healthy4u

We have a Knol for Dummies.com winner!

Today, we're pleased to announce that the winner of our <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-to-become-dummiescom-author.html">Knol for Dummies.com contest</a> is "<a href="http://knol.google.com/k/jennifer-frank/how-to-talk-to-your-doctor/1sx1wpgiybdpu/4">How to talk to your doctor</a>" by <a href="http://knol.google.com/k/jennifer-frank/-/1sx1wpgiybdpu/0#">Dr. Jennifer Frank</a>, whose knol about "getting the most out of a short-but-sweet office visit" was selected for its quality, clarity, and usefulness. It will be <a href="http://www.dummies.com/Section/id-380924.html">featured on Dummies.com</a>, and she will receive $1,000. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://knol.google.com/k/jennifer-frank/how-to-talk-to-your-doctor/1sx1wpgiybdpu/4#"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337940818958342082" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyAzL20ujGBZGOSuJXf1pDJNQLcu4gbq5eDN0Mzj-BzVMfM-bScBqV8ZDkCYk3x8UhGstBDyVmb9QfwEQgRSgQnvu1MHV7Cy2pMg83m072zqsejyxI7hgzzPcb3esUS8NKJEQyd2CGBKUt/s400/Picture+7.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 104px;" /></a><div>You can read Dr. Frank's knol <a href="http://knol.google.com/k/jennifer-frank/how-to-talk-to-your-doctor/1sx1wpgiybdpu/4">here</a>. Dr. Frank's tips on are just the type of authoritative content that makes great knols. Congratulations also go to the four finalists, who will also be featured on Dummies.com: <ul><li><a href="http://knol.google.com/k/tom-nolan/how-to-calibrate-lag-in-guitar-hero/1tcv2hb2pn9ca/2#">How to Calibrate Lag in Guitar Hero</a> by <a href="http://knol.google.com/k/tom-nolan/tom-nolan/1tcv2hb2pn9ca/0#">Tom Nolan</a></li><li><a href="http://knol.google.com/k/craig-meathead-goldwyn/how-to-make-the-best-barbecue-ribs-ever/26escshr4kvt0/29">How to Make the Best Barbecue Ribs Ever</a> by <a href="http://knol.google.com/k/craig-meathead-goldwyn/-/26escshr4kvt0/0#">Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn</a></li><li><a href="http://knol.google.com/k/rita-hubbard/everything-you-always-wanted-to-know/1crry0nq2vba8/10">Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Getting a Grant (But Were Afraid to Ask)</a> by <a href="http://knol.google.com/k/rita-hubbard/rita-hubbard/1crry0nq2vba8/0#">Rita Hubbard</a></li><li><a href="http://knol.google.com/k/stephen-buchwalter/how-to-make-great-coffee/2hvcc153l9mae/2">How to Make Great Coffee</a> by <a href="http://knol.google.com/k/stephen-buchwalter/stephen-buchwalter/2hvcc153l9mae/0#">Stephen Buchwalter</a> and <a href="http://knol.google.com/k/paivikki-buchwalter/paivikki-buchwalter/18qshwnl2mfm1/0#">Paivikki Buchwalter</a></li></ul>Thanks to everyone who participated in the competition. We enjoyed learning how to do so many interesting things — from the importance of being nice to the staff at your doctor's office to the difference between spare ribs and babyback ribs — and hope knol readers did too. Posted by Matt Ghering, Product Marketing Manager, Knol</div>

We have a Knol for Dummies.com winner!

Today, we're pleased to announce that the winner of our Knol for Dummies.com contest is " How to talk to your doctor " by Dr....

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A planetarium in your pocket

At today's <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/more-search-options-and-other-updates.html">Searchology event</a> we were pleased to launch Google Sky Map for Android. Google Sky Map turns your Android-powered mobile phone into a dynamic window on the night sky. When you point your phone upwards you will see a map of the brightest stars, constellations and planets in that part of the sky. The next time you see a bright star and want to know what it's called, Sky Map can help you identify it. Whether you are an aspiring astronomer or just want to impress your date, download Sky Map from the Android Market. For more information watch the video below or visit the <a href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2009/05/sky-map-for-android-location-and.html">Lat Long Blog</a>. <object height="340" width="560"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/p6znyx0gjb4&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/p6znyx0gjb4&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="340" width="560"></embed></object> Posted by John Taylor, Software Engineer

A planetarium in your pocket

At today's Searchology event we were pleased to launch Google Sky Map for Android. Google Sky Map turns your Android-powered mobile pho...

