Putting health into the patient's hands

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Adam Bosworth, Vice President</span><br /><br />I gave a speech today at the 2007 American Medical Association of Informatics (AMIA) Spring Congress. I used this opportunity to suggest a vision of what I think consumers should expect from our health care system over the next decade, including three core principles of a future health care system:<br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Discovery</span> - Consumers should be able to discover the most relevant health information possible</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Action </span>- Consumers should have direct access to personalized services to help them get the best and most convenient possible health support</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Community</span> - Consumers should be able to learn from and educate those in similar health circumstances and from their health practitioners</li></ul>Here are my <a href="http://services.google.com/blog_resources/Bosworth_AMIA_May07.pdf">notes from the speech</a>, which include both an example of how these principles could come together to improve health care and suggestions about what core technology I believe is needed to support them.

Putting health into the patient's hands

Posted by Adam Bosworth, Vice President I gave a speech today at the 2007 American Medical Association of Informatics (AMIA) Spring Congress...

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Search without boundaries

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Franz Och, Research Scientist; Maureen Heymans, Software Engineer; and Jeff Chin, International Product Manager</span><br /><br />One of our goals at Google is to provide access to all the world's information. A big obstacle for that is the language barrier. If the ideal result page to a query is written in a language that you don't understand, then up until now it would be very hard to get access to this information. Today, we launched a new feature on <a href="http://translate.google.com/">Google Translate</a> that takes a big step towards addressing this problem.<br /><br />Now, you can search for something in your own language (for example, English) and search the web in another language (for example, French). If you're looking for wine tasting events in Bordeaux while on vacation in France, just type "<a href="http://translate.google.com/translate_s?hl=en&clss=&q=wine+tasting+events+in+Bordeaux&tq=D%C3%A9gustation+du+vin+%C3%A9v%C3%A9nements+%C3%A0+Bordeaux&sl=en&tl=fr" title="wine tasting events in Bordeaux">wine tasting events in Bordeaux</a>" into the search box on the "Search results" tab on <a href="http://translate.google.com/translate_s" title="Search results" tab on Google Translate">Google Translate</a>. You'll then get French search results and a (machine) translation of these search results into English. Similarly, an Arabic speaker could look for restaurants in New York, by searching for "<a href="http://translate.google.com/translate_s?hl=ar&clss=&q=%D9%86%D9%8A%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%83+%D9%85%D8%B7%D8%B9%D9%85&tq=New+York+Restaurant&sl=ar&tl=en">مطعم نيويورك</a>"; or a Chinese speaker could look for documents on machine learning on the English web by looking for<br />"<a href="http://translate.google.com/translate_s?hl=zh-CN&clss=&q=%E6%9C%BA%E5%99%A8%E5%AD%A6%E4%B9%A0&tq=Machine+Learning&sl=zh-CN&tl=en">机器学习</a>".<br /><br />While machine translation is not perfect, it's usually good enough for you to obtain the gist of information in a language you might otherwise be unable to access. We think this feature will be particularly useful for our international users since although the majority of Internet users out there are non English speakers, a majority of the content on the internet is still in English.<br /><br />Note that this feature is currently in beta, and we're very interested in getting your <a href="http://www.google.com/support/contact/bin/request.py?page=&contact_type=suggestion_t&master=suggestion_t&Action.Search=Continue" title="feedback">feedback</a>.

Search without boundaries

Posted by Franz Och, Research Scientist; Maureen Heymans, Software Engineer; and Jeff Chin, International Product Manager One of our goals a...

