The Omniscient Tech Blog

Microsoft HealthVault Launches

2007-10-04T14:46:00.000-04:00

Today Microsoft unveiled its new web application HealthVault, a medical records manager that will let users and their health care providers store and track their medical information online.
Privacy is a major concern when you start talking about people Health records. As for privacy? The NY Times reports:
"The personal information, Microsoft said, will be stored in a secure, encrypted database. Its privacy controls, the company said, are set entirely by the individual, including what information goes in and who gets to see it. The HealthVault searches are conducted anonymously, Microsoft said, and will not be linked to any personal information in a HealthVault personal health record."
Microsoft's secured a few major partners in the health industry, with more to come, who will be able to transfer your blood pressure or cholesterol level right into HealthVault during your checkup.
With Microsoft being the first out of the big three that are trying to break into this market (Google and Cisco are also going to be giving it a shot), Microsoft has given itself a huge jumpstart over it's would be competitors.
Their biggest obstacles after the technical parts get worked out are going to be Privacy and proving to the public that this is worth the time and risk.

Technorati Test

2007-10-01T13:56:00.001-04:00

Technorati Profile

More Evidence for Gmail 2.0

2007-09-27T09:43:00.000-04:00

I have noticed one more piece of evidence that points to a new version of Gmail. It is not what they have updated but what they have neglected to update. You still can't open a PPT attachment as a Google doc yet.
When you have a word or excel attachment, Gmail gives you the option to open it in Google Docs.
But when you open a PPT file it still is using the old basic slideshow viewer and not Google Presently or Google Docs, which has had a presentation function for over a week now. Why would Google leave this when they just released a new product for Google Docs. You would think they would be giving the product as much of a chance to get used as they could. But they aren't. That probably means that there is no point in having the Gmail programmers stop working on Gmail 2.0 to fix update the old version that is just going to be replaced soon.

Happy Birthday Google!

2007-09-27T09:12:00.000-04:00

Today Google turns 9 or 10 depending on who you ask. Sergey Brin registered the domain in 1997 but Google didn't open it's doors until September 1998, according to Google's help center. The date of its birthday has moved around quite a bit over the years. Hey things like that happen as you get older.

You would think that the all know Omniscient Google, controller of all information in the world, could figure out when it's own birthday is. Come on you have to see the irony in Google's confusion over this topic.

Here are Google's Birthday banners:

Google Book Search Adds Shelfs

2007-09-26T19:26:00.000-04:00

Google Book Search has just undergone a massive redesign. They have added shelves as categories to search for books.
In the past it was very hard to discover new book without specifically looking for a certain book. You would type in a name of a book or author and sort through traditional Google listing that might even have a picture. Not any more now it is like going to the library.

Google Book search now has shelves jus tlike you library or local book store. The page loads the Interesting, Classics, Highly cited, and a Random subject's shelves showing. It also has these shelves on the left hand side:
Fiction

Literature
Science fiction
Fantasy
Romance
Mystery
Fairy tales
Short stories
Poetry

Non-fiction

Philosophy
Economics
Political science
Linguistics
Mathematics
Physics
Chemistry
Biology

Random subjects

Cosmology
Nuclear energy
Toys
Europe
Astrology
Space ships
High performance computing
Human locomotion

The main shelves show four algorithmically selected books on each that are different every time you view the page. Each book is represented by a image of it's cover. If there is no cover image available Google creates one composed of the title and the author's name.
When you click on a book it will show the book (what is available per copyright) and a preview if available. You can buy some books and classics (public domain) can be downloaded in pdf. This pdf is watermarked by Google and you are asked not to use it for a commercial purpose. They wouldn't want you making money of their hard work.
They are making money of their hard work. Google now uses Adsense below the viewing pane.

Gmail 2.0

2007-09-26T11:34:00.001-04:00

We have all been waiting for it. Our favorite e-mail service might finally be getting an update. Google might be coming out with a new version of Gmail. Most people have thought that development on this popular service had stagnated. But Garett Rogers is reporting that:

it’s soon to undergo a change in what they describe as a “New Version”. Only a select few people have access to use the new interface — mainly employees and trusted people outside the company called “Trusted Testers“.

This should be great for the service that has captured the hearts and mind of the tech crowd but has made little leeway with the yahoo and Hotmail users of the world that just can't seem to understand a reason for leaving their safety blankets. Hopefully this new version will have some great new features and still maintain that speed with which we all fell in love. It probably won't be getting as major of an overhaul as Google docs received as this might turn off many of its current users that love the Spartan interface.

Some features that might be included:

Contacts pop-up in the compose view - Many other Google Services are using this.
Google Reader in the side-bar - Like the greasemokey script.
GrandCentral voicemails in the side-bar - Like the greasemokey script.
Making Gmail more of a hub for all your google services.
Folders - Adding folders within folders
Search - the ability to search for partial words.
Attachment Search - Gmail should index all attachments.

I do not know what will be coming out but I hope that they do it soon.

There has been other evidence for the existence of Gmail 2.0. They have been trying to get translations of words like "Newer Version" for the Gmail Interface.

ALERT!, ALERT!, ALERT! - Videos

2007-09-26T10:53:00.000-04:00

Google has a new addition to their alerts service. They now have video alerts. I added this alerts for "Google" on an as-it-happens basis. This is what the new menu looks like:

Google Alerts is a really useful service. It lets you take any subject and get an e-mail anytime that subjuct is updated by google crawlers. This great for business owners and blog writers that let google do their research for them (none here). They have already been offering this service for updates on News, Web, Blog and Groups. You can get updates on a daily, weekly, or as-it-happens basis and this is now true for video as well.

Google has been having a conflict with these videos. it appears that they have been hosting videos from other sites as reported on Google Operating System. They need to watch this as they branch out more with their services that offer other sites video without giving credit or page views. These are murky waters that Google is treading thru.