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More Search Options and other updates from our Searchology event

Today we are hosting our second Searchology event, to update our users, partners, and customers on the progress we have made in search and tell them about new features. Our first Searchology was two years ago, when we were excited to <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/universal-search-best-answer-is-still.html">launch Universal Search</a>, a feature that blended results of different types (web pages, images, videos, books, etc.) on the results page. Since then Universal Search has grown quite a bit, adding new types of results, expanding to new countries, and triggering on ten times as many queries as it did when we launched it. But as people get more sophisticated at search they are coming to us to solve more complex problems. To stay on top of this, we have spent a lot of time looking at how we can better understand the wide range of information that's on the web and quickly connect people to just the nuggets they need at that moment. We want to help our users find more useful information, and do more useful things with it. Our first announcement today is a new set of features that we call Search Options, which are a collection of tools that let you slice and dice your results and generate different views to find what you need faster and easier. Search Options helps solve a problem that can be vexing: what query should I ask? Let's say you are looking for forum discussions about a specific product, but are most interested in ones that have taken place more recently. That's not an easy query to formulate, but with Search Options you can search for the product's name, apply the option to filter out anything but forum sites, and then apply an option to only see results from the past week. Just last week, at our Shareholders' Meeting, I had a woman ask me why she couldn't organize her results by time, with the most recent information appearing first. "Come back Tuesday," I wanted to say! The Search Options panel also gives you the ability to view your results in new ways. One view gives you more information about each result, including images as well as text, while others let you explore and iterate your search in different ways. Check out a video tour here: <object height="295" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MtirDMfcOKE&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MtirDMfcOKE&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object> We think of the Search Options panel as a tool belt that gives you new ways to interact with Google Search, and we plan to fill it with more innovative and useful features in the future. Another challenging problem we have worked on is better understanding the information you get back from a search. When you see your results from a Google search, how do you decide which one has the best information for you? Or, how can we help you make the best decision about where to click? We call the set of information we return with each result a "snippet," and today we are announcing that some of our snippets are going to get richer. These "rich snippets" extract and show more useful information from web pages than the preview text that you are used to seeing. For example, if you are thinking of <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=drooling+dog+barbeque">trying out a new restaurant</a> and are searching for reviews, rich snippets could include things like the average review score, the number of reviews, and the restaurant's price range: <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY9miC0n3rRxtw0nRDb8El-lvdanl1JZUXRSHm8B_kRitmu0T4h4zocYJUZTt2rCIBJzEtCeTUVEYZvYXHR0fvX2GlRmRQW9IjrkZm37tw6ySeSO53YQV3jwJfozYMUrH9HNV5V36BQk0n/s1600-h/Picture+5.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334997642503482946" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY9miC0n3rRxtw0nRDb8El-lvdanl1JZUXRSHm8B_kRitmu0T4h4zocYJUZTt2rCIBJzEtCeTUVEYZvYXHR0fvX2GlRmRQW9IjrkZm37tw6ySeSO53YQV3jwJfozYMUrH9HNV5V36BQk0n/s400/Picture+5.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 69px;" /></a>In this example, you can quickly see that the Drooling Dog Bar B Q has gotten lots of positive reviews, and if you want to see what other people have said about the restaurant, clicking this result is a good choice. We can't provide these snippets on our own, so we hope that web publishers will help us by adopting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microformats">microformats</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDFa">RDFa</a> standards to mark up their HTML and bring this structured data to the surface. This will help people better understand the information you have on your page so they can spend more time there and less on Google. We will be rolling this feature out gradually to ensure that the quality of Google's search results stays high. If you are a webmaster and are interested in participating, visit the <a href="http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/request.py?contact_type=rich_snippets_feedback">rich snippets help page</a> to learn more. We also showed a preview of a new tool that we're calling Google Squared. Unlike a normal search engine, Google Squared doesn't find webpages about your topic — instead, it automatically fetches and organizes facts from across the Internet. We'll be opening it up to users later this month on Google Labs. <div>These features really explore search from a broad and entirely new perspective. Because we realize that when you can't quickly find just the exact information or content you need or want, it's our problem, not yours. And it's a problem with plenty of room left for innovation.  Stay tuned.</div> Posted by Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, and Jack Menzel, Group Product Manager

