Google tool uses search terms to detect flu outbreaks
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If you have a fever, headache and runny nose, you might go to Google and type the words "flu symptoms" to see whether you've come down with influenza.Google Flu Trends provides a map of influenza activity in the U.S. at www.google.org/flutrends.
Google knows that you might do something like that, and it also knows which U.S. state you're in. Now, it's putting that information together in a tool that Google says could detect flu outbreaks faster than traditional systems currently in use.
Google's new public health initiative, Google Flu Trends, looks at the relative popularity of a slew of flu-related search terms to determine where in the U.S. flu outbreaks may be occurring.
How are they going to ensure that the results are valid? what if someone hacks the system and makes it look like a certain state is having and epidemic when it's really not? could terrorists use it in order to create panic?
