• Wired, Monday, March 2, 2009 12 PM

Wired contributor Sam Gustin, who has been exploring the economic meltdown's impact on Silicon Valley, interviews Google's Chief Information Evangelist Vint Cerf, who talks about Google's role in the recovery, the best use of the government's stimulus dollars and why we can't count on private or venture capital for innovation in the near-term.

But you can count on Google for innovation, Cerf says, listing energy, health care and education as three areas the search giant will be focusing its R&D efforts. Cerf notes that Google tools like Apps for Education and Google Earth are increasingly being used in classrooms today. As for health care, Cerf says "health care is information. Diagnosis, treatment, patient history, knowledge of pharmaceuticals and surgical procedures -- it's all information. Our own personal medical records represent incredibly important information to each of us because it can be crucial in helping to diagnose or treat a medical condition. It might be needed in a hurry should there be a need for emergency treatment, especially at a hospital you have never been to before."

He adds that you could make a similar argument about financial information, "and virtually everything else that makes up our daily world. The more we can organize, find and manage information, the more effectively we can function in our modern world," Cerf says, adding: "you can be sure that Google will be looking for new ways to be helpful."

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