More Search Options and other updates from our Searchology event

Today we are hosting our second Searchology event, to update our users, partners, and customers on the progress we have made in search and t...

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Dangerous Health IT Mismanagement, Spin Control and the World's Longest Teething Pains

I've written about a physician who documents <a href="http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/faculty/ssilverstein/failurecases/?loc=cases&sloc=australia">the HIT travails Down Under</a> that parallel the ones we have here - and are going to have a lot more of in a mad rush to universal health IT supposedly by 2014. Staff in an Australian Hospital's ED basically revolted against a new system that totally failed ... twice in three days. The two accounts of the incident are interesting regarding the incompetence level that hospital IT departments are permitted and that is widely tolerated as if they were a priesthood, and the spin control often used as CYA for events that carry great potential for patient harm. Physicians should only have it one hundredth as well as IT personnel. Account 1: <blockquote><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/08/2564180.htm">Hospital records system fails twice in one week</a> <div class="published">ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company) News</div><div class="published">Posted Fri May 8, 2009 7:37am AEST</div><div class="published">Emergency doctors at Nepean Hospital in Sydney's west are scaling back a new electronic records system because of two failures in the space of four days. </div>Hospital management says there was a slowdown in the system for two hours on Tuesday, following a widespread outage on Saturday. Staff at the Nepean Hospital have now stopped using some parts of the system, saying they have lost confidence in it. Medics will in some cases go back to using pen and paper to record patients' progress. The chief executive of the Sydney West Area Health Service Professor Steven Boyages has apologised to staff, but says the problems could continue for a year and a half, while the technology is being rolled out. "Like in every other industry, whether its banking or retail or travel, teething problems do occur," he said. "Whenever you experience a computer slowdown it's enormously frustrating. Particularly if you're dealing with patients." But Professor Boyages says patient safety has not been compromised. "The important thing to re-assure your listeners is that we have very effective back up systems in place," he said. [That's what's known as "spin control" - ed.]</blockquote> This raises several questions: <ul><li>Computer systems that are up 24/7 are fairly common, including health IT systems. Who, exactly, is having "teething pains?" Surely not the entire healthcare or health IT industry, unless one considers the possibility of a baby that has thirty years worth of little teeth coming in. Perhaps it's incompetent IT department leaders who are doing the teething, at patient and physician expense?</li><li>A year and a half of more problems expected during "rollout?" [That's simply insane -ed.] What in hell is being rolled out?</li><li>Why, exactly, did the system slow down and then fail? Who was in charge of the project and of system architecture and redundancy? What sanctions do they face as a result of this debacle?</li><li>In the often chaotic environment of emergency medicine, disruptions to record keeping, even short lived ones, run the risk of irreversible error or catastrophe. Evidence of the concern of staff is their rejection of the system. How can the chief executive state that safety has "not been compromised?"</li><li>"Very effective backup systems in place?" Since the computer system went down, clearly this exec is not talking about IT. Perhaps the "backup system" is good, old fashioned paper and pencil?