Google Health, a first look

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Search & User Products</span><br /><br />It's been a busy week for the Google Health team. Last week we <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/pilot-with-cleveland-clinic-for-health.html" id="jw56"> announced</a> our partnership and pilot with the Cleveland Clinic. This week, the team has been at the <a title="HIMSS" href="http://www.himssconference.org/" id="nka:">HIMSS</a> (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) conference in Orlando, Florida, where Eric Schmidt gave the closing keynote. Eric's keynote marks the first time we've talked publicly about the product we've been designing and building. His talk also offered a deeper view into our overall health strategy. (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTZKNcx9sBA">Watch the video.</a>)<br /><div class="Ih2E3d"><br />Google Health aims to solve an urgent need that dovetails with our overall mission of organizing patient information and making it accessible and useful. Through our health offering, our users will be empowered to collect, store, and manage their own medical records online.<br /><br />For the healthcare industry, online personal health records (PHRs) aren't a new idea and, in some cases, online PHRs already exist for patients. Here's what we think sets Google Health apart:<br /></div><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;"> Privacy and Security</span> - Due to the sensitive and personal nature of the data that will be stored in Google Health, we need to conduct our health service with the same privacy, security, and integrity users have come to expect in all our services. Google Health will protect the privacy of your health information by giving you complete control over your data. We won't sell or share your data without your explicit permission. Our privacy policy and practices have been developed in thoughtful collaboration with experts from the <a title="Google Health Advisory Council" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/new-advisory-group-on-health.html" id="fdm7">Google Health Advisory Council</a>.<br /></li></ul> <div class="Ih2E3d"><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Platform </span>- One of the most exciting and innovative parts of Google Health is our platform strategy. We're assembling a directory of third-party services that interoperate with Google Health. Right now, this means you'll be able to automatically import information such as your doctors' records, your prescription history, and your test results into Google Health in order to easily access and control your data. Later, this platform strategy will mean that you will be able to interact with services and tools easily, and will be able to do things like schedule appointments, refill prescriptions, and start using new wellness tools.<br /></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Portability</span> - Our Internet presence ultimately means that through Google Health, you will be able to have access and control over your health data from anywhere. Through the Cleveland Clinic pilot, we have already found great use-cases in which, for example, people spend 6 months of the year in Ohio, and 6 months of the year in Florida or Arizona, and will now be able to move their health data between their various health providers seamlessly and with total control. Previously, this would have required carrying paper records back and forth. With Google Health, the user can simply import the data from each medical facility and then choose to share it with the other facilities. It's advances in data portability like this that we think can really make a difference in the quality of healthcare. The clearer and more comprehensive the information regarding your health becomes, the better your care will be.<br /></li></ul></div><div class="Ih2E3d"><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">User focus</span> - We aren't doctors or healthcare experts, but one thing Google can create is a clean, easy-to-use user experience that makes managing your health information straightforward and easy. We're still iterating and testing our user interface, but here is what the welcome screen looks like:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBYRZhyphenhyphenHYl7n52pJHRPtrh4LQi-jokoSL-3wWLP-aGvEv_FLoIAdHwKH9ScnaamX2wmcgEXk4EEA9tUWybA3a_nygeRo_-70dABytvqRMbLdLnkMqKAUJgckaUEjY005YvKg5vNDs9x-UC/s1600-h/marissa_blog_sign_in.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5172479684657962098" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBYRZhyphenhyphenHYl7n52pJHRPtrh4LQi-jokoSL-3wWLP-aGvEv_FLoIAdHwKH9ScnaamX2wmcgEXk4EEA9tUWybA3a_nygeRo_-70dABytvqRMbLdLnkMqKAUJgckaUEjY005YvKg5vNDs9x-UC/s320/marissa_blog_sign_in.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a>Here is a screenshot deeper in the application:<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijATBO7sLenlg5h_YOjLkH5n7Sk0uVkBO9877N0O_RkEPFcPoDIfvm-3aUXNGv4rNkhKGXm0Ob3LOA0bwMdqECbTrRmjf5B5aptmpgLrQXS8WV2RMf48hyphenhyphenG7SOJLbIWwJTra1cCW-8xi-N/s1600-h/marissa_blog_home_cleveland2.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176284334534025506" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijATBO7sLenlg5h_YOjLkH5n7Sk0uVkBO9877N0O_RkEPFcPoDIfvm-3aUXNGv4rNkhKGXm0Ob3LOA0bwMdqECbTrRmjf5B5aptmpgLrQXS8WV2RMf48hyphenhyphenG7SOJLbIWwJTra1cCW-8xi-N/s320/marissa_blog_home_cleveland2.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; width: 299px; height: 191px;" /></a></div></li><li style="text-align: left;">We're proud of the product that we've designed and are continuing to build, but recognize that we are just at the initial stages of our "launch early and iterate" strategy. We look forward to the feedback we will receive from our Cleveland Clinic pilot, from all of you, and from the initial users of our service when we make it publicly available in the coming months.</li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Update: </span>Added link to video of Eric's talk; refreshed second screenshot.<br /></div>

Google Health, a first look

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Search & User Products It's been a busy week for the Google Health team. Last week we announced our p...

