Google Inc and a group of authors and publishers are talking to the US Department of Justice (DOJ) about modifications to a settlement designed to make millions of out-of-print books available online, two people familiar with the discussions said.
The discussions are aimed at modifying the settlement in ways that ease Justice Department concerns that the deal would let Google discourage other companies from competing for access to the books online, said one of the people.
Both spoke on Wednesday on condition of anonymity.
US District Judge Denny Chin in New York on Wednesday ordered Google and the other parties to the settlement to respond to an outpouring of viewpoints questioning the plan to create a digital book library.
Chin said he has received about 400 filings by individuals and groups who object to the deal, support it or want some legal points to be considered.
He ordered the parties in the case to respond by Oct. 2 “in light of the volume of submissions and the apparent public interest in the case.”
Chin plans to hold an Oct. 7 hearing to decide whether to approve the US$125 million agreement reached by Google to establish a “Book Rights Registry,” which would identify and compensate rights holders whose books have been scanned by Google.
The settlement was reached last year with the Author’s Guild, Pearson Plc’s Penguin and Education units, McGraw-Hill Co, John Wiley & Sons Inc and CBS Corp’s Simon & Schuster subsidiary.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
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ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
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