</li></ul> Others share my concerns, as well as concerns that these systems can be more of a hindrance than a help if designed improperly (the identity of the system is not mentioned, unfortunately). Account 2 of same story: <blockquote><a href="http://www.streetcorner.com.au/news/showPost.cfm?bid=10391">Electronic medical records putting patients at risk – Nepean Hospital</a> <div class="userinfo">Posted 07/05/2009 at 05:12 PM by StreetCorner.AU </div>Staff in the Nepean Hospital Emergency Department have banned the use of the new electronic medical records system after it failed for the second time in three days on Tuesday, putting patients at risk, Shadow Minister for Health Jillian Skinner said today. According to Jillian Skinner, medical officers have revealed the latest shut down at the Nepean Hospital ED on Tuesday lasted for two hours, leading to staff deciding on Wednesday they no longer had faith in the new system. “Staff report the electronic medical records system is so cumbersome that senior medical officers who previously saw 8-10 patients in a shift, are only getting through 5-7 because they spend so much time trying to access or enter information” said Mrs Skinner [a.k.a. a mission hostile user experience, itself potentially deadly in an emergency department - ed.] “When the system failed again on Tuesday it meant there were no records of what a patient was there for, no record of treatment so far, no record of tests ordered, no record of test results and no record about what medication may have been given. Skinner reported that emergency staff at Nepean Hospital decided yesterday to pull the pin on using electronic records and are now working with pen and paper because they don’t trust electronic medical records system.</blockquote> A situation in an ED where "there are no records of what a patient was there for, no record of treatment so far, no record of tests ordered, no record of test results and no record about what medication(s) may have been given" would seem to my medical mind to reflect a risk to patient safety. Fortunately there are some in the press who report such issues in a credible manner. It also seems this system either presented a <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/02/are-health-it-designers-idiots-part-1.html">Mission Hostile User Experience</a>, or a Blue Screen of Death User Experience to clinical users. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTUfavHPK4aK5e7V9s8oQGAS22jvNFGvTSNPTsuUkoqo8yodytqptaj-hKgAWmM6R6UnaujgWTngiNig-Re_kP8fcmnL4iywiYUCW8Bf_Xu665Qi4gDjyYG9iH7NFErByDQLIN9gkW6kza/s1600-h/bsod.gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335027415634510738" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTUfavHPK4aK5e7V9s8oQGAS22jvNFGvTSNPTsuUkoqo8yodytqptaj-hKgAWmM6R6UnaujgWTngiNig-Re_kP8fcmnL4iywiYUCW8Bf_Xu665Qi4gDjyYG9iH7NFErByDQLIN9gkW6kza/s320/bsod.gif" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 193px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 257px;" /></a> Considering the <a href="http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/faculty/ssilverstein/failurecases/?loc=cases&sloc=koppel_kreda">contractual blackout</a> that exists in the U.S. on information regarding health IT failures, one wonders how many situations of failure "that don't compromise patient safety" occur on a daily basis on this side of the equator. At some point, hospital IT departments and leaders will need to be subject to the same rigor as other key hospital employees. Letting them act as an unaccountable priesthood who, when they screw up, are given absolution by executives equally complicit in defending the mediocre, rather than being subjected to Darwinian forces, must end before patients get killed. -- SS

