News in today’s Guardian that 23andme, a start-up company based in Silicon Valley has launched a personal genotyping service. Anyone providing a sample of saliva, and a fee of around £500, can have their DNA run through a gene-reading microchip, the results of which are uploaded to the web.
Using various tools clients can explore their ancestry/origins - and also find out the chance of contracting any hereditary diseases.
So why am I writing about this in an SEO blog? Because they have Google backing them - and Sergey Brin’s wife, Anne Wojcicki, is one of its co-founders.
Hmmm, let me think, what would I do if I had Google bank-rolling my next project? It would probably involve luxury motor yachts in the Mediterranean Sea…
Yahoo yesterday apologised to the families of two journalists currently in jail in China. Both journalists have been given 10 year sentences after Yahoo handed their email over to the Chinese authorities who accused the pair of “incitement to subvert state power” and “passing on information that was designated a state secret” - prompting a US congressman, Tom Lantos, to describe Yahoo as moral pygmies.
One of the incarcerated journalist’s wives said they were “subjected to torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, including arbitrary, prolonged and indefinite detention, for expressing their free speech rights and for using the internet to communicate about democracy and human rights matters”.
Landos yesterday described Yahoo’s behaviour as a “disgrace”.
Read more here
News in the Guardian technology section that Google’s shares reached $700 on wednesday, putting it into the top five American companies beating the likes of Bank of America, Procter & Gamble and Citigroup.
The other members of the top five are ExxonMobil, General Electric, Microsoft and AT&T.
Story here
