Google just launched their new project Google Flu Trends
It’s a hot topic, CNN reported it, NY Times reported it
If your looking for details those are good places to start.
I wanted to point out the post I wrote about a month ago
A Global Health Surveillance System
It gives a little more of the background and who’s involved with this project.
I want to say upfront there isn’t anything wrong or bad this type of technology. It’s a huge breakthrough in technology.
It’s how you use it that matters. I hope in the future the technology isn’t used to infringe on people’s individual civil liberties., say in the form of collecting person information and even creating personal data bases.
At the moment it seems to be open source and transparent, you can even downland the raw data yourself from their site.
