content across the world. Having ready access to such printed content is something that’s been slow to come about, despite the technological advances we’ve seen in the past decade pertaining to both the ability to digitize printed content as well as the ability to distribute it.
With new devices and pricing structures, however, the trend for digitizing and distributing content is a growing field. Today the ebook provider WattPad has announced some upgrades to its iPhone application, allowing you to download and save an entire book to read offline, as well as share what you’re reading with friends on Facebook and Twitter.
I think both of these announcements from Google and WattPad speak to the long-term potential of what we can expect to see from digitized content. Th ability to search, access and share such content is something that should be available to everyone. Integration with social networks and improvement on the transcription end will help speed this process a great deal, which I think is beneficial to the world at large.