NYC

Google has launched its Book Search service for mobile phones, featuring novels by Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle, as a challenger to Amazon's Kindle device. The internet giant has made the original text of 1.5m books available to be accessed for free via iPhone or Android phones. A spokesman for Google's book search mobile team said, "We believe we've taken an important step towards more universal access to books." Experts said they expected an online battle for the market. Stuart Miles, of gadget website Pocket Lint, said: "Google has obviously seen how Amazon dominated the online selling of real books, and wants to stop that happening again. By offering free, out-of-copyright books they can instantly offer this huge library. "Google's approach is also very clever because it is costing them very little, as they don't have to develop their own hardware." Amazon launched its electronic book reader, called the Kindle, in the US last y

Soon, entire houses could be designed around the idea of having a ‘viewing room’ with high-speed internet access and a display screen to allow virtual face-to-face conversations between people. While hologram technology is nothing new, technical constraints have meant that until now, hologram appearances have had to be pre-recorded. But now, thanks to improvements in the speed and stability of broadband internet connections and video compression technology, ‘live’ holograms are able to converse with one another in real time. “This is cutting-edge stuff,” said Ian O’Connell, director of Musion, a company that is pioneering the use of live hologram technology. “One of the main uses we envisage is celebrity cameos at big conferences or concerts,” he said. “Prince Charles famously appeared by hologram at a conference, pre-recorded. This technology would allow him to appear live, and take questions from the audience. “And a number of musicians we’re talking to want to see this technology us