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Project CARE in San Francisco

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Craig Walker, Senior Product Manager</span><br /><br />As we <a title="mentioned last fall" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/supporting-grandcentrals-project-care.html" id="zsjx">mentioned last fall</a>, GrandCentral's Project CARE initiative, which provides permanent telephone numbers and voicemail services to the homeless, has partnered with San Francisco's <a href="http://www.sfconnect.org/AboutUs/index.php/homeless_connect/phc_our_mission.html?">Project Homeless Connect</a> (PHC) to support the city's homeless as they get back on their feet.<br /><br />Today, Mayor Gavin Newsom will announce plans to give every homeless person in San Francisco a local phone number and voicemail account through Project CARE. We're thrilled to be a part of this effort, and as a first step towards simplifying the process of setting up a phone number and voicemail, we're rolling out a website where shelters and agencies across the city can create new accounts. Project CARE will also be visiting both city-owned and private shelters to help introduce this new system, assist the staff in familiarizing with the process, and answer any questions.<br /><br />We're firm believers in the power of technology to improve the daily lives of individuals and communities as a whole, and we recognize that access to phone and voicemail services is one way that GrandCentral can help San Francisco's homeless stay connected with family, friends, social workers, health care providers, and potential employers.<br /><br />While we're excited to bring this technology to our local Bay Area community, our ultimate goal is to provide these invaluable services to cities and shelters across the country.<br /><br />If you're in San Francisco and would like to learn more about Project CARE's work with PHC, please join us at today's Project Homeless Connect 21 at the Billy Graham Civic Auditorium. If you can't make it to the event, check out Project Homeless Connect's <a title="website" href="http://www.sfconnect.org/AboutUs/index.php/homeless_connect/phc_our_mission.html" id="al92">website</a>.

Project CARE in San Francisco

Posted by Craig Walker, Senior Product Manager As we mentioned last fall , GrandCentral's Project CARE initiative, which provides perman...

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Searching right to left

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Josh Daniel, Software Engineer</span><br /><br />Many of us in the English-searching world don't realize that a large portion of the world's population writes (and types) right-to-left. For the Arabic, Hebrew, and other right-to-left searchers of the world, searching just got a little easier. If you're searching from a supported local interface (e.g. <a href="http://www.google.co.il/" target="_blank">google.co.il/</a> or <a href="http://www.google.com.eg/" target="_blank">google.com.eg/</a>) we now dynamically detect the direction of your query.<br /><br />Enter a query like [<a href="http://www.google.com.eg/webhp?hl=ar&q=%D8%A7%D9%81%D8%B1%D8%B6+%D9%85%D8%AB%D9%84%D8%A2">افرض مثلآ</a>] or [<a href="http://www.google.co.il/webhp?hl=iw&q=%D7%9E%D7%9B%D7%91%D7%99+%D7%97%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%94">מכבי חיפה</a>] and your query will align right so you can type to the left. Enter a query like [<a href="http://www.google.co.il/webhp?hl=iw&q=2008+world+cup+soccer">2008 world cup soccer</a>] or [<a href="http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=fa&q=%285+-+3%29+*+32">(5 - 3) * 32</a>] and it will align left so you can type to the right. Enter a mixed query like [<a href="http://www.google.co.il/webhp?hl=iw&q=%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%97+SMS">SMS משלוח</a>] and we'll set the alignment and overall direction based (roughly) on the first word.<br /><br />We've enjoyed learning about bidirectional issues. Enabling applications for bidirectionality is especially tricky because any sentence or phrase may contain a mix of left-to-right text (e.g. English, numbers), right-to-left text (e.g. Arabic, Hebrew), and neutral text (e.g. punctuation). The rules for displaying the direction of characters in individual words are different from the rules for displaying the direction of words in a phrase. Things are further complicated due to widely varying limitations across web browsers.<br /><br />We hope you'll enjoy the improved search experience!

Searching right to left

Posted by Josh Daniel, Software Engineer Many of us in the English-searching world don't realize that a large portion of the world's...

