Google Health!

Google provides us with many amazing applications and programs. Google is wayyyy out there, because now we are able to organize, gather, and share our health data through online!!

Did you know that for nearly two years, Google (google.com/health) has been offering free accounts? Which allows users to organize health information all in one place, gather your medical records from doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies, and lastly share your information securely with a family members, doctors or caregivers.

Google has been partnering with growing number of pharmacies, health care providers and so on... According to CNET news, in march, it is teaming with Surescripts, "the nation's largest electronic-prescrbing network, which lets its subscribers access prescription information through the Web. The new partnership will allow Surescripts members to store and track their prescription history via Google Health" said Google. This also allows your doctor to pull up your prescription history by using this network.

So, why should you use Google Health? What are some advantages?
Well, Google Health is useful in many ways. For example, having access to information is helpful when flit among doctors. Also when I am trying to manage my dad's health while he is out of town, I am allow to do it just by signing into Google Health account. According to "Technology Review", so far, Google Health is "making it easy for more people to access and control their prescription history is important because it represents an opportunity for people to better understand their medications and why they are taking them, and to make them more aware of safety issues that commonly occur as a result of drug interactions," says Roni Zeiger, a physician and a product manager at Google.

This tool sounds very helpful and effective but Google Health does raise concerns of security. Google already knows so much about you - do you really want to share more?

Although there are number of benefits of using Google Health, it does raise the concern on security and privacy. Is your information secured? Do you think it is safe to put up all your health records online?

Google says their privacy policy is fine, but since Google Health is an online application, you never know what could happen. According to my research, major company, TJ maxx, have had data breaches that resulted in information being stolen and distributed around the world. In my opinion, if I was to use Google Health, and store my health information online, I would not feel safe or secured. Although there are many great features I can use, I would be afraid that my information could be easily sold or shared with others, and this would lead to negative consequences. -- this is just my opinion... I am sure there are many people out there who believe Google Health application is a great way to manage health data online :)

Just a tip:
Before you sign up, make sure you read the service's privacy policy!

Research Poster

On Monday, it was finally my turn to present Google Goggles to my COM324 class.
I was so nervous at first but I actually enjoyed this project a lot!
I, myself, got to learn about many different things about Google Goggles (GG) and also about other emerging technologies. There are many great technologies out there I never knew about. It was a very helpful and useful day for me!

While I was standing in front of my poster, I got to talk to many people who were passing by, and I was pretty surprised because many people told me that they never heard about GG at all.
So, I thought I picked a great topic because now, many people are informed about this app. (hopefully)

While I was doing more research on GG, I found out that there was an issue about invading privacy. Since GG allows you to visually search anything, just by taking a picture of an object. GG is so sensitive and smart that it could work on people as well! If you took a photo of your friend, Google might bring back a link to your blog, facebook, and so on.
I feel like people could easily find/search about someone so easily that it could even be a great tool for stalkers and privacy invaders in general. I guess even Google admits it is kind of dangerous and invades privacy. So, at the Le Web conference, company stated that they need to get a better handle on "the implications of the facial recognition tools"

I wanted to inform my classmates about how this was an issue but not anymore because Google has decided not to allow people to use the visual search tool to identify people. (no worries people! :D)

Overall, I felt very comfortable and had a lot fun while talking to my classmates. After I was done, I went to my twitter account right a way to see their thoughts on GG, and while reading the tweets, I felt gooooooooooood :)

Next time, If i were to do this again, I would make some changes on the layout of my poster. I felt like I included too many texts, so next time I should definitely make some bullet points to emphasize my main ideas.



Now,
Go out and visually search the world around you!-- and remember, you can do this just by taking a picture!

It only takes few seconds... ;)

Google Goggles!!

For the past few days, I've been researching for my poster project that is coming up soon!
And I FINALLY found my topic :D and I am so excited to share it with you guys.

I will be talking more in details about my topic, but before I do that I just wanted to introduce my topic and talk a little tiny bit about it today.

So my topic is about Google Goggles.
I've been doing a lot of research on emerging technologies, and I came across an article about a new application that Google came up with and I was super excited to learn about it.

Google Goggles is a new application for the Android operating system that allows the user to do searches by submitting photos or images. Sounds simple...yet interesting right? I think this application is very useful and handful in many ways. For example, if I go to San Francisco and visit one of the wineries in Napa Valley and decide to do some wine tasting. While I am tasting a red wine I really like, I would love to find out more about it. Right that moment, I take a picture of the bottle (of the wine) and in a second, I am able to read all about the information that is available online. Just like this:



-- I know, the world is super high-tech now.

There are many different ways Google Goggles can be used but I don't want to give a way too much right now :p
Let me just say with Google Goggles, your life will be much easier and handful !!

Freedom of Speech

While I was reading some news on cnn.com, I came across an interesting news article about facebook and free speech issue. The article deals with social networking sites and the issues behind them.

Nowadays, number one social networking sites are facebook and twitter. I am always on facebook whenever I am sitting in front of my computer, but I never had the chance to learn or try twitter until few days ago. I am still in process of learning about twitter, but so far, I think it's a great way of getting information about basically "everything."

Anyway, the news article I read today talks about how Katherine Evans, now 19 and attending college, was suspended in 2007 from Pembroke Pines Charter High School after she used her home computer to create a facebook page and wrote, "Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I've ever met." There were a lot of opinions and issues about this but in the end they concluded that Katherine had a constitutional right to express her views on facebook because what she wrote was an opinion about a teacher. She wasn't threatening or advocating illegal or dangerous behaviors.

When I read this article, I got to think about personal opinions, privacy, and laws/rules about networking sites. People are able to express their thoughts and opinions wherever and whenever they want. Facebook and personal blogs are especially the place to express their personal opinions and gossip about someone or certain things. But is there a limit? Are we suppose to carefully edit our thoughts and opinions before we post something online?

Although Katherine did not do anything wrong by law, did she cross the line by showing no respect towards her teacher by posting negative comments about her? Is respect important and necessary in the online world?

There are so many questions going through my head, and I am not really sure what is the right or wrong. I guess there is no answer at all, it all depends on how you word them.

Social networking sites are helpful and fun, and that is why 36% of all American adults use facebook today. But I think it is important to know and learn that expressing hatred or being sexist, and racist on the online world is something you would want to think twice about.
It is so easy to hurt other people's feeling and so easy to deceive others online, and that is why the online world can be dangerous.

I know most of us are probably aware of these issues, but I just wanted to give you guys a little more information and stories that are out there today.