UCSF Professor (and MD) Bob Wachter has a unique proposal for future applications of IBM's Jeopardy question answering supercomputer, Watson: Why not turn it into a front-line tool for generating possible diagnoses based on patient histories?It's not such a far-fetched notion:

John Kelly, head of I.B.M.'s research labs, told the New York Times that he'd like to see a "medical version" of Watson, one that could be available within a few years.Wachter takes that notion and runs with it, imagining a system that extends Watson's knowledge base, which is currently rather static, and adapts it to a specific context.Let's say that Watson, M.D. is pressed into service in New Orleans, a city that has suffered with mosquito-borne illnesses for so long that Tulane University has one of the only departments of Tropical Medicine in the U.S. [Read the full article]

Last week, Google announced that it has developed a new image file format that promises to speed up not only Google, but the rest of the Internet. The new format, dubbed WebP, could reduce the size of image downloads significantly compared to the currently widespread JPEG format. If, as Google claims, 65 percent of the traffic on the Internet consists of image files, WebP could eventually give the entire online world a speed boost.WebP is based on a new data compression algorithm for image files. According to Google product manager Richard Rabbat, the formula was originally developed to compress video clips, such as those Google serves on YouTube. Engineers then found that the same math could be used on static images.It works like this: software converts an image stored in another file format to the WebP format by looking at a block of 16 pixels in the original image, and noting the color of each pixel in that block. [Read the full article]

Ever since Google announced its much-rumored Google TV service last May, geeky television fans have been hankering to get a closer look at what's promised to be the most seamless mashup of TV and the Web yet. Today at press events in San Francisco and New York, Logitech, best known for making computer mice, debuted what's likely to be the first commercially available Google TV device.If the 90-minute introduction in San Francisco is any indication, the Revue, as Logitech's Google TV device is called, could deliver on the promise of a slick interface that integrates the Web with content on your TV and your digital video recorder. [Read the full article]

Attackers could manipulate power-grid data by breaking into substations and intercepting communications between substations, grid operators, and electricity suppliers. This data is used by grid operators to set prices for electricity and to balance supply and demand, the researchers say. Grid hackers could make millions of dollars at the expense of electricity consumers by influencing electricity markets. They could also make the grid unstable, causing blackouts.The attacks would be difficult to trace, according to Le Xie, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Texas A&M University, speaking at the IEEE SmartGridComm2010 conference in Gaithersburg, Maryland, this week. Vulnerabilities have existed in some grid systems for decades. But the threat is becoming worse as more substations become automated, and unmanned, making it easier for an attacker to access grid data. [Read the full article]