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Google Health adds a document upload feature
The new Health feature allows you to store scanned paper documents in your account.
Enter another handy feature in Google's platform for ushering in the age of digital medical records: Google Health now supports scanned document uploads for attaching various parts of your health care-related paper trail to your central storehouse of medical data. Bills or receipts, insurance forms, prescriptions, and other miscellaneous medical records can now be housed within your Google Health account; Google suggests an "advance directive" form containing your end-of-life wishes would be one of the more critical documents to upload for your family and doctor to be able to access in case of emergency.Another recently added feature is permissions-based access to the documents in your account, which touches on one of the major concerns with the digitization of medical records: security. Google indicates the security of your records is one of its top priorities in this initiative, which stands to benefit many greatly through centralization and designated access to a repository of your health history as your physical location and physicians may change over your lifetime.
Around the web: techcrunch.com (21 comments)
Profile pages: Google, cloud computing
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MyBlackBerry social network for BlackBerry owners launches
Because the internets won't rest until there is a social network for absolutely everything.
Well, why not, really? If there's anything social networking has taught us, it's that people love to affiliate around topics of interest. BlackBerry owners should theoretically be no different, and now Research in Motion is giving them a place to congregate, dubbed MyBlackBerry. Launching today, the service will reportedly be customized based on the device(s) you own, and apparently requires an invitation code to sign up, at least at the moment. Users can converse about their favorite BlackBerry apps and accessories and share tips and tricks for specific devices and the general BlackBerry OS.
Since RIM itself will be listening in, it could prove a great new customer service realm for the company (or a black eye if they're perceived as being unresponsive to user sentiment). For users, it could be a one-stop-shop for optimizing their BlackBerry experience, troubleshooting a problem or at least finding out if there are others to commisserate with about it. If you have a chance to check out MyBlackBerry, let us know your impressions in the comments.
Around the web: techcrunch.com (29 comments)
, macnn.com (23 comments) , CrackBerry (9 comments) , Electricpig.co.uk Profile pages: Facebook, Twitter, Research In Motion, Social networking, RIM BlackBerry, BlackBerry App World
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Want a marketing job at Best buy? Better have 250 Twitter followers.
That pesky degree took you four years, but it's not enough!
In what may be the first quantification of employment-related Twitter follower thresholds, Best Buy's recent job ad for Senior Manager - Emerging Media Marketing has two explicit requirements: a college degree and a minimum of 250 Twitter followers. Chief Executive Brian Dunn has apparently ushered in a Twitter-besotted corporate culture at the big box retailer, encouraging both investors and customers unable to make it to the company's annual shareholder meetings to follow along on the microblogging service.So how long will it be before number of Twitter followers is a staple resume bullet? Before marketers and executives come chest beating into every interview trying to out-follower the next applicant? Have you ever had Twitter come up in a job interview?
Around the web: Propeller Science & Tech
, digg: Tech Popular , TG Daily (182 comments) , revolutionmagazine.com (1 comment) Profile pages: Best Buy, Twitter, tweet, Microblogging
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Microsoft plans to launch a streaming music service a la Pandora, Spotify
The service is apparently far enough along that Microsoft expects a launch by late July.
Taking aim at existing music streaming sites like Pandora, last.fm and Spotify, Microsoft spokesperson Peter Bale indicated the new service would be modeled on the latter and may be ready to launch as early as the end of this month. Details are still scarce but depending on how closely Spotify is used as "inspiration" for the new service, we could see free ad-supported streams and ad-free subscription levels, with the ability to purchase tracks for download as well.There's some early evidence showing that streaming services may be on the rise at the expense of peer-to-peer downloads. Although the impartiality of this particular survey may be in question, a quote from one of the respondents does indicate a legitimate market preference that may indeed come to hold sway: "I don't really feel the need to own all that music, I know it's always there."
Around the web: telegraph.co.uk
, readwriteweb.com (7 comments) -
Murdoch denies plans to develop an eReader device for News Corp
Earlier reports had the company building its own Kindle-killer in order to charge for its content.
Despite earlier reports indicating News Corp was working on building its own version of the Amazon Kindle in order to charge for its content to readers on the go, CEO Rupert Murdoch was quoted in a recent interview as saying, "I don't think that's likely... we will be absolutely neutral. We’re very happy to have our products distributed over any device provided it’s only going to subscribers who are paying for it."Inside sources indicate there is still a committee working on a way to figure out how to charge for News Corp and subsidiaries' content, and that building hardware was at one point on the table. It seems that Murdoch has thought better of it and taken a "if they build it, you will come... and give me money" approach.
Other companies said to be contemplating the "build your own hardware" approach to electronic media reading include Hearst and Barnes & Noble.
Around the web: gigaom.com (1 comment)
Profile pages: Amazon Kindle, News Corporation, E-ink
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Google adds Creative Commons image search
The new usage rights filtering mechanism can be found in the Advanced Search section.
