Boring: Flu Map

ATLANTA, Nov. The Flu Trends Web site will comb through search words, such as “cough” and “fever,” entered by Google users who likely have the flu and use the data to compile a map showing the severity of flu in various regions. I’ve created a rough experimental Google Earth map of the major recent avian flu outbreaks.

The Journal said Tuesday that Flu Trends was developed by the Google.org branch of the search company, which compared the volume of flu-related search terms to CDC records on flu cases.