18 months ago I didn't think they had anything similar to self-driving cars, so it wouldn't surprise me if they did. The human genome project is pretty Google-y, with massive amounts of data and clever algorithms.
They had something, I think it was a protein database search goog labs project. It wasn't very popular, so I guess it didn't stick. btw 23me is close enough, and is also misleading enough (in scientific value)...
How is 23andMe misleading in scientific value? They just published "Web-based genome-wide association study identifies two novel loci and a substantial genetic component for Parkinson’s disease" in PLOS Genetics:
correct me if I am wrong, but the debate which started at about and around [1] didn't quite finish.
Would you trust the output of this chip, as it has been presented/used in the paper [2]?
1.Katsanis, S.H., Javitt, G. & Hudson, K. A Case Study of Personalized Medicine. Science 320, 53 -54 (2008).
2.Konstantinopoulos, P.A. et al. Integrated Analysis of Multiple Microarray Datasets Identifies a Reproducible Survival Predictor in Ovarian Cancer. PLoS ONE 6, e18202 (2011).
My robotics training hardly qualifies me to asses the output of their academic research. However, I applaud their commitment to publishing results it top-tier academic journals.
Off-handed comments (in a thread about Google) calling 23andMe's scientific research "misleading" seems a bit snarky. Educated discussion has a place -- eg. in HN threads related to the company [1] or (especially) in the peer-review process.
Also I'm not sure if he quit Google, or if he just quit the project he was working on.