Google mashes up books and maps

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.

excerpt: ComputerWorld

1 Billion Mobile Phones Shipped in 2006

Blockbuster mobile phone sales during the holiday season last year propelled shipments to more than 1 billion for all of 2006, market researcher IDC said.

Handset vendors shipped a record high 294.9 million mobile phones in the past three months of 2006, propelling the full year total to 1.02 billion, according to IDC. (IDC is owned by International Data Group, which also owns Computerworld.)

The fourth quarter figure was 20% higher than the same time in 2005, while the full year figure beat the 832.8 million wireless handsets sold in 2005.

excerpt: ComputerWorld