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Cingular BlackBerry 8800 has Google Maps and GPS

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Steve Lee, Product Manager, Google Maps for mobile</span><br /><br />Some of us have a great sense of direction, and others find themselves, well, a little lost at times. For those in the latter camp, you can thank Cingular for launching the <a href="http://business.cingular.com/businesscenter/blackberry8800/?_requestid=182418%22onClick=%22javascript:urchinTracker%28%27/outgoing/cingular_com%27">BlackBerry® 8800</a>, the latest open GPS-enabled device from a major U.S. carrier. That means that when you use <a href="http://www.google.com/gmm/gps.html?utm_source=en-et-blog&utm_medium=et&utm_source=en" title="outbind://91-00000000539B9334C130484888F4AC5FF1F4342E04748000/www.google.com/gmm/gps?utm_source=en-et-blog&utm_medium=et&utm_source=en">Google Maps for mobile</a>, your location automatically shows up on the map.<br /><br />When you download Google Maps for mobile and fire it up, you'll notice something quite unusual: a blinking blue dot showing you exactly where you are! You can use your auto-detected location to get directions and perform local searches without even entering your location -- instead of "pizza 94043", just enter "pizza" -- and we'll automatically know you want pizza in the zip code "94043."<br /><br />So here's a great big hats off to Cingular -- this BlackBerry® 8800 with GPS is awesome!

Cingular BlackBerry 8800 has Google Maps and GPS

Posted by Steve Lee, Product Manager, Google Maps for mobile Some of us have a great sense of direction, and others find themselves, well, a...

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Getting it done with Google Apps

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Jeremy Milo, Product Marketing Manager</span><br /><br />As you might have heard recently, in addition to search and advertising, we're focused on a third key area of innovation: powerful applications that run on the web and that let you collaborate and communicate in new ways. Not only do we offer <a href="http://mail.google.com/" title="email">email</a>, <a href="http://calendar.google.com/" title="calendaring">calendaring,</a> and <a href="http://docs.google.com/" title="document creation and collaboration">document creation and collaboration</a> services (and more!) for individuals, but with <a href="http://www.google.com/a" title="Google Apps">Google Apps</a>, businesses, schools and other organizations can customize these tools and use them as their own internal systems.<br /><br />More than 100,000 organizations <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZOi8hAOMnQ" title="large">large</a> and <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=x0ouWCotdyo" title="small">small</a> have started using Google Apps to deliver powerful services to employees, students and members, and since there's no hardware or software to install or maintain, getting up and running is <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhLyiuDKNrU&eurl=" title="a snap">a snap</a>. We're hearing great <a href="http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/customers.html" title="stories from users">stories from users</a>, and we're getting exciting feedback from journalists, analysts and other industry experts. And just this week, <span style="font-style: italic;">PC World</span> named <a href="http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/editions.html" title="Google Apps Premier Edition">Google Apps Premier Edition</a> #1 on their list of <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,131935/printable.html" title="Best 100 Product of the Year">The 100 Best Products of 2007</a>.<br /><br />We're honored to be recognized by<span style="font-style: italic;"> PC World</span> this way -- and are more inspired than ever to expand what's possible for groups of people to do using the power of the web.

Getting it done with Google Apps

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Product Marketing Manager As you might have heard recently, in addition to search and advertising, we're focused ...

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What's hot today?

