Google Health Launches

Google launched its much anticipated medical database service today at a press event at the company's offices in Mountain View, CA. Previewed in February, the service provides a place where Google users can store medical history, compile prescriptions, and search for relevant medical information.

The search giant has already lined up some big-name partners. Walgreen's, CVS, Longs Drugs Stores, AllScripts, Quest Diagnostics, and the Cleveland Clinic have all announced partnerships.

For example, according to a press release from CVS,

By integrating on the Google Health platform, patients who receive treatment at MinuteClinic, the retail-based health clinic subsidiary of CVS Caremark, will be able to securely import their visit summaries into their Google Health Accounts.

One of the biggest hurdles facing Google Health is whether consumers trust the company enough to hand over their most intimate medical details. Google promises that security has been a primary concern when building the database. But the true test of whether the company has assuaged privacy fears will come when we see how many people sign up.

A blog posted minutes after the launch may be a preview of things to come:

However, the terms of usage gave me a little pause. The biggest issue: Typical health information protections--HIPAA--don't apply. During a demo, Google executives said that the user controls the information and the search giant won't share information unless the patient says it's OK. That's a great promise, but it's not HIPAA.

According to the terms of service,

Use of Your Information

If you create, transmit, or display health or other information while using Google Health, you may provide only information that you own or have the right to use. When you provide your information through Google Health, you give Google a license to use and distribute it in connection with Google Health and other Google services. However, Google may only use health information you provide as permitted by the Google Health Privacy Policy, your Sharing Authorization, and applicable law. Google is not a "covered entity" under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and the regulations promulgated thereunder ("HIPAA"). As a result, HIPAA does not apply to the transmission of health information by Google to any third party.

In addition, Google makes information available to third services if you permit it, and it keeps that access open until you actively disable it. That could be a sticking point for those of us who are too lazy to actively manage our accounts.

Sign up for the service here, or find out more about it at Google Health FAQ.

Google Acquires DoubleClick

Google announced today that its proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of Internet advertising company DoubleClick has become official. Although the company announced its intentions last April, the deal had to first undergo scrutiny from U.S. and European regulators. The FCC approved the merger in December, while European regulators closed their investigation today. The New York Times reports that rivals such as Yahoo and Microsoft had opposed the acquisition, worrying about an increase in Google's already dominating market share. Also, some consumer groups were concerned about the enhanced access to user data that Google will gain as a result of the merger.

Prototypes of Google's Android

Prototypes of mobile phones using Google's Android platform are on display at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week; they're built by companies such as Texas Instruments, ARM, and Qualcomm. A short video clip of one of the phones in action is here.

A few months ago, the Web was ecstatic with rumors of a "GPhone"--a piece of hardware made by Google that would compete with Apple's iPhone. Instead, in November Google announced Android, an open-source mobile operating system that could allow developers to build better Web applications for mobile devices. (See "Google Announces Mobile Plans.") Android has an impressive group of companies backing it, but so far, the project is in very early stages, and there's no way to say how the platform will fare in the competitive mobile market.

The Lotusphere Gauntlet

At Lotusphere 2008 in Orlando, FL, on Monday morning, I watch Michael Rhodin, general manager of IBM's Lotus division, pull a server out of an envelope. It's a send-up of Apple CEO Steve Jobs's keynote at Macworld Expo last week, where the Apple guru unveiled the ultrathin Macbook Air notebook computer by pulling it out of a manila envelope. But Rhodin is doing more than making a joke: the move reinforces a major theme of his presentation at the Lotusphere general session, where he has barraged the audience with a slew of rapid-fire announcements. Rhodin has been sending a message to the audience that the big players in tech aren't limited to Jobs, Microsoft's Bill Gates, and Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin. IBM, riding high off strong revenue growth at the end of 2007, is laying down some aggressive challenges to the likes of Microsoft.

IBM is upping the ante with Symphony, its free desktop productivity software. (See "IBM's Symphony for the Office Worker.") Kevin Cavanaugh, IBM's VP of messaging and collaboration software, told the Lotusphere audience this morning that IBM has so far given away more than 400,000 downloads of Symphony, and that the company aims to "allow people to invest in innovation rather than spending money on commodity software"--a clear jab at Microsoft. Cavanaugh trumpeted Symphony's ability to eliminate the need for customers to buy Office, and to allow them to substitute less-expensive Linux clients for Windows machines. IBM now plans to sally further into Microsoft territory by enabling users to develop applications through Symphony as well. "Symphony is an evolving, free alternative to the [Microsoft] .Net development environment," Cavanaugh said.

These are only two examples of the mood pervading the announcements at Lotusphere. IBM thinks it's on a roll, and the company is trying to ride the surge forward. At least at Lotusphere, these efforts are being met with ecstatic cheers from the audience. But IBM's not alone in competing with some of Microsoft's crown jewels: Google has also thrown its hat in the ring with the free, Web-based Google Docs. Adobe's recent acquisition of the Web-based word processor Buzzword may become yet another challenge--one that could become more formidable if the company transforms Buzzword into a cleverly portable desktop application by means of its AIR technology. (See "To the Web and Back Again.")

Google Saves the World

Yesterday Google announced a new renewable-energy initiative. While the press release is a little unclear about how it will play out, the initiative will pour tens of millions of dollars into developing cheap, clean energy next year. It's not just philanthropy. In the coming years, the company also hopes to spend hundreds of millions on clean-energy investments that will make a lot of money.

The goal is to drive down the cost of renewable energy, making it less expensive than even coal, the cheapest source of electricity. A number of other companies have also been working on this.

In a deft public-relations maneuver, Google's huge, energy-hungry data centers have been transformed from an environmental liability into a basis for making the company an environmental leader. Here's a bit from the press release:

"We have gained expertise in designing and building large-scale, energy-intensive facilities by building efficient data centers," said Larry Page, Google Co-founder and President of Products. "We want to apply the same creativity and innovation to the challenge of generating renewable electricity at globally significant scale, and produce it cheaper than from coal."

Brilliant. I'm pretty sure Brin and Page zipping around in their new private Boeing 757 and their legendary Boeing 767 "party jet" also makes them environmental heroes, although I haven't quite figured out how yet.

Although perhaps in a different class, another leading environmentally Janus-faced company is BP, whose corroding pipelines flooded Prudhoe Bay in Alaska with 200,000 gallons of crude oil in 2006. This year the company announced $500 million in funding for a clean-energy initiative.

Google Announces Mobile Plans

Amid buzz about a possible Google Phone, today the Internet search giant revealed its plans for a move into the mobile world. (See "Why Did Google Buy Jaiku?") The bad news is that there is no Google Phone, according to Andy Rubin, the company's director of mobile platforms. The company's good news is that Google does have a plan for mobile--and a far-reaching one at that. The company announced that it is launching Android, a platform for mobile devices that includes an operating system, a user interface, and applications. The system is designed to combat the problems that developers face with mobile phones: that every phone is radically different in terms of its specifications, and applications usually have to be redesigned for each individual model of phone. (See "Making Your Phone Smarter.") If phone carriers and manufacturers adopt the Android platform--and Google seems to have already lined up some who say they will, in the form of the Open Handset Alliance--phones could get much more powerful as developers become able to concentrate their resources on building applications rather than on rebuilding them. Google's strategy also seems to involve improving Web services to mobile phones. Rubin's entry on the Google blog gives the impression that Android is only a small part of the company's strategy in that arena.