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A renewed wish for open document standards

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Zaheda Bhorat, Open Source Programs Manager</span><br /><br />The subject of open document standards grows in importance not only for the technically- minded, but for anyone who uses a computer to work on editable documents. Across the board, standards are crucial. They ensure that the devices and technology you use today will continue to work tomorrow, that your DVDs will play in your player, that your calls will go through to any network, and that your documents will be accessible from whichever system you choose today and in the future.<br /><br />Google supports open document standards and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument" id="iz::" title="Open Document Format (ODF)">Open Document Format - ODF</a>, the recognized international standard (<a href="http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=43485" id="f7.y" title="ISO 26300">ISO 26300</a>)</span>. ODF is <a href="http://www.odfalliance.org/memberlist.php" id="nxof" title="supported">supported</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_applications_supporting_OpenDocument" id="kxwh" title="implemented">implemented</a> across the globe, and its communal <a href="http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office" id="dwn4" title="creation and iteration">creation and iteration</a> has helped ensure the transparency, consistency and interoperability necessary in a workable standard.<br /><br />Currently, the technology industry is evaluating a proposed <a href="http://www.iso.org/iso/home.htm" id="g9lu" title="ISO">ISO</a> standard for document formats. Given the importance of a workable standard, Microsoft's </span>submission of Office Open XML (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML" id="fdv5" title="OOXML">OOXML</a> ) as an additional international standard has caught the attention of many. In September 2007, the original request to ISO was <a href="http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2007/09/google-welcomes-iso-decision-on-ooxml.html" id="iiaq" title="defeated">defeated</a>. After further technical analysis of the specification along with all the additional data available on OOXML, Google believes OOXML would be an insufficient and unnecessary standard, designed purely around the needs of Microsoft Office.<br /><br />We join the <a href="http://www.odfalliance.org/resources/Disposition%20of%20Comments.pdf">ODF Alliance</a> and <a href="http://consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/">many</a> other <a href="http://www.robweir.com/blog/">experts</a> in our belief that OOXML doesn't meet the criteria required for a globally-accepted standard. (An <a href="http://www.odfalliance.org/resources/google-response.pdf">overview of our findings</a> and <a href="http://www.odfalliance.org/resources/google-sample-responses.pdf">sample technical issues unresolved</a> are posted <a href="http://www.odfalliance.org/ooxml.php">here</a>.)<br /><br />As <a href="http://www.iso.org/iso/about/iso_members.htm" id="ve6." title="ISO Member bodies">ISO Member bodies</a> around the world work on possible revisions of their vote <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML_Ballot_Results" id="yfrv" title="previously submitted">previously submitted</a>, the deadline of March 30th approaches fast. I invite you to pay close attention, and heed the call of many for <a href="http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/date/2007/08" id="oa98" title="unification">unification</a> of OOXML into ODF. A document standards decision may not matter to you today, but as someone who relies on constant access to editable documents, spreadsheets and presentations, it may matter immensely in the near future.

A renewed wish for open document standards

Posted by Zaheda Bhorat, Open Source Programs Manager The subject of open document standards grows in importance not only for the technicall...

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About the Unity bandwidth consortium

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Francois Sterin, Manager, Network Acquisitions</span><br /><br />As more and more people conduct online searches and interact with applications like Gmail, Google Earth and YouTube, we've had to think outside the box to create a more scalable, affordable and easy to manage network that meets our users' needs worldwide. One of the biggest challenges we face is staying ahead of our broadband capacity needs, especially across Asia.<br /><br />One of the ways we are addressing this is by working with five other international companies to create a consortium. Collectively we just signed an agreement to build a new high-bandwidth subsea cable system linking the U.S. and Japan (more detail in the <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/20080225_newcablesystem.html">press release</a>). This cable system, named Unity, will address increasing broadband demand by providing more capacity to sustain the unprecedented growth in data and Internet traffic between Asia and the U.S. Our participation in building Unity ultimately helps provide our users with faster and more reliable connectivity.<br /><br />If you're wondering whether we're going into the undersea cable business, the answer is <span style="font-weight: bold;">no</span>. We're not competing with telecom providers, but the volume of data we need to move around the world has grown to the point where in some cases we've exceeded the ability traditional players can offer. Our partnership with these companies is just another step in ensuring that we're delivering the best possible experience to people around the world.

About the Unity bandwidth consortium

Posted by Francois Sterin, Manager, Network Acquisitions As more and more people conduct online searches and interact with applications like...

