Google patent application auto-converts magazines to electronic versions | Electricpig

Google patent application auto-converts magazines to electronic versions | Electricpig: "A new Google patent application, titled Segmenting Printed Media Pages Into Articles, reveals the search giant’s method for scanning articles and recompiling the text and images in an electronic version.

The application describes how it would detect blocks of text in articles and work out how they fit together to recreate articles. The method would allow Google to scan magazines and newspapers and offer individual articles.

Using optical character recognition, Google could also create pure text versions of the articles which would allow users to search archives."