Yahoo search has had this feature for quite a while, and now Google has finally added a usage rights filter in its Advanced Search interface, allowing you to search for Creative Commons-licensed and public domain images. For those unfamiliar with CC, it's a set of several licenses for artistic and creative works that act to broaden the spectrum of copyright, allowing artists, musicians, photographers and others to allow certain uses of their work without requiring specific permission beforehand.
Although Yahoo's Creative Commons search tends to highly favor results from the company's image hosting service Flickr, Google's implementation tends to cast a wider net and turn up results from farther afield — which is not meant as a diss on Flickr, which is still one of my favorite web services ever; but wider results variety can certainly be useful.
Around the web: googleblog.blogspot.com
, Webware.com (2 comments) , CNET News.com (2 comments) , Megite Technology News: What's Happening Right Now , searchenginejournal.com (1 comment) , picturephoning , TechCrunch (17 comments) Profile pages: Google, Google, Creative Commons, Search engine
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Sony and Netflix partner for movie streaming to Bravia TVs
Older televisions compatible with Sony's $200 Internet video link module will also be supported, but no PS3 -- yet.
File under Yet Another Netflix Partnership: this time it's Sony bringing your instant queue to high-definition Bravia sets, as well as older TVs compatible with the company's Internet Video Link add-on (if you're willing to shell out about $200 for it). This will reportedly be rolling out in the fall.What's notably missing in this announcement is the PlayStation 3, an even more obvious target for integration as an existing media hub in the home. Unfortunately for Sony, the Netflix deal with rival Microsoft for integration with the Xbox 360 is an exclusive one, although Netflix isn't saying for how long. Presumably it must run out at some point, opening the door to deals with both Sony and Nintendo for its Wii console.
Profile pages: Sony, Microsoft Xbox 360 Pro, Sony Bravia, Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3, IPTV, Netflix, Netflix, Streaming video
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Pandora orchestrates workable royalty rates for internet radio industry
It's still expensive, but thanks to negotiations with SoundExchange an entire industry of music webcasters has a better chance of survival.
Thanks to lots of legwork by Pandora, internet radio startups overall might have a chance to survive. Already precipitously high and in danger of being raised even further, the royalties a music streaming site is required to pay per-song-per-listener have been set to workable levels. An agreement between SoundExchange, webcasters, artists and record labels reduces the royalty rate in exchange for a 25% revenue share or the new per-song royalty rates going into effect, whichever is higher. Ouch. Still, it's an improvement over the tense situation previous to this agreement and represents a reasonable expectation that labels are satisfied with the deal, meaning they'll be less prone to become lawsuit-happy over new startups sprouting up.This has some minor consequences to Pandora's free service, where listeners will be capped at 40 hours a month. To continue streaming beyond that, it's only a $0.99 payment which seems quite reasonable if you're not ready or willing to pony up for the Pandora One subscription tier. Pandora CTO Tom Conrad said the rates are still "expensive," but "workable." He says the service should still be on track to reach profitability by next year.
Around the web: techcrunch.com (76 comments)
, Ars Technica , Download Squad (1 comment) Profile pages: Pandora, Pandora, Pandora One
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Google answers long-standing rumours about cloud-based operating system with Chrome OS
The newly announced open source OS will be open source, feature redesigned security for the web age, and be aimed at netbooks... and Microsoft.
In the world of tech this news is huge — passing of a pop legend style huge. Rumours surrounding Google working on a cloud-based desktop operating system have swirled in the technosphere for some time; some thought perhaps Android was the road to that answer. And yet, there's more — Chrome OS is to be completely redesigned from the ground up around the transformative world wide web primarily to run on netbooks, will be an open source product, and will run on x86 architecture (and ARM) to the surely utter horror of the Microsoft execs who will undoubtedly face sleepless nights and ulcer meds figuring out how to answer this one.Me? I'm giddy like a schoolgirl. I can't wait to try this thing when builds start to become available, most likely sometime next year.
Around the web: gottabemobile.com
, KezNews.com - Windows portal - All articles , Switched (17 comments) , ReadWriteWeb (9 comments) , techcrunch.com (120 comments) , itworld.com , T3.com News , Tech Trader Daily Profile pages: Google, Microsoft, Google Chrome, Netbook, Linux, Google Chrome OS, Operating system
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List of eBook eReaders
These portable hardware devices, typically based on e-ink technology, hope to usher in the digital book publishing age.
The Kindle may be the most famous of the lot thus far, but the market for typically E Ink-based electronic book readers continues to heat up with other players and new devices on the horizon. As print publishers continue to work through the digital transition and the average reader finds themselves increasingly on the go, these companies are betting that eReaders will become a no-brainer for book lovers and frequent readers.
Be sure to also check out a comparison of 9 of these side by side.
Profile pages: Sony Reader PRS-700, Amazon Kindle 2, iRex Digital Reader 1000, iRex iLiad Book Edition, FoxIt eSlick, Sony Reader PRS-505, iRex iLiad 2nd edition, Astak EZ Reader, Bookeen Cybook Gen3, BeBook 2, BeBook mini, Amazon Kindle DX, Plastic Logic Reader, Bookeen Cybook Opus, Wizpac txtr
Google Nexus One and HTC Supersonic 4G smartphone heading to Sprint