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Searching for the Wisconsin primaries

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Robert Snedegar, Technical Solutions Engineer and Chief Election Tracker</span><br /><br />We're in the midst of a big election season, and of course that means pollsters and pundits have lots to say about where it will all end. I've been curious to see if their predictions match up with trends in online searches. So as my 20% project, I devised a method to track the number of searches for each candidate's name. I wanted to visually represent the trends I found, so I plotted them onto Google Maps to see where the searches were concentrated. It's fascinating to see how people in a region have turned to the Internet to engage in the primaries.<br /><br />Last Tuesday during the Wisconsin primary, the maps for Democratic queries (blue) and Republican queries (red) in Wisconsin turned out slightly different than each other. The circles are proportional to the amounts of search terms that contained the name of a Democratic or Republican candidate. Of course, the data includes queries for both positive and negative keywords for each.<br /><br />From the data, we can see that Democratic candidates were searched more often in Madison, while Republican candidate queries were more widely dispersed throughout the state:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtQDkqyzPewGxQHLr3nyEmrApkhi5dKXTNPO6db0beoSimcWSmGbCmWZ291Abd0ZIhhWKF7D_aRelBBbldJXezZ28hglqg5_DaGar7-d3PhBC9VKlfwR60FGthi11zZWnUF6RnjBFvdKUK/s1600-h/wisconsin+dem.PNG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171072170453415138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtQDkqyzPewGxQHLr3nyEmrApkhi5dKXTNPO6db0beoSimcWSmGbCmWZ291Abd0ZIhhWKF7D_aRelBBbldJXezZ28hglqg5_DaGar7-d3PhBC9VKlfwR60FGthi11zZWnUF6RnjBFvdKUK/s320/wisconsin+dem.PNG" style="cursor: pointer; width: 212px; height: 217px;" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6aHbKkP13JU0NQmkmfHBkVnG3i15bbLzd3pr9VY-zb0Gkn43HSCmg65Aiq9CbH8d4vAkWf-GT1yzPjvJoLk1wJRE_zd2jOjGIe-lcnkYKMNx_Fg_rc9qa8Cpa2GtwgPkaBZ0EpZVNGsW3/s1600-h/wisconsin_repub.PNG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171073905620202738" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6aHbKkP13JU0NQmkmfHBkVnG3i15bbLzd3pr9VY-zb0Gkn43HSCmg65Aiq9CbH8d4vAkWf-GT1yzPjvJoLk1wJRE_zd2jOjGIe-lcnkYKMNx_Fg_rc9qa8Cpa2GtwgPkaBZ0EpZVNGsW3/s320/wisconsin_repub.PNG" style="cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 217px;" /></a><br /><br />We'll continue to study interesting search trends as they apply to election queries and share other findings with you.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Update:</span> Corrected title.

Searching for the Wisconsin primaries

Posted by Robert Snedegar, Technical Solutions Engineer and Chief Election Tracker We're in the midst of a big election season, and of c...

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Supporting cluster computing in the research community

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Christophe Bisciglia, Senior Software Engineer, Google Research and James French, Program Director, National Science Foundation</span><br /><br />Research and development is the foundation of innovation in the technology industry, and both Google and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are committed to making substantial investments in computer science research and education to ensure that our students, faculty and scientists remain on the leading edge of computing<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> and have the tools necessary to make significant advances</span>. As the technology industry moves into an exciting new phase of massively scaled, highly distributed computing, academic users have expressed a need for resources to engage and explore this emerging model, which is already responsible for many "internet-scale" applications that we now take for granted. That's why we're excited to announce that the NSF will use resources made available via Google and IBM's Academic Cluster Computing Initiative (ACCI) to reach the broader research community and explore new applications for massively scaled, highly distributed computing.<br /><br />In October of 2007, Google and IBM <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/let-thousand-servers-bloom.html">announced</a> the first pilot phase of the ACCI, which granted several prominent U.S. universities access to a cluster of thousands of processors running Apache's Hadoop, an open source distributed computing platform inspired by Google's file system and MapReduce programming model. (There's a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBrDPRlplyo">YouTube video</a> showing how students and faculty at the University of Washington have made use of the cluster.) Encouraged by these results, we sought out ways to extend the reach of this technology, and given its prominence in national research funding, the NSF emerged as a natural partner. For decades, the NSF has engaged the U.S. research community by setting research agendas and encouraging the development and adoption of disruptive technology, and this partnership will encourage a broader range of academic researchers to develop innovative new methods of data analysis using the unique advantages of massively parallel systems architecture - without the massive infrastructure costs usually associated with large-scale computer clusters.<br /><br />Starting this year, the NSF will work to evaluate project proposals from academic researchers across many disciplines and select some of the most interesting and promising projects to receive ACCI computational grants. More details, including information on how to apply for access to these resources via the NSF's Cluster Exploratory (CluE) program, will be posted soon on the <a href="http://www.nsf.gov/">NSF site</a>.

Supporting cluster computing in the research community

Posted by Christophe Bisciglia, Senior Software Engineer, Google Research and James French, Program Director, National Science Foundation Re...

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