Dangerous Health IT Mismanagement, Spin Control and the World's Longest Teething Pains

I've written about a physician who documents the HIT travails Down Under that parallel the ones we have here - and are going to have a ...

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18th International World Wide Web Conference

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0blBSuvM0FsYmIT-xcNhFkk62j-t5qfkA5w4jUkRP8Eqwxv7xnMrOShT6rKbwTH7xN6KFcMRonet6wVsfPR8UWyBuF4KuJYR4EA1c7GkR3Q-uvli21YL_CUqqfqV2biEHoSfQYAF8i8rS/s1600-h/CloserBanner.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334623160918573090" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0blBSuvM0FsYmIT-xcNhFkk62j-t5qfkA5w4jUkRP8Eqwxv7xnMrOShT6rKbwTH7xN6KFcMRonet6wVsfPR8UWyBuF4KuJYR4EA1c7GkR3Q-uvli21YL_CUqqfqV2biEHoSfQYAF8i8rS/s400/CloserBanner.gif" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 75px;" /></a> The 18th International <a href="http://www2009.org/">World Wide Web Conference</a> (WWW 2009) was recently held in Madrid. This is the forum in which Larry and Sergey <a href="http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf">introduced the "Google" search engine</a> back in 1998. Conferences like WWW are highly beneficial for all attendees, as they provide a forum for constructive interactions and discussions among the diverse, global community that is contributing so much to the advancement of the web. As one of the major sponsors this year, Google contributed significantly in various scientific and social forums. Here's a short report of those activities: <ul><li> Google and the Prado Museum collaboration: In January 2009, we announced a <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/prado/">collaboration</a> between <a href="http://earth.google.com/">Google Earth</a> and Spain’s <a href="http://www.museodelprado.es/en/welcome/">Museo del Prado</a>, which lets people zoom in on some of the gallery’s main portraits and view them in a resolution so fine -- up to 14,000 megapixels -- that even individual brush strokes and cracks in the varnish are clearly visible. The Prado Museum has become the first art gallery in the world to provide access to and navigation of its collection in Google Earth. The initiative includes 14 of the Prado’s most famous paintings -- works by Francisco de Goya, Diego Velázquez, Hieronymus Bosch, Peter Paul Rubens, and more. Such ultra-high resolution imaging, enabling users to virtually feel, see and be present with the original masterpieces, is just one way in which the web can make important contributions to the art community. To celebrate this, Google hosted an event at the Prado Museum, where guests received a guided tour of some of the main exhibits, and had the opportunity to network with fellow researchers, academics and engineers, as well as Google's own <a href="http://research.google.com/pubs/author32412.html">Vint Cerf</a>.</li></ul><ul><li>Research Contributions: Google contributed to the WWW conference by authoring or co-authoring several papers and presentations. I gave a keynote speech on <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www2009.eprints.org/214/1/www2009azsv4FinalV3.pdf">The Continuing Metamorphosis of the web</a> (you can read more about that topic on the <a href="http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2009/04/posted-by-alfred-spector-vp-research.html#links">Google Research blog</a>). Some other papers to highlight are:<div><div style="direction: ltr;"><blockquote></blockquote></div></div></li></ul>-- <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www2009.org/proceedings/pdf/p991.pdf">Sitemaps: Above and Beyond the Crawl of Duty</a>, Uri Schonfeld, N. Shivakumar -- <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://data.semanticweb.org/conference/www/2009/paper/5/html">Estimating the ImpressionRank of Web Pages</a>, Z. Bar-Yossef & M. Gurevich -- <a href="http://data.semanticweb.org/conference/www/2009/paper/7/html">Detecting The Origin Of Text Segments Efficiently</a>, O. Abdel-Hamid, B. Behzadi, S. Christoph & M. Henzinger -- <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://research.google.com/pubs/pub35157.html">What's Up CAPTCHA? A