Interactive News

Interactive News

Read today's installment of the VML Interactive News below.


Latest New Items
Rules proposed for online health data; Google, Microsoft's vaults unregulated
6/26/2008 11:00:00 AM
A diverse group of players in the emerging industry for personal health records on Wednesday endorsed comprehensive guidelines for how to store and share personal medical information online. The guidelines are noteworthy because they are the first crack that industry participants and watchers have taken at writing down rules for how to manage and protect online medical records.

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More MDs use e-prescriptionsSome are slow to go paperless
7/10/2008 11:00:00 AM
The doctor's prescription pad, long an icon of the medical profession, may soon go the way of the house call and the white coat, according to an article in today's New England Journal of Medicine. Motivated by the promise of fewer errors and the threat of mandates, more and more doctors are relaying patient prescriptions to drugstores electronically. As a result, the hand-written prescription is "on its way to becoming a historical curiosity," the article concludes, though the author conceded in an interview that he doesn't expect everyone to get on board with e-prescribing anytime soon.

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Keep the weight off by uploading to YouTube
7/20/2008 11:00:00 AM
When Beth Lichtenfels posted a video of her 231-pound weight loss on YouTube nine months ago, she thought it might inspire a few others to get in shape. She never expected the 4 1/2-minute video, which featured dozens of pre- and post-transformation photos set to pop music, to reach more than 78,000 people around the globe. "It's really helped me not gain the weight back because I have so many people watching me," said Lichtenfels, 28, who now weighs 165 pounds and continues to post occasional "vlogs," or video blogs, about her struggle to maintain her new figure and her quest to remove excess skin she carries as a result of her major transformation.

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Medpedia Project to create body of health knowledge; Internet entrepreneurs are teaming with medical experts on an online encyclopedia.
7/23/2008 11:00:00 AM
Internet entrepreneurs are teaming with doctors, researchers and other medical professionals to create what they hope will be the Web's largest body of health information. Modeled on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, but written and edited only by trained professionals, the Medpedia Project will gather the kind of knowledge usually confined to academic circles and make it understandable and available to consumers. "This is the most novel effort I am aware of to fill this need that really does exist out there, to develop a mechanism for medical experts and patients and families to interact," said Joseph B. Martin, former dean of the medical schools at Harvard University and UC San Francisco who is serving as an advisor to Medpedia.

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Social networking sites take language learning out of classroom
7/8/2008 11:00:00 AM
Many would suggest the best way to learn a foreign language is to be surrounded with native speakers. If travelling abroad is not an option, a broadband-connected personal computer may do the job - bringing native speakers within reach over the internet for hours of practice. That is the idea behind Shanghai-based italki.com, a free social networking website focused on language learning, and Beijing-headquartered Idapted.com, which supports professional language training.

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An Online Window to Cancer Care
7/1/2008 11:00:00 AM
More than 1.4 million new cases of cancer were diagnosed in 2007, nearly 4,000 a day, according to American Cancer Society estimates. What goes through the minds of these patients, who are in emotional shock and are suddenly confronted with a frightening and confusing array of decisions to make? How do the treatment centers committed to improving patients' quality of life learn what matters most to them and where to focus to make the most meaningful impact? One prestigious healthcare organization hypothesized that it could take a page from the social network phenomenon to find new answers to these questions. Last year the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), a nonprofit alliance of 21 of the top cancer centers in the United States, launched a first-of-its-kind private online community of newly diagnosed patients with cancer.

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Foodservice Communities and the Social Web
7/1/2008 11:00:00 AM
FULL TEXT Online communities are becoming an important component of professional networking. Originally, what we know today as the World Wide Web was primarily seen as a communications vehicle from which a user would view or download documents. But, increasingly, it has evolved into an interactive medium with its users-a dynamic, web-based community- exerting a greater and greater influence over its content. Web community is important to more than just the "geeks" among us. It also matters in personal and professional group life, and the food service industry-where networking is such a critical activity-is no exception. Networking via the Internet and associated technologies is bringing people and the profession together all around the world, vastly extending the size and breadth of the foodservice professional community.

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INTERNET; Soccer site for kicks, screams; OleOle gives fans a place to blog about teams and players.
6/23/2008 11:00:00 AM
The Euro 2008 tournament is well underway, pitting the Continent's top national football teams -- known stateside as soccer -- against one another in a spirited fury. So what could be better than gathering in the pub with a pint to watch Italy's footballers dive and gripe all over the field? How about following the game online while blogging about it? That's the idea behind OleOle, a Beverly Hills-based website co-founded by Doug Knittle, the entrepreneur behind ticket seller RazorGator. While at the World Cup in Germany in 2006, he realized that a social media website could cater well to football fans, who generally obsess about their sport. Knittle and David Mok, the chief technology officer, launched a test version of the site in late 2006, then opened it to the public last month.

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Putting Women In Driver's Seat; Manheim-Based Internet Site Is Attracting Attention With Its Feminine Approach How It Works Genesis Of A Startup Staying Afloat
6/29/2008 11:00:00 AM
Dan Osborne didn't look nervous plugging his new business on network television earlier this month. But that's not how he recalls his June 11 appearance on Good Morning America. First, he had a bad case of cottonmouth while talking about his Manheim-based CarTango.com - a Web site for women car buyers. And second, interviewer Gigi Stone asked different questions from the ones the show had given him to rehearse with his publicist the night before. But he's not complaining.

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MTV DOES DIGITAL - NETWORK LAUNCHING MP3 SALES VIA RHAPSODY
6/30/2008 11:00:00 AM
MTV wants its MP3s. The network today is expected to announce a $50 million push into selling downloadable songs in the open source, iPod-friendly format through its Rhapsody digital-music service, a joint venture with Seattle-based Real Networks.

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