Privacy

Privacy relates to personal information that a person would not wish others to know without authorization, and to a person's right to be free from the attention of others.

Consumer privacy, also known as customer privacy, involves the handling and protection of sensitive personal information that individuals provide in the course of everyday transactions. This involves the exchange or use of data electronically or by any other means, including telephone, fax, written correspondence, and even direct word of mouth.
With the advent and evolution of the World Wide Web and other electronic methods of mass communications, consumer privacy has become a major issue. Personal information, when misused or inadequately protected, can result in identify theft, financial fraud, and other problems that collectively cost people, businesses, and governments millions of U.S. dollars per year. In addition, Internet crimes and civil disputes consume court resources, confound legislators and police departments, and produce untold personal aggravation.

Most Web users want to understand that personal information they share will not be shared with anyone else without their permission. An annual survey conducted by the Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center of the Georgia Institute of Technology showed that 70% of the Web users surveyed cited concerns about privacy as the main reason for not registering information with Web sites. 86% indicated that they wanted to be able to control their personal information. A study by TRUSTe revealed that 78% of users surveyed would be more likely to provide information to sites that offered privacy assurance.

Having Privacy in our world today is very hard. Technology now can find out where you are, what your doing, your email address, different accounts, passwords, personal information etc. It is really hard to escape it now and also having freedom. So i think technology on the privacy side for me is negative because we have no freedom and privacy which is our right to have it, what do you think?

REFERENCE:

http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com

http://www.youtube.com

http:..search.live.com/images/results.aspx?q=privacy&form=QBIR

Health care

As we know Health care is the prevention, treatment, and management of illness and the preservation of mental and physical well-being through the services offered by the medical and allied health professions.

Broadly speaking, the term “medical technology” can be used to refer to the procedures, equipment, and processes by which medical care is delivered. Examples of changes in technology would include new medical and surgical procedures (e.g., angioplasty, joint replacements), drugs (e.g., biologic agents), medical devices (e.g., CT scanners, implantable defibrillators), and new support systems (e.g., electronic medical records and transmission of information, telemedicine). There is very little in the field of medicine that does not use some type of medical technology and that has not been affected by new technology.

Heart disease and its consequence, heart attack, is the leading cause of death in the U.S. and a good example of how new technology has changed the treatment and prevention of a disease over time. In the 1970s, cardiac care units were introduced, lidocaine was used to manage irregular heartbeat, beta-blockers were used to lower blood pressure in the first 3 hours after a heart attack, “clot buster” drugs began to be widely used, and coronary artery bypass surgery became more prevalent. In the 1980s, blood-thinning agents were used after a heart attack to prevent reoccurrences, beta-blocker therapy evolved from short-term therapy immediately after a heart attack to maintenance therapy, and angioplasty (minimally invasive surgery) was used after heart attack patients were stable. In the 1990s, more effective drugs were introduced to inhibit clot formation, angioplasty was used for treatment and revascularization along with stents to keep blood vessels open, cardiac rehabilitation programs were implemented sooner, and implantable cardiac defibrillators were used in certain patients with irregular heartbeats. In the 2000s, better tests became available to diagnose heart attack, drug-eluting stents were used, and new drug strategies were developed (aspirin, ACE inhibitors, beta-blockers, statins) for long-term management of heart attack and potential heart attack patients. From 1980-2000, the overall mortality rate from heart attack fell by almost half, from 345.2 to 186.0 per 100,000 persons.

Another example of how advances in technology have changed health outcomes over time is in the treatment of pre-term babies, for which very little could be done in 1950. But by 1990, changes in technology, including special ventilators, artificial pulmonary surfactant to help infant lungs develop, neonatal intensive care, and steroids for mother and/or baby, helped decrease mortality to one-third its 1950 level, with an overall increase in life expectancy of about 12 years per low-birthweight baby.

I do agree and ofcourse the advances in technology will also make an advance in Healthcare and so saves more lifes. Technology has also discovered more diseases and their cures, But some of the medications are expensive and some people will not be able to afford it. There are public Hospitals which uses some of this new technology and so the new technology did not only help rich people but in one way or another all kind of incomes of people. The more technology introduced in Healthcare will save more lifes and cost will decrease and so more people will be able to afford it. So what do you think of the increase of technology in healthcare?

REFERENCE


http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm030807oth.cfm