Google is a company to set itself goals. A million books for instance – scanned for its users to peruse at leisure.

It started years ago, the quest of Google to bring obscure and forgotten books to the masses by way of search engine. But how to do that with enough accuracy and without damaging the often fragile or valuable tomes ? The patent that was filed in September 2004 and approved by the United States Patent office in March of this year, divulges all the secrets. How do they do it ? 3D-infrared cameras !