Appeals court leans toward TiVo (AP)

Published in October 4th, 2007

WASHINGTON - A three-judge appeals court panel signaled Thursday it is likely to rule at least partly in favor of TiVo Inc. in its patent dispute with EchoStar Communications Corp. ADVERTISEMENT

EchoStar is seeking to overturn a lower court decision last year that ruled the Englewood, Colo.-based satellite broadcaster had infringed on patented TiVo technology that allows viewers to record one program while watching another. The court awarded TiVo $89.6 million in damages. Shares of EchoStar fell $1.06, or 2.2 percent, to close at $47.88 Thursday, near the upper end of its 52-week trading range of $31.73-$52.15. TiVo’s shares fell 4 cents to close at $7.09 after hitting a 52-week high of $7.22 earlier in the day. TiVo sued EchoStar in 2004, alleging that its digital video recorders infringed on TiVo’s “time warp” technology. TiVo, based in Alviso, Calif., pioneered digital recorders that allow viewers to pause, rewind and fast forward live television shows. Donald Dunner, EchoStar’s lawyer, argued before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that the trial court construed TiVo’s patent too broadly. EchoStar’s technology differs from TiVo’s in several respects and therefore doesn’t infringe its patent, Dunner said. Judge S. Jay Plager, however, appeared unconvinced. If the jury accepted TiVo’s description of the scope of its patent, “isn’t that the end of the case?” Plager asked. Plager and Judge William Bryson asked what the ramifications would be if they upheld only part of the lower court’s ruling, related to the software aspects of TiVo’s patent. Seth Waxman, TiVo’s lawyer, said a ruling of any infringement by EchoStar would be sufficient to uphold the lower court’s decision. But Dunner argued that a split decision by the appeals court could affect the size of the damages award. As a result, the case would have to be sent back to the trial court for additional proceedings. In addition to the damages award, Judge David Folsom of the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas also ordered Echostar to shut down the three million digital video recorders used by its customers, but that order was stayed pending the outcome of today’s appeal. The case is critical to TiVo, because if its patent is upheld, it could have additional leverage to strike deals with other cable and satellite providers to license its technology. The company already has such deals with Comcast Corp. and EchoStar’s satellite rival, DirecTV Group Inc. TiVo’s shares jumped over 6 percent in afternoon trading Wednesday after an analyst wrote that the company is likely to prevail in the litigation. A ruling isn’t expected for about six months, lawyers involved with the case said.

Scientists Make New Blood Vessels

Published in October 4th, 2007

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Here’s a scientific first: the creation of new blood vessels from patients’ own cells.

That tissue-engineering development could one day help people with blood vessel problems, but the process isn’t ready for prime time.

The developers describe their early tests in The New England Journal of Medicine.

First, they gathered cells from the skins and blood vessels of 10 adults with end-stage renal (kidney) disease.

Next, the scientists put those cells in test tubes (keeping each patient’s cells separate from the other patients’ cells) and coaxed those cells to grow into blood vessels.

After making sure that the lab-made blood vessels wouldn’t burst under expected conditions, the researchers implanted the tailor-made blood vessels into the patients.

So far, results are available for the first six patients, who got their tissue-engineered blood vessels more than a year ago.

One of those patients died of unrelated causes. The lab-made blood vessel failed in another patient.

A third patient used the lab-made blood vessel for more than 13 months until receiving a kidney transplant. The three other patients haven’t had any problems with their engineered blood vessels.

Those early results show that “this new approach may be feasible,” write the scientists.

They included Nicolas L’Heureux, PhD, and Todd McAllister, PhD, who work for and hold stock in Cytograft Tissue Engineering of Novato, Calif.

(Would you try a new “bionic” procedure if offered to you? How far would you go? Chat about it with others on WebMD’s Health Cafe message board.)

Microsoft rolls out online health records

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NEW YORK: Microsoft announced its drive into the consumer health care market Thursday, offering to store personal health records on the Web free while pursuing a partnership plan that borrowed from its successes in personal computer software.

The Microsoft service, called HealthVault, comes after two years spent building its team and technology. In recent months, Microsoft managers have met with many potential partners, including hospitals, disease-prevention organizations and health care companies.

The organizations that have signed up for HealthVault projects with Microsoft include the American Heart Association, LifeScan of Johnson & Johnson, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, the Mayo Clinic and MedStar Health, a network of seven hospitals in the Baltimore-Washington region.