CAPTCHA Based On Image Orientation</a>, R. Gossweiler, M. Kamvar & S. Baluja -- <a href="http://www2009.org/proceedings/pdf/p801.pdf">Computer and iPhones and Mobile Phones, oh my! A logs-based comparison of search users on different devices</a>, M. Kamvar, M. Keller, R. Patel, and Y. Xu -- <a href="http://www2009.org/proceedings/pdf/p681.pdf">Collaborative Filterin for Orkut Communities: Discover of User Latent Behaviour</a>, W. Chen, J. Chu, J. Luan, H. Bai, Y. Wang, and E. Chang. -- <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www2009.org/proceedings/pdf/p31.pdf">Fast Dynamic Reranking in Large Graphs</a>, P. Sarkar, A. Moore -- <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www2009.org/proceedings/pdf/p821.pdf">WEB 2.0: Blind to an Accessible New World</a>, J. Hailpern, L.Guarino-Reid, R. Boardman, S. Annam -- <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www2009.org/proceedings/pdf/p141.pdf">How Opinions are Received by Online Communities</a>: A Case Study on Amazon.com Helpfulness Votes, C. Danescu, G. Kossinets, J. Kleinberg, L. Lee -- <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www2009.org/proceedings/pdf/p231.pdf">Bid Optimization for Broad Match Ad Auctions</a>, E. E. Dar, Y. Mansour, V. Mirrokni, M. Muthukrishnan & U. Nadav -- <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www2009.org/proceedings/pdf/p241.pdf">General Auction Mechanism for Search Advertising</a>, G. Aggarwal, S. Muthukrishnan, D. Pal & M. Pal <ul><li> Best Paper Award and the Internet Monetization Track: The WWW program committee changed the best paper and poster process this year. They first chose several <a href="http://www2009.org/best.html">nominated papers</a> from different tracks, and after seeking feedback from conference attendees, they chose their best paper: Ashish Goel's and Kamesh Munagala's <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www2009.org/proceedings/pdf/p221.pdf">Hybrid Keyword Search Auctions</a>. The authors of this paper propose a unified approach to an auction for cost-per-click and cost-per-impression settings, and show promising properties of their proposed auction. The paper was presented in the Internet Monetization Track at WWW — a new track which, despite its short term at WWW, became very popular this year. Other tracks like web search, data mining, and the social web have been active at WWW for years and already attract many high-quality research papers. The best poster award went to a paper co-authored by Google's <a href="http://research.google.com/people/monika/">Monika Henzinger</a> about <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www2009.org/proceedings/pdf/p1109.pdf">Purely URL-based Topic Classification</a>. </li></ul>Before closing, I want to return to the Prado Museum collaboration with Google Earth: Now that there is really high resolution imaging and the ability to distribute it to a vast audience, the benefits of combining art and technology are greatly increased. In another medium, witness the success of the <a href="http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/broadcast/hd_events_next.aspx">Metropolitan Opera's high definition broadcasts </a>that are bringing that art form to a much larger audience. Another place where Google recently helped fuse technology and the arts was with the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/symphony">YouTube Symphony Orchestra</a>. In the case of fine art, our collaboration with the Prado museum enables much broader access to the masterpieces while also providing museum attendees with an unparalleled opportunity to study details of the works before and after a visit. For example, the intense detail in <a href="http://www.museodelprado.es/en/bienvenido/15-masterpieces/ficha-obra/obra/the-garden-of-earthly-delights/">Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights</a> is difficult to comprehend in front of the large, heavily visited triptych, but seeing the painting in person after some previous study makes it far more exciting. So, it would seem that we can use technology in the art world to achieve benefits for all. Posted by Alfred Spector, VP of Research and Special Initiatives

