Houston Business JournalSearch engine giant Google Inc. has added voice and video chatting to Gmail as well as launched a free Web service to track the flu around the country.
Users can now have free voice and video conversations by clicking on a new "Video & more" menu in a Gmail chat window. They can get a full screen view or a pop out that can be sized and positioned according to user preference. The voice option can be used in tandem with e-mail and regular chat without a Web cam.
Google Flu Trends was developed with the help of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is based on the number of search queries made about influenza. The company said it noticed that there was a correlation between the frequency of such searches and incidence of the flu.
Instead of the one or two week lag that traditional flu surveillance systems have, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) said its reports will be updated daily. They are available at www.google.org/flutrends.
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