The partnerships are a page from Microsoft's old playbook. Persuading other companies to build upon its technology, and then helping them do it, was a major reason why Windows became the dominant personal computer operating system.

“The value of what we're doing will go up rapidly as we get more partners,” said Peter Neupert, the vice president in charge of Microsoft's health group.

The company's consumer health offering includes a personal health record as well as Internet search functions tailored for health queries, all under the name Microsoft HealthVault.

The personal information, Microsoft said, will be stored in a secure, encrypted database. Its privacy controls are set entirely by the individual, including what information goes in and who gets to see it.

The HealthVault searches will be conducted anonymously, Microsoft said, without being linked to any personal information in a HealthVault personal health record.

Microsoft does not expect most individuals to put a lot of their own health information on the Web. Instead, the company hopes that individuals will give doctors, clinics and hospitals permission to directly send to their HealthVault account information like medicines that have been prescribed or test results showing, say, blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

Such data transfers, Neupert said, could then be automatic, over the Internet, which is why the partnerships are so important.

“The issues are,” Neupert said, “can we get the connections and demonstrate the value of this to people so they build up these records as they go along?”

Aurelia Boyer, the chief information officer at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, said the hospital was committed to helping patients manage their own health care.

After an initial discussion with Microsoft, the hospital pledged to start a pilot project to enable some kinds of patient data - electrocardiograms, perhaps - to be automatically sent to a HealthVault account.

If a patient chooses to have a Microsoft personal health record, Boyer said, “we want to support them.”

The Microsoft entry comes at a time when people are increasingly going online, especially via Internet searches, to find health information. An aging population with more health concerns, as well as tighter curbs on medical spending, are two factors expected to prompt consumers to take a larger role in managing their own care using online tools like personal health records.

But this movement has not gone far yet. Microsoft is moving ahead at a time when other large technology companies have seen senior executives in their health units depart or have hit bumps in their efforts to push health initiatives.

The leader of Google's health group, Adam Bosworth, left last month. The company has been developing offerings broadly similar to Microsoft's - personal health records stored in Google data centers, and enhanced health search capabilities.

Google would not discuss the timing of its health plans.

At Cisco, the head of its health care practice, Jeffrey Rideout, recently left to join a private equity firm, Ziegler HealthVest Management. Cisco called his departure a “leave of absence.”

And Dossia, a coalition led by Intel to provide employees at several large companies with personal health records, is moving forward more slowly than planned.

But while some technology companies are pulling back or slowing down in health, “Microsoft is stepping forward and finally declaring the hand it will play,” said David Brailer, the former health information technology coordinator for the Bush administration, who now heads Health Evolution Partners, a firm that invests in medical ventures.

Privacy is an issue that could hinder the widespread use of personal health records. But Microsoft's privacy principles have impressed Deborah Peel, chair of the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation, a nonprofit group. In terms of patient control and agreeing to outside audits, “Microsoft is setting an industry standard for privacy,” Peel said.

In UK, computers replace therapy couch (AP)

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LONDON - For nearly her entire life, Mary had a crippling fear of cramped spaces that meant she couldn’t travel on airplanes, subways, or cars. ADVERTISEMENT

