The Integrative Stream

Quick Updates and Brief Thoughts

Three unrelated items:

Our Personal Health Records Conference at Harvard Medical School was a big success. More soon – we’ll be posting proceedings and video from the keynotes.

Utility companies should not charge extra for online bill payment. Pepco (the DC electric utility) apparently does this. You pay more – and more than the cost of a stamp – for the privilege of saving them money. Obviously, I’m paying my DC electric bill with a good old fashioned paper stamp.

All web sites for chain stores should be able to identify mobile web browsers. When a mobile user connects, the interface should optimize for the one thing that you’re likely to be doing when accessing, say, Staples.com, from a mobile phone – finding the nearest store! Needless to say, Staples.com does not do this (and when I did find the store finder, it didn’t work). Google does a pretty good job of this, although it’s hard to get at file attachments from mobile GMail.

And that’s the wrapup for this Saturday morning, October 28th.