Google Tackles Health 115
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."
They care..... sure.... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:This is interesting (Score:2, Interesting)
What they should do is focus on improving the quality of medical information available on the internet; it's in line with what Google's core capabilities are and to be honest would be a tremendous help. Google is probably the single biggest contributor to hypochondria in the US today, and I hear (anecdotally from doctors) that doctors waste about 40% of their time with patients dissuading them from incorrect self-diagnoses done through Google searches. My ex-wife was like this, she had a constant discomfort in her stomach; looking it up on Google she was positively convinced she had endomitriosis. She would shop doctors, not going to a single one more than once, and eliminated each one because none of them gave her the diagnosis she wanted because her symptoms were only marginally endomitriosis and were likely due more to the self-inflicted stress she caused herself.
Google has become the source of information for many people in the US and around the world; the next step they should focus on is improving the quality of that information. The medical world is probably an excellent place to start.
Re:how about fighting poverty (Score:4, Interesting)
So explain why increasing the minimum wage actually does help the economy?
Surprise surprise giving money to those who will spend it rather than sit on it helps the economy and the poor. Labor costs in stores is not the primary cost. You could raise the wage to $15/hour and the price of a bigmac to produce would go up a few cents.
Re:how about fighting poverty (Score:3, Interesting)
rich people don't 'sit on their money' like Scrooge McDuck in your comic books
Actually they kind of do. [wikipedia.org]
So why not raise it [the wage for a fast-food worker] to $100 and make everyone rich?
That's somewhat of a straw-man. The previous poster probably understands that if you raise it too far you'd get wage-price spiral inflation. At least, I hope they do. I think the best way to look at this is that there's an optimal pay for the economy to function well, and that a lot of people think the working class is now earning less than that optimum.
In essence, the upper tier has cornered the dollar market, which would explain why the dollar is falling--whenever somebody corners the market in something, it inevitably results in that something crashing. Just look at the infamous Hunt Brother's episode in silver, and the gold corner in the late 1800s. Rational? No. It's human nature to pile on, get roaring drunk, and then deal with a hangover.