Seeing a psychologist didn’t help. So she tried something else. The 61-year-old bookkeeper, who only gave her first name to protect her privacy, sat down in front of a computer and spilled out her problems to a kind of psychiatric computer game called “Fearfighter.” Last year, Fearfighter was one of two programs endorsed by Britain’s health advisory watchdog for people with panic attacks, mild depression, or phobias. People uncomfortable with getting advice from a computer can still choose to see therapists, but the option of logging on for help is now available — and will be paid for by the government-run National Health Service. In Britain, patients registered with the NHS routinely wait up to six months to see a psychiatrist; nearly 90 percent of people with mild depression never actually see a therapist. The computer programs now mean that for some patients, getting psychiatric counseling is as easy as getting a password from their general practitioner to access the program online. “Six months for some patients might be too long,” said Dr. Paul Grime, an occupational medicine expert at London’s Royal Free Hospital. Since the endorsement was made last February, many British psychiatric patients have skipped the weekly sessions at their doctor’s office. Instead, they now log on at home, or go to libraries to use computers designated to run the programs, where there is a health professional ready to help if necessary. The computers are not authorized to prescribe medicine. A qualified human is required for that. The computerized treatment is possible because people with phobias, from fear of spiders to fear of heights, tend to get the same basic therapy. “The idea is that the repetitive parts of the therapy are done by a computer, which can then make decisions based on these answers,” said Dr. Isaac Marks, a professor emeritus at King’s College Institute of Psychiatry in London, and co-developer of “Fearfighter.” Treating short-term problems like phobias or mild depression often simply means teaching patients new ways to think or react — something a computer can be programmed to do, Marks said. In Britain, a few thousand people are estimated to have already been treated with the programs. Judy Leibowitz, a clinical psychologist who runs mental health programs in London, said the anonymity of computer therapy was a selling point for certain patients. “There are lots of people who are not that keen on pouring out their heart to a therapist,” she said. Still, psychiatrists shouldn’t worry that they might become obsolete. “We still need therapists to be creative and do all the things a computer can’t, like express empathy and respond to the idiosyncrasies of a person’s life situation and their history,” said Dr. Jesse Wright, a psychiatrist at the University of Louisville, who has studied the use of computer therapy. Serious psychiatric problems like bipolar disorder, suicidal tendencies or schizophrenia are too complex to be cured by computer programs. Britain decided to roll out the anti-panic and depression computer programs nationwide after a group of experts sifted through evidence and concluded that the programs work just as well as face-to-face psychiatric care. “We wanted to be confident that this wasn’t just a second-best option,” said Dr. Steven Pillings, of University College London, who led the British committee that made the recommendations. Many experiments in Britain, the United States and elsewhere showed that patients counseled by computers made just as much progress as those counseled by real, live therapists. Using computers to treat patients was also much cheaper and could help cash-strapped health systems expand care. One study estimated that therapists using computer programs could double the number of their patients. In “Fearfighter,” patients are taught to recognize the signs that trigger their panic attacks in the hopes of preventing one. But if that doesn’t work, they’re also instructed on how to cope with their fears. The program asks patients to identify the personal triggers that set off their panic attacks. They’re told to be more observant of these red flags, and to keep a diary of things they avoid because it makes them nervous. Then, the computer gives them homework: They must seek out uncomfortable situations to practice their new skills. In the anti-depression program, patients watch staged vignettes in the lives of depressed people, using professional actors. For example, in a scene where a character has an argument with a spouse, patients are shown how the person thinks through different ways of responding. It is then up to the patients to decide how the character will react, in a process that psychiatrists say helps them develop new thinking patterns. The computer programs take roughly 10 weeks of hourly sessions, including scheduled telephone calls from a health worker to check on progress. For Mary, computer therapy seems to have worked. Before using Fearfighter, she had been too afraid to fly or ride the subway. But after eight weeks, Mary told program developers that she had ridden the subway without even a twinge of anxiety. The computer treatment, she said, was far more effective than talking to a psychologist. “I am very puzzled how this could have happened so quickly,” she said.

Yahoo Takes Steps To Fight Phishing (NewsFactor)

Published in October 4th, 2007

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Phishing e-mails purporting to be from eBay and PayPal — as well as from banks, investment firms, and other Web sites handling money — flood into inboxes on an almost daily basis. Web-based e-mail accounts, such as those provided by Yahoo Mail, seem especially prone to the attacks. Now, the three companies have joined forces to support a new specification aimed at fighting phishing attacks. ADVERTISEMENT

According to e-mail analysis firm MessageLabs, one in every 173 e-mails sent over the Internet contains some kind of phishing attack. But starting on Thursday, Yahoo will use the Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) standard — a standard developed by Yahoo and supported by Google, AOL, IBM, Sendmail, and VeriSign — to insert an encrypted private key in e-mail to help authenticate the sender. "While the battle against phishing and identity theft scammers will continue to require a multifaceted approach, today's announcement demonstrates the power of Domain Keys and the security benefits to be gained by e-mail users worldwide," said Michael Barrett, PayPal's chief security officer. Echoing this sentiment, John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo Mail, said the move is "a big step forward for consumers in defense against the bad guys." Crytographic Text String Current spam and phishing protections simply create blacklists of server names known to be the sources of spam and phishing, said Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle. But "nearly all spam and phishing e-mails falsify their true origin," he said. So the e-mails get through and are either trapped in spam filters or get through to users' inboxes. The e-mails are so realistic, "only someone skilled at looking into shielded e-mail contents (the headers) would be able to decipher its true origin," he added. DKIM's strategy is to verify that e-mail comes from its purported sender and, if not, to stop it from even reaching the recipient. "When a real e-mail departs the organization, its e-mail servers insert a cryptographic text string into the e-mail headers," Storms explained. "Arriving at its final destination, the recipient e-mail servers inspect the e-mail." When DKIM information is present, a mathematical equation compares the cryptographic information in the e-mail with that information published by the sender. "When the data is considered valid, then local spam and phishing processes are instructed that this particular e-mail is more than likely valid," Storms said. Mass Adoption Needed While the Domain Keys method might sound like an ideal solution to the problem of phishing and spam, it is of limited usefulness unless a majority of e-mail providers back it. Although DKIM has been in development for two years, Storms said, the most stable specification dates only to May 2007. "Yahoo's implementation of DKIM signifies its move to be ahead of the pack on this new technology," Storms concluded. "Unfortunately, until a large majority of other sites adopt and implement, the full impact won't be felt by the thousands who receive spam and phishing e-mail every day."

