Regular readers of Via Meadia know the stress we place on the technology that is going to upend the health care industry in productive ways. It looks like other media outlets are starting to realize it too. Megan Graber at the Atlantic published a piece today on a new iPhone analysis app that allows ordinary Americans to […]

Good news from Burma: the ethnic Mon minority rallied on Tuesday without any of the violent pushback from the central authorities that characterized similar expressions of democracy in the old days. The Irawaddy magazine reports: Thousands of ethnic Mon from southeastern Burma celebrated the 66th Mon National Day on Tuesday with traditional Mon ceremonies, entertainment and […]

Emilio Lozoya, the CEO of Pemex, isn’t hiding his enthusiasm for the future of the Mexican state-owned oil company. Lozoya gloated recently over a report that named Mexico the “new Middle East”. The Financial Times reports: “You will have industrialisation in Mexico that didn’t exist before,” Mr Lozoya, chief executive of Pemex, the state-owned oil company, […]

Meet the Urbee 2, a car that was printed from the ground up: [Jim Kor’s] creation is called the Urbee 2 and it could revolutionize parts manufacturing while creating a cottage industry of small-batch automakers intent on challenging the status quo.Urbee’s approach to maximum miles per gallon starts with lightweight construction—something that 3-D printing is […]

The epidemic of power outages and “rolling blackouts” which nearly shut down California in the early 2000s may be returning. Back then, the culprits were unscrupulous energy providers like Enron and a poorly-thought out process of deregulation. This time, renewable energy would be to blame, as the state has pushed to increase the use of […]

South Carolina has an innovation it hopes will cut health care costs, improve care delivery, and strengthen community ties all at once. According to the San Franciso Chronicle, the state’s Medicaid office has launched a program to train key community leaders to make health visits to elderly, poor, and disabled patients at home. The vistors will help […]

Just a day after Mexico’s new President Enrique Peña Nieto passed historic education reform, weakening the powerful and hitherto unaccountable teachers union, the union’s influential boss was arrested on charges of embezzlement. The arrest has been called a daring assertion of presidential power, reports the FT:  “This is a very bold move,” said Alejandro Hope, […]

For years, India’s main security problem was in the west. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan—the troublesome neighbor consumed the attention of policy-makers in Delhi. But with the rise of China and Southeast Asia, things are changing. Events like last December’s epic Indonesia-to-India, 8,000-kilometer car rally suggest a new outlook in Delhi—conveniently termed its “Look East” policy.The epic […]

As President Obama prepares for his first visit to the Middle East in his second term, the region is getting if anything a little more tense. A rocket was fired from Gaza into Israel yesterday for the first time since the November truce. The WSJ reports: Militants claiming affiliation with the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, […]

Angela Merkel is now 0 for 2 in trying to influence the outcome of elections in important Latin countries in Europe. In both France and Italy, voters solidly rejected the candidates she supported and gave their votes to candidates she opposed. And this could just be the beginning, the New York Times speculates: But experts said the […]