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Google Tackles Health
Google has announced the formation of a new company called Calico, which aims to promote health and fight aging. Larry Page said, "That’s a lot different from what Google does today. And you’re right. But as we explained in our first letter to shareholders, there’s tremendous potential for technology more generally to improve people’s lives. So don’t be surprised if we invest in projects that seem strange or speculative compared with our existing Internet businesses." He expanded upon this in an interview with Time: "I'm not proposing that we spend all of our money on those kinds of speculative things. But we should be spending a commensurate amount with what normal types of companies spend on research and development, and spend it on things that are a little more long-term and a little more ambitious than people normally would. More like moon shots." The new company's CEO will be Arthur Levinson, who is currently the chairman of Apple and biotech company Genentech. Apple CEO Tim Cook said, "For too many of our friends and family, life has been cut short or the quality of their life is too often lacking. Art is one of the crazy ones who thinks it doesn't have to be this way."
millions living today will never die!
Are they trying to keep everyone 23 years old so they don't cycle through workers in San Fran?
HIPAA is getting in Google's way. They can't just "take" people's health information the same as they do general user data. So, in order to acquire what migh actually be considered "private" data, they have chosen to be a health care provider which then gives them direct access to that normally off limits data.
Step 1: Create billion dollar business based on people clicking internet ads Step 2: Make more old people to click on the internet ads (who else clicks on those ads) Step 3: Profit!
This probably will involve more ads. Google will scan your emails social postings, and purchases for signs of an unhealthy lifestyle and send you appropriate ads. Then they'll offer a free service to hold all your medical records. With ads.
Watch for new Google terms of service which waive HIPPA privacy rules.
I wish they were more specific though. What is this company going to do? Drugs? Medical devices?
Overall, I like the thought of a major IT company trying its hand in healthcare. For some reason it seems promising.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
In order for socialism to be realized, it appears there must be some organization that takes the longest possible way around it. Perhaps this is just to make sure that all the bushes have been thoroughly whacked.
I'm glad someone is working on self-driving cars and life extension.
Companies that lose sight of their core competencies wind up failing at both the new business (from cluelessness) and the old business (from distraction).
Nice allusion error in the headline. I know - this English language thing is pretty hard.
1/5 children in America live in poverty. 2/5 lack adequate nutrition. But let's instead focus on improving the quality of life and longevity of the wealthy!
Invent a flower substitute that has no calories to replace bread and pastas. And leave vitamins out of it.
Carbs are 70% of McDonald's non-drink calories. I would love to drop weight on a Big Mac and Spaghetti diet.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Well, maybe most of them have this much content, but there's nothing anyone can do with that link but speculate. Not sure why it's even deemed worthy of the front page.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Does he mean the US insurance and health industry practice of inflating prices? A country that spends so much money on physiological health obviously won't have the resources to treat psychological health. Not a smart policy with a jobless recovery and the middle-class lifestyle suffering a financial 'squeeze'.
The longer you live, the longer they can siphon your data for ad revenue and sell you shiny things!
I heard a rumor somewhere, probably on the internet, that step 2 in the next upgrade for cookie clicker. don't click that link. oh wait, maybe I should have said that first...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
So the 0.1% will be able to defeat death and keep ruling forever. Our civilization is not at the right stage to do that, there are things that must be solved before giving that kind of power to people that clearly abuses it for their own good to opress the majority.
It's a match made in heaven. When Google abandon projects there'll be nobody around from when they started (or at least none with all their slates on) to gripe about it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Yes, I bet the friends and especially the families of CEOs (Cook's base salary $1.4 million, cash bonus $2.8 million in 2012) suffer a lot, more than those of the remaining citizens. Not to forget the grief that especially Cook has with all the criticism that Apple does almost pay no taxes.
More on topic: I can well imagine how life prolongement via Google would look like sensors and actors controlled by Google (get your life stream optimized on our servers).