Sample non-English domains coming soon (AP)

Published in October 4th, 2007

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NEW YORK - Sample addresses in nearly a dozen languages will be added to the Internet’s central directories as early as next week, paving the way for Web surfers around the world to get online without knowing any English. ADVERTISEMENT

At this point, the 11 domain names are meant primarily for software developers and Web site designers to test the new system, but they are the first such names entered in the 13 key domain name directories, known as root servers, after years of discussions and limited-access tests. If the global tests go well, non-English domain names could be in use by the end of 2008. Users outside the United States long have clamored for non-English domain-name scripts, finding restrictive the current limitation to the letters a through z, the numbers 0 through 9 and the hyphen. It is sometimes possible to create addresses in foreign languages, but the suffix — the “.com” part of an address — must use English characters. So the current tests involve non-English suffixes. The 11 suffixes now under review will read “test” in Arabic, Persian, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Yiddish, Japanese and Tamil. They were chosen based on the online communities that have expressed the most interest in and need for non-English domains, said Tina Dam, director of the Internationalized Domain Names program for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as ICANN, which oversees Internet addressing policies. U.S. authorities are still reviewing the suffixes. They are expected to approve the test versions next week, and the tests will begin after that. On Oct. 15, ICANN plans to unveil mechanisms for individuals and businesses to try out the new suffixes. They won’t be able to register domain names, but will be able to create Web sites and pass around non-English Web links. They will also be able to try locally popular Web browsers, beyond the major ones already tested. Everyone in the world will essentially be invited to try to break the new system, Dam said. A 24-hour hot line is being established to allow ICANN to quickly suspend the test if any problems might disrupt other domains such as “.com” and “.uk.” The technology for the root servers themselves will not change. ICANN and the standards-setting Internet Engineering Task Force have instead developed techniques — using a system known as Punycode — for software to convert the non-English domains into codes using only the 37 characters now permitted. Among major browsers, only the one from Opera Software ASA fully implements Punycode, Dam said. Users of Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple Inc.’s Safari should be able to get to the Web sites, she said, but until developers finish their work, portions of the Web address may appear in English characters even after being entered in another language. E-mail applications and Web-based mail systems ultimately will have to recognize Punycode as well. Approval of that technology is expected by year’s end.

BT Joins FON for Community Wi-Fi (NewsFactor)

Published in October 4th, 2007

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The Spanish company FON is trying to make a business out of sharing bandwidth, and today it and British Telecom (BT) announced that they are jointly creating the world's largest Wi-Fi community. BT also announced it will invest in FON, and will receive a seat on its board. ADVERTISEMENT

The current three million BT Total Broadband customers in the UK will be invited to join FON's existing community of about a half-million members, with more than 190,000 hotspots worldwide. In the FON model, members agree to share a portion of their wireless bandwidth by making available to other members a separate, secure channel on their wireless router. BT Group managing director Gavin Patterson said in a statement that BT FON is a "people's network" that some day could cover every street in Great Britain. If customers are "prepared to securely share a little of their broadband," he added, "they can share the broadband at hundreds of thousands of FON and BT Openzone hotspots today, without paying a penny." In April, FON did a similar deal with Time Warner Cable. Wi-Fi Kings and Beggars "FONeros" –the name that FON gives to its members — share their excess bandwidth with others in the community, via their FON Wi-Fi router or through software on their home router. "At home, you're Wi-Fi king," the company proclaims on its Web site. "But away you become a Wi-Fi beggar. Share some Wi-Fi at home. Get free FON Wi-Fi around the world." The La Fonera router, which the company calls a Social Router, attaches to a broadband Internet connection and becomes a FON Wi-Fi access point. It's a 54 Mbps router, with two separate channels. One is a secure channel for the owner, and the other is for wandering Foneros. Foneros decide how much bandwidth they want to share, and they can personalize the login page. BT and FON said they had jointly developed a secure solution for BT customers. Reportedly, FON's business model will include revenue from ads at log-on and fees from nonmembers who use the network from time to time. Model for Municipalities? Bill Ho, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, suggested that a FON-type network is "an interesting possibility" for municipalities. A variety of cities have explored or begun implementing a Wi-Fi network, but complications in some localities have raised doubts about the long-term viability about such endeavors. Ho questioned whether the open bandwidth would be overwhelmed by users in densely-populated areas. However, several major Internet players are betting that the FON model will work. Investors include Skype, Google, Sequoia Capital, European VC firm Index Ventures, Excite, and Japan-based Digital Garage.

