Scanning Books
Some time ago Microsoft decided that it will abandon the plan to scan books in libraries in order to make their contents searchable on the Internet. The books that Microsoft was scanning were in the public domain and no copyright books were used without the permission of the author. On the other hand, Google not only is still scanning books, but it scans books protected under copyright law. In my opinion, it is always a good thing if people have access to knowledge and making books available online would be a step in this direction. It is unclear to me why Microsoft decided to abandon the project, but I hope that Google is not going to make the same choice, as it has a chance to contribute to the society by allowing people to have access to knowledge.
It seems that these days more and more people decide to scan their documents and pictures. Scanners are becoming more accessible each day and more people realize how useful they are. Overall, scanners are also more accurate each year so no wonder that they are so popular. If someone wants a high quality scanner he will no longer need to spend a lot of money on it.