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Talk about feeling them warm fuzzies... like the morgue in midwinter!
What was the premise.. all the truly important things about a person.. are already stored online. Just assemble them like a stew and Presto! instant Soul.
Jettison all that useless Autonomic nervous system.. what's it good for anyway? Just wasted brain capacity.. breath in.. breath out..
Once we let go the physical form.. racking people up like flash chip backups should be easy
Immortality is in the Eye of the Beholder.. even if its merely a Cylon eye.
Well not really but they did have a project that they cancled that I used. Google Health. I guess they can restart that up. http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/health/about/
Paul: Father... father, the sleeper has awakened! - Dune
living forever suddenly becomes a priority.
anti ageing app coming soon to your android device. Suck eggs Microsoft
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
Doctor: Take two Google Aspirins (now in beta), and call me in the morning.
Wait - Isn't that Revlon's tagline?
Sounds more like pharmaceuticals and cosmetics than healthcare to me.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Google could organize it and make it available. Check Stay-in-Touch.ca
The social ethos that is almost universal right across the US is that nobody deserves anything unless they work for it, that those not willing or able to find work are despised, and that using taxation to raise the poor out of poverty is absolutely out of the question and would be clear misuse of public money.
(It's fine to use taxation to invade countries, kill foreigners, spy on the entire world, and keep millions of domestic citizens in private jails though.)
In such a country, poverty is not an accident. It is totally normal and to be expected. No other outcome is possible.
What if corporations full of elitists are imposing an upper limit on average life expectancy? What if TED talks are actually bad for everybody except the 1%? What if it really does just boil down to a resource problem where the fittest win or we all die? Then what?
what about cutting down the work week?
that can help as well as taking health care out of jobs.
"So don’t be surprised if we invest in projects that seem strange"
Plus since we took away your voting rights.. you can suuuuuck iiiiiiit.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/12/technology/google-earnings/index.htm
This is not about you and me and our health data, it's about some billionaires who (understandably) don't want to see what happened to Steve Jobs happen to them.
You can sit around and say this is Evil and whatnot, but honestly would any of us here behave any differently if we were in their position?
Note that the president of the new company Calico is Art Levinson, who is currently also Chairman of Genentech and *Apple* so there's a direct Steve Jobs link here and even a quote in the press release from Tim Cook:
Tim Cook, Chief Executive Officer of Apple, said: “For too many of our friends and family, life has been cut short or the quality of their life is too often lacking. Art is one of the crazy ones who thinks it doesn't have to be this way. There is no one better suited to lead this mission and I am excited to see the results.”
So this is all very science-fiction (both from a technology *and* a social point of view) and it will be fascinating to watch.
From a Science point of view this is really interesting because at the moment there are relatively few sources of funding for basic life-extension research, since much research money comes from the government, and making people live longer is no more politically acceptable than talking about population control. So if you're a fan of applied biological research and specifically life-extension technologies then you should be pretty excited by Google's move here.
Interesting times.
G.
P.S. I for one welcome our new genetically enhanced immortal geek overlords.
Sure, something Google does might seem innocuous at first, but those
among us who don't make snap decisions concerning sharing of our personal
data ( in other words we are not the sort who use Facebook )
will view anything Google does in an extremely circumspect manner.
If you are skeptical of this position relative to Google, let me remind you
that Google was happily collecting data on WiFi access points until their activities
were exposed.
Google's real motto :
"Don't get caught doing evil"
My entry to make better software tools: https://www.newschallenge.org/challenge/healthdata/feedback/health-sensemaking-software-tools
We could connect the dots based on approaches pioneered by the intelligence community.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Doesn't S. M. Brin's (still-current) wife run a DNA testing outfit that purports to identify genetic predisposition to disease? Interesting market sector!
Eventually...
Lame. Go with something more accurate: GATTACA.
Google hired the crackpot Kurzweil to make the singularity happen - so now Google is hedging by wanting to stop organic death? Is Google covering all the bases?