Illegal Downloading Faces The Music

Published in October 4th, 2007

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An attorney for music companies urged a federal jury Thursday to find a Minnesota woman liable of music piracy, arguing such a verdict is critical to an industry hit hard by illegal downloading and file-sharing.

Some 26,000 lawsuits have been filed over alleged misuse, but the case against Jammie Thomas, a mother of two from Brainerd, is the first to go to trial. Many other defendants settled by paying the record companies a few thousand dollars.

Richard Gabriel, the lead attorney for six big record companies, didn’t ask jurors to award a particular dollar amount, nor did he specifically ask them to find that any infringement was willful.

“I only ask that you consider that the need for deterrence here is great,” he said.

Thomas testified earlier that she did nothing wrong. Her attorney, Brian Toder, argued that music companies presented plenty of technical evidence but never proved that “Jammie Thomas, a human being, got on her keyboard and sent out these things.”

“We don’t know what happened,” Toder told jurors. “All we know is that Jammie Thomas didn’t do this.”

Gabriel called such assertions “misdirection, red herrings, smoke and mirrors.”

We think we’re in for a long haul in terms of establishing that music has value, that music is property, and that property has to be respected.

Cathy Sherman, RIAA President

The record companies’ evidence included testimony that sought to link Thomas to a Kazaa file-sharing account that held the copyrighted material. Thomas testified that she never had a Kazaa account, but acknowledged giving conflicting dates for the replacement of her computer hard drive - something Gabriel suggested was done to cover her tracks.

The companies are seeking damages on 24 songs that the trial is focused on, not the 1,702 that were described in the lawsuit.

The 12-member jury must agree unanimously on a finding of liable or not liable. If they decide Thomas infringed the record companies’ copyrights, they would then consider whether it was willful - a distinction that could drive damages from a maximum of $30,000 per song to as much as $150,000 per song.

Earlier Thursday, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis ruled that the record companies did not have to prove that songs were actually transferred to other users for Thomas to be found liable. The act of making the files available would constitute copyright infringement, he said.

Regardless of how the first trial of a person accused of illegally sharing music online turns out, the record industry plans to keep suing listeners for a while.

“We think we’re in for a long haul in terms of establishing that music has value, that music is property, and that property has to be respected,” said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, which coordinates the lawsuits.

Sherman said Wednesday night that he’s surprised it took this long for one of them to go to trial.

After four years, he said, “it’s become business as usual, nobody really thinks about it. This case has put it back in the news. Win or lose, people will understand that we are out there trying to protect our rights.”

The record companies involved in the lawsuit are Sony BMG, Arista Records LLC, Interscope Records, UMG Recordings Inc., Capitol Records Inc. and Warner Bros. Records Inc.

Live And In Person, It’s “Fake Steve Jobs”

Published in October 4th, 2007

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The “Fake Steve Jobs” blogger who jealously guarded his anonymity for nearly a year will soon embark on a publicity tour to tout his forthcoming book.

Forbes magazine editor Dan Lyons had intended to publish “oPtion$: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs” under a pseudonym. But in August, after a reporter with The New York Times exposed the satirical alter-ego of Apple Inc.’s CEO, Da Capo Press revamped the galley and added a biography on the back flap.

Meanwhile, a publicity executive at Cambridge, Mass.-based Da Capo Press called bookstores and arranged readings in the San Francisco area around the Nov. 1 publication - a book tour hadn’t been planned because his identity was supposed to remain secret.

Lyons is not planning extensive travels elsewhere, however. Da Capo told him it was too late for a big tour - and Lyons lamented that the book might bomb outside of Silicon Valley. Lyons’ isn’t even hopeful about his hometown of Boston.

