Google Using Their Omniscience to Keep Us Healthy

Yes, Google is using their all-knowing, all-seeing Googley eyes to keep us all healthy this year. They noticed that search terms for flu-related keywords correlate strongly with the CDC’s actual flu data. But, being all powerful and Internetty, the Google info is much more timely than what the CDC is able to compile and put out.

So now you can view flu trends on Google’s nifty new flu tracker, including a map of flu activity on a state-by-state basis. You can even download CSV flu trend data going back to 2003.

It’s a little creepy in the usual Google-knows-everything way, and a little awesome in the way it makes everything better! I’ll compromise and call it crawesome.

And if your flu symptoms don’t match with what Google says you should be feeling, I’m sure they’ll just call you a beta and hope to patch you in the near future.