health

Google reminded the world that it has a personal-health service Wednesday, announcing it has updated one of its lesser-used sites with a new look and feel.

Google Health is a service that allows users to upload personal health information to track their health status over time and find information on health issues, doctors, and other medical needs. Google has decided to make it easier for users to access their data through an improved dashboard that also lets users set personal health goals for themselves.

Anyone juggling several medications, or parents of children with extensive medical needs, might be interested in … Read more

Jonathan Schwartz, the chief executive who sold Sun Microsystems to Oracle, is once again in charge of a company, a start-up called Picture of Health for the time being.

Schwartz wasn't very forthcoming about the nature of the start-up, saying on his personal blog Thursday little specifically besides that "We're focusing on the intersection of innovation and public health."

Schwartz gradually ascended through Sun's ranks from its 1996 acquisition of his last start-up, Lighthouse Design, through replacing Sun co-founder Scott McNealy as CEO in 2006. However, He wasn't able to restore Sun's fortunes, … Read more

In years of economic downturn, there are still a handful of sectors that manage to remain profitable, and the health and fitness industry is one of them. Mobile apps are also enjoying quite a bit of popularity at the moment, thanks in part to the fact that so many of them are affordable. Combine the two and you get something along the lines of MyFitnessPal, a free Webware service that offers companion apps for the iPhone and Android devices (BlackBerry coming soon).

As the name suggests, MyFitnessPal is a community-oriented site designed to help you lose weight and track fitness … Read more

Imagine simply shining a light on your skin to determine how much sugar is in your blood. Researchers at MIT are developing a glucose-monitoring device for diabetes patients that may help do away with finger pricks.

By scanning a user's arm or finger with near-infrared light, the device frees users from the necessity of drawing blood, a daily routine for most type 1 diabetes patients.

The laptop-size machine is the result of 15 years of research at the MIT Spectroscopy Lab. It employs Raman spectroscopy, which can determine chemical compounds based on their molecular vibration.

In a technique described … Read more

In my head, I plan elaborate, healthy meals. And then I sit down to dinner, and I get distracted by the potatoes and overlook the string beans. I'm not alone; many people have great intentions that somehow fizzle away when it's time to actually, you know, bring it to the table.

The Design for Health plate, made by designer Jeffrey Harris, puts your meals back in proportion, with a visual cue reminding you that you want your meal to be a quarter protein, a quarter starch, and half vegetables. At 9.5 inches, this plate is smaller than … Read more

BEDFORD, Mass.--I have seen the future of military robotics, and it is autonomy.

I've come here to visit the headquarters of iRobot, the company probably best known for its famous Roomba vacuum cleaners. But while it has sold more than 5 million of those cute household devices, it has also developed a reputation as one of the world's leaders in designing battlefield-ready robots capable of things like detecting and extracting explosive devices, search-and-rescue, and much more.

Click here for a full photo gallery on iRoomba, its past and its history.

And though iRobot could probably rest on … Read more

IBM plans to announce on Thursday a $100 million three-year initiative--enlisting its own scientists and technologists alongside new hires in the medical field--to develop technologies and business processes for health care and insurance providers.

IBM points to its work in systems integration, services research, cloud computing, analytics, and emerging fields such as nanomedicine, as the drive behind an initiative it hopes will empower practitioners to spend more time on patient care.

In a news release, IBM says it plans to enlist the help of more than 100 researchers from its research laboratories scattered around the world--in Haifa, Tokyo, … Read more

Through its new and long-awaited rules on electronic health records, the government is hoping to clarify the conditions under which doctors and hospitals can collect incentive payments by investing in electronic health records, or EHR, over the new few years.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the new rules on Tuesday in an effort to support and expand the use of electronic health records. The rules are being targeted as a specific response to the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009 (PDF), which outlined the Medicare and Medicaid … Read more

A New York-based start-up called ZocDoc aims to expand its service of online doctor and dentist appointment bookings with a $15 million Series B venture round led by the Founders Fund. Existing investor Khosla Ventures also contributed.

The money will be used primarily to help ZocDoc expand geographically. Currently operating in New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, the company is soliciting users to vote on what its fifth city should be (the options include Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Seattle). But expanding requires complicated groundwork: ZocDoc aggregates participating doctors; lets users search for them by availability, location, … Read more