“Being too insiderish - it’s my biggest concern,” Lyons told The Associated Press. “Maybe it’s one of those things where if I had a couple more months to make another pass, I could find a way to make it more universal.”

Lyons, who wrote “oPtion$” at night and on weekends, belted out the 248-page book in four months to get it to bookstores before the holidays.

The fictional work chronicles Jobs through the stock options backdating scandal in 2006, and it includes appearances by Bono, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and Bill Gates (who appears in Jobs’ crucifixion nightmare).

Lyons - far humbler than Fake Steve Jobs - still seems incredulous of his success. His blog is popular among techies worldwide.

“People in India and Russia, what do they get out of it? Do they really know who all these characters are?” Lyons asked. “My brother-in-law gets most of the jokes, but he’s an engineer - he’s in optics, but still.”

Microsoft introduces service for online personal health records

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Microsoft is starting its long-anticipated drive into the consumer health care market by offering free personal health records on the Web and pursuing a strategy that borrows from the company's successful formula in personal computer software.

The move by Microsoft, which is called HealthVault and was announced Thursday in Washington, comes after two years spent building its team, expertise and technology. In recent months, Microsoft managers have met with many potential partners including hospitals, disease-prevention organizations and health care companies.

The organizations that have signed up for HealthVault projects with Microsoft include the American Heart Association, Johnson & Johnson LifeScan, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, the Mayo Clinic and MedStar Health, a network of seven hospitals in the Baltimore-Washington region. The partner strategy is a page from Microsoft's old playbook. Convincing other companies to build upon its technology, and then helping them do it, was a major reason Windows became the dominant personal computer operating system.

“The value of what we're doing will go up rapidly as we get more partners,” said Peter Neupert, the vice president in charge of Microsoft's health group.

The company's consumer health offering includes a personal health record, as well as Internet search tailored for health queries, under the name Microsoft HealthVault (www.healthvault.com).

The personal information, Microsoft said, will be stored in a secure, encrypted database. Its privacy controls, the company said, are set entirely by the individual, including what information goes in and who gets to see it. The HealthVault searches are conducted anonymously, Microsoft said, and will not be linked to any personal information in a HealthVault personal health record.

Microsoft does not expect most individuals to type in much of their own health information into the Web-based record. Instead, the company hopes that individuals will give doctors, clinics and hospitals permission to directly send into their HealthVault record information like medicines prescribed or, say, test results showing blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

Such data transfers, Neupert said, would then be automatic, over the Internet, which is why the partnerships are so important. “The issues are: can we get the connections and demonstrate the value of this to people so they build up these records as they go along,” he said.

At NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in New York, Aurelia Boyer, the chief information officer, explained that the hospital was committed doing whatever it can to help patients manage their own health care. After an initial discussion with Microsoft, the hospital has pledged to start a pilot project to enable some kinds of patient data — EKGs, perhaps — to be automatically sent to a person's HealthVault account.

If a patient chooses to have a Microsoft personal health record, Boyer said, “we want to support them.”

The data exchange, she added, will require some software tweaking by the hospital's technical staff. “We'll pilot a few things and see how it goes,” Boyer said.

The Microsoft entry comes at a time when people are increasingly using online tools, especially Internet search, to find health information. An aging population with more health concerns, as well as tighter curbs on medical spending, are expected to prompt consumers to take a larger role in managing their own care, using online tools that include personal health records. But that trend has not gone very far yet.

Microsoft is also moving ahead at a time when other large technology companies have seen senior executives in their health units depart or hit bumps in their efforts to push health initiatives.

The leader of Google's health group, Adam Bosworth, left last month, for example. The company has been developing offerings broadly similar to Microsoft's — personal health records stored in Google data centers, and enhanced health search.

Google will not discuss the timing of its health plans. Marissa Mayer, the Google vice president now overseeing the health team, said, “We hope the products we're working on will give people access to better information about health that is more relevant to them and help them manage and control their own information.”

At Cisco, the head of its health care practice, Dr. Jeffrey Rideout, recently left to join a private equity firm, Ziegler HealthVest Management. (Cisco called his departure a “leave of absence.”) And Dossia, a coalition led by Intel to provide employees at several large companies with personal health records, is going more slowly than planned.

But while some other technology companies are pulling back or slowing down in health, “Microsoft is stepping forward and finally declaring the hand it will play,” observed Dr. David Brailer, the former health information technology coordinator in the Bush administration, who now heads a firm that invests in medical ventures, Health Evolution Partners.

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