18th International World Wide Web Conference

The 18th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2009) was recently held in Madrid. This is the forum in which Larry and Sergey introd...

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Energy and the Internet

There's been a lot of debate lately about the growing amount of energy needed to power the Internet, and we wanted to weigh in on the discussion. A few months ago, I first blogged about the about amount of <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/powering-google-search.html">energy used in one Google search</a>. Our engineers crunched the numbers and found that an average query uses about 1 kJ of energy and emits about 0.2 grams of carbon dioxide. But those raw numbers don't really put the environmental impact of searching the Internet into perspective. To add some context, below is data about the C02 impact of some everyday activities and items compared to Google searching: <table border="1" cellpadding="5"><tbody><tr><td>Activity</td><td>Google Searches</td></tr><tr><td>CO2 emissions of an average <a href="http://teenet.tei.or.th/Knowledge/Paper/carbonfootprintinsupplychain.pdf">daily newspaper</a> (PDF) (100% recycled paper) </td><td>850</td></tr><tr><td>A glass of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/business/22pepsi.html">orange juice</a></td><td>1,050</td></tr><tr><td>One load of dishes in an <a href="http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/product_specs/program_reqs/dishwash_prog_req.pdf">EnergyStar dishwasher</a> (PDF)<a href="http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/product_specs/program_reqs/dishwash_prog_req.pdf"> </a></td><td>5,100 </td></tr><tr><td>A five mile trip in the <a href="http://www.epa.gov/otaq/fetrends.htm">average U.S. automobile</a></td><td>10,000 </td></tr><tr><td>A <a href="http://www.openthefuture.com/cheeseburger_CF.html">cheeseburger</a></td><td>15,000</td></tr><tr><td>Electricity consumed by the <a href="http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ask/electricity_faqs.asp">average U.S. household</a> in one month</td><td>3,100,000 </td></tr></tbody></table> We work hard to provide our users with the fastest products using the least amount of energy. We have a team of dedicated engineers focused on designing and building the <a href="http://www.google.com/corporate/green/datacenters/">most efficient data centers</a> in the world. In fact, through efficiency innovations, we have managed to cut energy usage in our data centers by over 50 percent, so we're using less than half the energy to run our data centers as the industry average. This efficiency means that in the time it takes to do a Google search, your own personal computer will likely use more energy than we will use to answer your query. And the energy used by computers is growing; people are more plugged-in today than ever before in history. There are more than one billion PCs and laptops currently in use, and that number is expected to grow to four billion by 2020. We've got cell phones, PDAs, iPods, and GPS devices — not to mention the data centers that store all of our digital information "in the cloud." The electricity needed to run all of our computers, gadgets, and gizmos is growing and now accounts <a href="http://www.smart2020.org/">for half of all ICT emissions</a>. (ICT stands for "information and communications technology.") Although the amount of energy used to power ICT is growing, it's important to measure all of the ways information technology helps us save energy too. A study by The Climate Group, in fact, shows that <a href="http://www.theclimategroup.org/assets/resources/publications/Smart2020ReportSummary.pdf">ICT emissions pay for themselves</a> (PDF) (and then some) by enabling significant reductions in emissions by other sectors of the economy. After all, it's much more efficient to move electrons than to move atoms. "Virtual" tools like email, video-conferencing, and search engines replace more carbon-intensive activities like snail mail, business travel, and driving. We can still make progress at improving computing efficiency across the industry, however, and Google is committed to doing so. In 2007 we co-founded the <a href="http://www.climatesaverscomputing.org/">Climate Savers Computing Initiative</a>, a non-profit organization committed to reducing global CO2 emissions from the operation of computers by 54 million tons a year by 2010. Check out their website for more information on how you can reduce the environmental impact of your own computer use.<div> </div><div>Update 7/16/09: Google's Q2 2009 data center efficiency measurements are now available <a href="http://www.google.com/corporate/green/datacenters/measuring.html">here</a>.  Posted by Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations</div>

Energy and the Internet

There's been a lot of debate lately about the growing amount of energy needed to power the Internet, and we wanted to weigh in on the di...

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IRS Changes Form 990 to Make Not-for-Profit Organizations More Transparent and Accountable