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Corey Vickrey, Software Engineer</span><br /><br />For more than six years, we have compiled a regular list of popular searches called the <a href="http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html">Google Zeitgeist</a>. This has been our way to highlight the sorts of queries people type into the Google search box every day. More recently, we unveiled <a href="http://www.google.com/trends">Google Trends</a> to show the popularity of search terms in relation to each other overtime, and how different cities or regions may care (or not) about the trends.<br /><br />And today we're introducing a new toy we are calling <a href="http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends">Hot Trends</a>. It's a new feature of Google Trends for sharing the the hottest current searches with you in very close to real time. What's on our collective mind as we search for information? What's interesting to people right now? Hot Trends will tell you. At a glance, you'll see the huge variety of topics capturing our attention, from current events to daily crossword puzzle clues to the latest celebrity gossip. Hot Trends is updated throughout the day, so check back often.<br /><br />For each Hot Trend, you will see results from Google News, Google Blog Search and web search, which help explain why the search is hot. For example, the <a href="http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?q=creed+thoughts&date=2007-5-17">#7 item on Thursday, May 17th</a> was the cryptic phrase [creed thoughts]. The associated news stories and blog results show that this odd term is the name of a fake website mentioned on the season finale of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Office</span>. Mystery solved. Of course, some searches are not as easily explained. Visit the <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/google-trends-hot-trends">Hot Trends group</a> to read the explanations of others and offer your own.<br /><br />If you want to look further back, you can also see what queries were hot on a particular day. On Wednesday, May 16th, [<a href="http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?q=melinda+doolittle&date=2007-5-16&sa=X">melinda doolittle</a>], [<a href="http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?q=halo+3+beta&date=2007-5-16&sa=X">halo 3 beta</a>], and [<a href="http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?q=ge+dishwasher+recall&date=2007-5-16&sa=X">ge dishwasher recall</a>] were on the Hot Trends list. If you don't know why, maybe you'll learn something.<br /><br />Hot Trends aren't the search terms people look for most often -- those are pretty predictable, like [weather] or [games] or perhaps [myspace]. Yes, [sex] too. Instead, the Hot Trends algorithm analyzes millions of searches to find those that are deviating the most relative to their past traffic. And the outcome is the Hot Trends list.<br /><br />In addition to Hot Trends, we've updated Google Trends so that it's easier to use and, we hope, more useful to you. In addition to viewing the top search terms by country and city, you can view the top "subregions" (e.g. states within the U.S.) across more than 70 countries. You can now compare the leading <a href="http://www.google.com/trends?q=hillary+clinton%2C+rudy+giuliani%2C+barack+obama%2C+john+mccain">presidential candidates</a> around the country, for instance, or find out which states have the worst <a href="http://www.google.com/trends?q=mosquitoes&ctab=0&geo=US">mosquito problems</a>.<br /><br />With the release of Hot Trends, we're retiring the weekly Zeitgest list, but we will still compile monthly lists for each country, and will continue our annual year-end roll-ups too.<br /><br />Hot Trends is currently available only in English, but we hope to release international versions in the future.

What's hot today?

Posted by Corey Vickrey, Software Engineer For more than six years, we have compiled a regular list of popular searches called the Google Ze...

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Registration open for our scalability conference

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Amanda Camp, Software Engineer<br /><br />As we <a href="http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2007/02/seattle-conference-on-scalability.html">noted earlier</a>, our Conference on Scalability is taking place in Seattle on June 23. And now <a href="http://www.google.com/events/scalability_seattle/index.html">registration is open</a> until June 15. We have nine great talks from industry and academia including keynotes by Jeff Dean and Marissa Mayer from Google and Werner Vogels from Amazon. Space is limited, so do sign up now.<br /><br />We're excited to bring together so many talented people from the Seattle area. Looking forward to seeing you there!</span>

Registration open for our scalability conference

Posted by Amanda Camp, Software Engineer As we noted earlier , our Conference on Scalability is taking place in Seattle on June 23. And now ...

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Massage interviews?

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Reza Behforooz, Massage expert and Software Engineer</span><br /><br />Life at the Googleplex is often full of fun surprises. One day, I was asked if I could do a massage interview. I was already a big fan of our massage program, and I was familiar with doing interviews at Google, but I didn't know about massage interviews. Regardless, it sounded Googley, and I decided to help.<br /><br />Getting a massage at work is a favorite <a href="http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=benefits.html&benefits=us#bbb">perk</a> among Googlers. As with anyone we hire, our massage therapists have to go through an interview process...but the actual interviews are a little unique. We ask the therapists to do what they do best -- give massages. And as Googlers, it is our duty to help with the hard task of receiving table or chair massages as part of the interviews. Though we do have to write detailed feedback about the massage, just like any other interview, in this interview, all I had to do was close my eyes and relax. Who knew interviewing could be so easy!

Massage interviews?

Posted by Reza Behforooz, Massage expert and Software Engineer Life at the Googleplex is often full of fun surprises. One day, I was asked i...

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