News

Summaries of open source, health care, or health IT news and information from various sources on the web selected by Open Health News (OHNews) staff. Links are provided to the original news or information source, e.g. news article, web site, journal,blog, video, etc.

See the following -

If An Experiment Fails In A Forest, Does Anyone Hear?

Will Schroeder | Kitware Blog | February 10, 2013

[To] my way of thinking, if you are a technologist then there is no choice but to practice Open Science. Anything else is tantamount to arguing that a witch weighs the same as a duck. Read More »

If Citizens Can Help Explore Galaxies, Unfold Proteins, Track Birds and Transcribe Texts, Why Can't They Help Analyse Government Data?

Craig Thomler | GovLoop | July 5, 2012

One area of Gov 2.0 I really think hasn't been thoroughly considered or adopted by many governments, including in Australia, is the process of having citizens help in the creation, exploration and analysis of data. Is it due to a lack of time, money, imagination or courage? I don't know, but I would dearly love to see more government agencies consider how they could engage citizens in crowdsourcing initiatives that could help society. Read More »

If No One's To Blame For Healthcare.gov Glitches, Then Maybe Everyone Is

Jaikumar Vijayan | Computerworld | October 24, 2013

After listening to over three hours of testimony in Congress from some of the contractors behind the Obamacare Healthcare.gov site, one thing has become abundantly clear: No vendor is responsible for the problems that have plagued the health exchange since its launch nearly a month ago. Read More »

If Obamacare Falters, Insurers May Pay High Price

Lawrence J. McQuillan | The Independent Institute | October 14, 2013

America’s health insurance companies sold out for higher profits when they fought for the Affordable Care Act rather than a patient-driven system that would best serve the sick. Read More »

If Open Data Is The New Oil Are Primary Healthcare Organisations The Oil Pumps Of Our Townships?

Mark Herringer | Konekta | March 18, 2013

We are living in a new world. This world is driven by connection to one another and data that we generate. As a result we have opportunities to collaborate and find innovative solutions to long standing challenges. A key ingredient to this collaboration is open data. [...] Read More »

If PRISM Is Good Policy, Why Stop With Terrorism?

Derek Khanna | The Atlantic | July 4, 2013

Defenders of the program say its effectiveness excuses it -- but they ignore the Fourth Amendment. Read More »

If Shutdown Persists, VA Will Cut Off Claims Payments To Vets On Nov. 1

Bob Brewin | Nextgov | October 9, 2013

If the government shutdown persists until late October, the Veterans Affairs Department will cut off disability, pension, compensation and education claims to 5.18 million veterans, surviving spouses and children on Nov. 1, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki told a hearing of the House VA Committee Wednesday. Read More »

If Someone Hits A Paywall In The Forest, Does It Make A Sound?: The Open Access Button

David Carroll and Joseph McArthur | PLOS Blogs | August 20, 2013

In this guest post, David Carroll and Joseph McArthur, medical and pharmacology students at Queen’s University and University College London, respectively, describe their progress on the Open Access Button, a project they hope will help the push towards a more open scholarly publishing system. Read More »

If Steve Jobs Had His Way, We Wouldn't Be Celebrating The Apple App Store's 5th Anniversary

Chris O'Brien | Los Angeles Times | July 10, 2013

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the Apple App Store. And perhaps one of the most amazing things about this milestone is that it never would have happened if things had played out the way Steve Jobs wanted. Read More »

If The Internet Sales Tax Fails, Expect Higher Gas Prices

Brian Fung | Nextgov | May 7, 2013

Legislation allowing states to collect sales taxes on purchases made over the Internet—approved by the Senate in a 69-27 vote Monday evening—faces an uncertain future in the House. What would happen if the push for Internet sales taxes falls apart? In at least a couple of states—Maryland and Virginia—it could mean higher gasoline prices. Read More »

If Things Weren’t Already Bad Enough, Houston Is About to Face a Public Health Nightmare

Jessica Firger | Mother Jones | August 30, 2017

In the coming weeks and even months, residents of Houston and other parts of southern Texas hit hard by Hurricane Harvey will be faced with the public health disasters that can result from dirty floodwater and landslides. The natural disaster has ostensibly turned the city into a sprawling, pathogen-infested swamp...

Read More »

If You Care About Cities, Apple's New Campus Sucks

Adam Rogers | Wired | June 8, 2017

The new headquarters Apple is building in Cupertino has the absolute best door handles. The greatest! They are, as my colleague Steven Levy writes, precision-milled aluminum rails that attach to glass doors—sliding and swinging alike—with no visible bolts. Everything in this building is the best. The toroid glass of the roof curves scientifically to shed rainwater. And if it never rains again (this being California), well, an arborist selected thousands of drought-tolerant new trees for the 175-acre site...

Read More »

If Your Mobile Strategy Can Win Here, It Can Win Anywhere

Morra Aarons-Mele | Harvard Business Review | June 14, 2013

[...] Ideally, a brand and a woman of influence interact directly, one to one. But there's something that's increasingly coloring our relationship. It's her phone. The phone is more than our hardware. It's our lifeline. Read More »

iFixit CEO Launches Open Toshiba Service Guide Scheme

Tony Smith | The Register | November 13, 2012

Kyle Wiens, head of gadget repair service iFixit - an operation best known for its device disassembly efforts - has called on owners of Toshiba laptops to help pen open source repair manuals to make good the computer makers’ closure of an independent Toshiba documentation archive. Read More »

IG: Government Has No Digital Cyber Warning System

Aliya Sternstein | Nextgov | November 5, 2013

The departments of Homeland Security and Defense, including the National Security Agency, have no way of sharing current alerts about computer breaches with each other or industry, an inspector general memorandum reveals. Read More »