In the US, many important health care organizations are not-for-profit organizations. Many US medical schools, and other health educational institutions, along with their parent universities are not-for-profit. (Essentially all the exceptions are supported by local or state government.) The majority of US hospitals and hospital systems, including academic medical centers, are not-for-profit. Some managed care organizations are not-for-profit. Medical and professional societies, health care advocacy groups, health care charities, and a variety of other groups are not-for-profit. Not-for-profit health care organizations here have hardly been immune from leadership and governance problems. We have discussed numerous instances of ill-informed, conflicted, and even corrupt leadership of these organizations, and underlying problems with their governance, which may be unrepresentative of key constituencies, unaccountable, secretive and opaque, and not subject to clear ethical rules. There may be some major changes coming, however, affecting leadership and governance of all US not-f0r-profit organizations, including health care organizations. The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has long required that not-for-profits that exceed certain minimums file and make publicly available certain information on a form 990. Relatively recent forms from most US not-for-profits are available online from <a href="http://www2.guidestar.org/">Guidestar.org</a>. The old forms provided for some minimal transparency. They displayed, for example, a list of the filing not-for-profit organization's trustees, and the salaries and retirement plans given to their five highest-paid employees. The IRS has revised the forms starting with those to be filed in 2009, which will reflect 2008 data, so as to markedly increase organizational transparency. The actual forms can be found on <a href="http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=176613,00.html">this IRS web-page</a>, and a discussion of key points can be found <a href="http://www2.guidestar.org/rxa/news/articles/2009/revised-form-990-a-how-to-guide.aspx">here</a> on the GuideStar.org web-site. For the first time, the forms will include information about certain aspects of leadership and governance. Leadership Conflicts of Interest The new form 990 will require each organization to establish the "independence" of the organizations' trustees, directors, officers, and key employees. Independent individuals would be those without any direct or indirect business relationships with the not-for-profit organization; without any relatives with such business relationships; and who were not serving as an officer, director, trustee, key employee, partner, or member of an organization doing business with the not-for-profit organization. The relationships preventing individuals from being independent would have to be documented. It is likely that perusal of such information on the new form 990 would reveal to some extent the degree the organization's leaders are conflicted. Up to now, it has been very difficult to get information about conflicts affecting the leadership of health care organizations. We have reported numerous cases of seemingly high-level conflicts affecting leaders of not-for-profit health care organizations. It is likely that such conflicts affect the ability and inclination of leaders to uphold their organization's mission, that is, to fulfill their duty of obedience. Leadership Compensation The new form 990 will ask for detailed information about the total compensation given to officers, directors, and trustees, key and the five most highly paid employees, and former officers, directors, trustees, key and most highly compensated employees who continued to receive substantial amounts. This will include not only reportable and other compensation, but whether anyone received unusual compensation such as first-class or charter travel, companion travel, tax indemnification for gross-up payments, discretionary spending accounts, housing allowance or residence for personal use, payments for business use of personal residence, health or social club dues or fees, and personal services (e.g., maid, chauffeur, chef). Also, the form inquires about severance packages and supplemental non-qualified retirement plans. Up to now, little information about the compensation of not-for-profit leaders beyond base salaries, contributions to employee benefit plans and deferred compensation, and expense allowances and the like was available. Clearly, while not reaching the stratospheric levels enjoyed by top leaders of for-profit health care corporations, some leaders of not-for-profit health care organizations have come to be paid enough to make them rich. It is possible that some now regard their positions as first a pathway to wealth, rather than a calling to improve the health of society, or to advance medical education or science. Furthermore, it is possible that some leaders have been receiving additional compensation which has made them even more wealthy, while particular "perks," like staffed houses, chauffeured cars, and first-class travel, has isolated them from the patients, clients, and/or students they are supposed to be serving. Organizational Policies The new form 990 will ask whether the organization has a written conflict of interest policy, and if so, how compliance is monitored and enforced, and a written policy to protect whistle blowers. Summary In my humble opinion, the IRS' new form 990 could make substantial improvements to the transparency and accountability of not-for-profit health care organizations. Review of form 990's filed starting this year could provide important information about conflicts of interest affecting organizational leaders, whether they have been distracted by new-found wealth, or decoyed by luxurious perks, and whether their organizations have clear policies meant to maintain certain ethical standards. However, while the IRS will mandate that such information becomes available, it is not clear what it will do about the information so revealed. Additionally, the wealth of information that will be provided could easily bury the few watchdogs, including the Health Care Renewal bloggers, that have been trying to monitor the governance and leadership of health care organizations. However, the new information provides an important opportunity to other people concerned about these issues. For example, perhaps some health professionals have concerns about how their alma maters are lead and governed. Maybe they will peruse the new information provided, and then try to use it to make their alma maters more accountable. It is at least possible to be optimistic. What Is to Be Done? If you are concerned about a particular not-for-profit health care organization, you can prepare for the availability of more information from the revised form 990 in several ways, by searching for already publicly available information. You can peruse older form 990s, which at least provides the names of trustees and officers, and officers' and key employees' salaries. In addition, the web makes it possible to identify some conflicts of interest affecting current leadership. For example, try first entering each leader's name, surrounded by quotes, into Google, to look for biographical information that could reveal conflicts. Next, try searching on the name plus terms like "board of directors," "board of trustees," "consultant," or "advisory board," which may uncover some additional conflicts. If you find anything of concern, consider making it more public. Remember, the best way to improve health care leadership is to hold it accountable to an activated public, preferably strongly infused with health care professionals who want to uphold their professionalism.

IRS Changes Form 990 to Make Not-for-Profit Organizations More Transparent and Accountable

In the US, many important health care organizations are not-for-profit organizations. Many US medical schools, and other health educational...

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