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Microsoft and GE Partner On Healthcare
theodp writes "Microsoft and General Electric are forming an as-yet-unnamed new health-care technology company. Based near Microsoft's Redmond headquarters, the company will be established next year with about 750 employees drawn from GE, Microsoft and elsewhere. 'High-quality, affordable healthcare is one of the biggest challenges facing every nation, but it's also an area where technology can make a huge difference,' said Steve Ballmer. 'Combining Microsoft's open, interoperable health platforms and software expertise with GE's experience and healthcare solutions will create exciting opportunities for patients and healthcare providers alike. Working together, GE and Microsoft can help make healthcare systems more intelligent and cost efficient while improving patient care.' Has someone been watching those iPad Healthcare case study videos?"
Both my MIL and FIL are dead because of so-called Canadian healthcare.
For years my MIL was told by Canadian doctors that her main problem was that she was depressed and they prescribed her meds for it. When we finally convinced her to move to the States, doctors here discovered that her carotid artery was 90 percent blocked; she'd been having mini strokes for several years.
My FIL was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Canadian doctors gave him meds for years. Finally, he was allowed to see a heart specialist in Montreal in Sept 2005. It was determined that he had blockages in four arteries, one of which was over 99 percent, and the other three 85-95. They scheduled him for surgery... four weeks later. Then postponed it. And again. Finally operated on him in Dec. He died a few days later. (If he had been in the States, he would have been on an operating table within a day of discovering he was blocked that much. And he wouldn't have had to wait years for to see a heart surgeon in the first place.)
My step-daughter took her daughter to the dentist every six months. Each time, they would say that McKenzie had cavities and would put her on a waiting list to have them taken care of. And each time they would return for another cleaning, McKenzie was put on the waiting list again. Finally, during one visit with us, we convinced Morgan to take McKenzie to a local dentist here in the US. Long story short--McKenzie had 16 cavities and six abscessed teeth. SIX--on a five year old! McKenzie must have been in incredible amounts of pain--and that doesn't even begin to describe the potential for the abscesses to cause permanent damage to the bones in her jaw, or for the infection to get into her bloodstream. A couple days later, the cavities were filled (including her two front teeth) and the abscessed teeth extracted. The turnaround time? First visit on Tuesday, oral surgery on Wednesday. McKenzie up and playing around as if nothing had occurred on Thursday.
Last story:
The pedodontist who worked on McKenzie's mouth told us that a good friend of his who is a surgeon went on vacation in Canada and got into a skiing accident and severely damaged one hand. There was no specialist in the vicinity, so they were just going to amputate his hand, which would have destroyed his livelihood. Instead, he was able to get on a flight back to the US where a hand surgeon restored full function to the hand after a six-hour surgery.
These examples are not the exception. I could post a dozen more without even having to call my in-laws in Canada to get the details--that's how common these situations are.
BSODs are almost always a result of a bad driver, a bad piece of hardware, bad firmware, or a bad 3rd party service.
Basically, pretty much similar to a crash on any other modern OS, it is very very rarely caused by a kernel bug. If youre getting BSODs, update your damn drivers or choose another, less crappy hardware vendor.