At the risk of stating the obvious, digital photography is one of the great revolutions of our time. By eliminating the cost of film and developing, and making cameras cheaper, smaller and more readily available, the technology has sparked a renaissance in photo taking.

Now that most cell phones have built-in cameras, digital cameras are literally everywhere and always with us. Even those of us who don’t think to pack our cameras when we leave the house, probably have a camera thanks to cell phones.

One of the biggest changes brought about by digital photography is the way we show off our pictures. Until a few years ago, the only way to share photos was through prints, but most digital pictures taken today are never printed. Many, I suppose, are also never shared, but those that are shared with others are often viewed on a screen rather than on paper.

In some cases, we share our pictures by showing them to our friends on our camera or phone’s LCD screen. That gives us that instant gratification that my generation first enjoyed back with Polaroid cameras. But unlike those very pricey Polaroid prints, digital images are free.

Speaking of free, there are also a number of ways to share photos online, including social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo, as well as dedicated photo sharing sites like Flickr, SnapFish, Shutterfly, Picasa and Photobucket.

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Podcast: Larry Magid talks with Alice Lankester of Photobucket whose company recently launched group photo albums for weddings, soccer teams and other group events.

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Photobucket, which is owned by Fox Interactive, the division of News Corp. that also operates MySpace, is very popular among teenage users. One of the reasons is the fact that it’s well integrated into MySpace, Facebook, Blogger, Bebo, Hi5 and other Web sites. As a result, users can easily display their Photobucket pictures on their social networking profile. If you can put an HTML link on a Web site, you can display your Photobucket content. The site also provides photo editing powered by FotoFlexer and basic video editing through Adobe Remix.

One of the things I like about Photobucket is the very straightforward and easy to use interface. Like the competitors, it has a “bulk” uploader that allows you to upload several photos at a time, but you don’t have to spend a lot of time downloading and installing a separate application. The plug-in installs automatically and almost immediately and works from within your browser. The site also has some nice built-in tools, including the ability to create a musically annotated slide show and to place fun borders around your pictures.

Photobucket recently released an application programming interface (API) that allows others to build applications that can access photos and videos. One of the more interesting applications now available is Scrapblog that allows users to create a multimedia online “scrapbook” from your photos and videos that you can share on Photobucket as well as on Flickr, MySpace, Blogger and other sites.

Earlier this week the company announced the launch of group albums, giving groups of people a new way to create and share photo and video collections. For example, each parent of a Little League member could snap photos and videos of the kids and post them on an album that could be public or password controlled. The same could be true for guests at a wedding or other celebration.

Each album is controlled by a moderator who can pick and choose which photos will appear and delete. Individuals who post can also control which pictures are available to the group. The company will allow users to register for unique URLs (Web addresses). When my daughter Katherine marries John this August, I’m hoping they’ll let me create the site photobucket.com/katherineandjohn, but that decision will be up to the newlyweds.

Speaking of photography, one of my favorite photo accessory companies is about to release a very cool new product. Eye-Fi, which makes a little digital camera SD memory card that automatically transfers photos from your camera to your PC (and to the Web if you want) via Wi-Fi has announced a card that will also geo-code your pictures.

That means that you won’t have to remember or type in where a photo was taken. The new card, which will be called Eye-Fi Explore, will look for Wi-Fi networks near where you’re taking the picture and, if it finds one, it will make a note of the location and add that to the data that is associated with each picture. It will get the geographic information from Skyhook Wireless, a company that has mapped the location of thousands of Wi-Fi hotspots around the country.

Even if the hotspot is encrypted, Skyhook can determine where it is physically located and transfer that location information to the new Eye-Fi card and directly to your photograph. The new card will also allow you to upload pictures from hotspots even while you’re away from home, which will be very handy for travelers who want to share their photos from the road.

Eye-Fi Explore is expected to be available in early June for $129.00.

About a year ago Google announced that it would launch a service to allow users to store their own health records on a secure website. There was a lot of discussion about what it would look like but the wait is over. A free public “beta test” version of Google Heath is now operational at google.com/health.

The service allows users to create an online profile that includes information about any medical conditions, test results, procedures, immunizations and medications. You’re also asked to enter in your height, weight, blood type and race. With this information, the service, in theory, could offer you tailored medical information as well as serving as a central hub storing your medical records.

Eventually the goal is for users to be able to import their health information from the secure websites of care providers. To that end, Google already has arrangements with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and the Cleveland Clinic as well the online pharmacies from Longs Drugs, Walgreens, RXAmerica and Medco. A relationship with Quest Diagnostics allows users of its services to import their lab tests. Google also has a link to the American Heart Association’s heart attack risk assessment site so that you can get your customized risk assessment without having to retype your height, weight, cholesterol and other into the Heart Association’s site.

One nice feature is the drug interaction alert that lets you know about potential conflicts between drugs you take. Of course, you have to remember to enter all your drugs for that to work.

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Podcast: CBS News technology analyst Larry Magid discussed Google Health with Google product Manger Dr. Ronnie Zeiger and with health author and prevention specialist Dr. Dean Ornish who is an adviser to Google

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Because none of my providers are among Google’s initial partners, I had to enter all the information myself. Fortunately, it was easy to find because the health clinic I use most of the time has its own online service that stores this information. I’m pretty happy with what my provider offers but it’s an island of information. If, for example, I were to have a blood test done elsewhere, that information would not be on my provider’s site nor is there a way I could even type it in. Google is trying to solve that problem by creating a health record keeping system that is controlled by the user, not the health care provider. This is especially important for those of us who don’t belong to a health maintenance organization (HMO) because we might visit different physicians who are not affiliated with each other.

Clearly privacy is the number one concern when it comes to any online medical information service. Google’s health privacy policy states that “You control who can access your personal health information. By default, you are the only user who can view and edit your information.” You can, however choose to share your information with others. The company also promises not to “sell, rent, or share your information” and will let you delete your account or any information in it at any time.

But even though I take Google at its word, I worry about hackers. Google Health product manager, Dr. Roni Zeiger, told me that the company has very good security and while Google does have a good track record in this area, there is never an ironclad guarantee that a site couldn’t be hacked. Of course – despite safeguards required under the federal “HIPAA law (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) – there is also the possibility that someone could break into your doctor’s office to steal your records or that your health care provider could be careless about its own privacy and security policies.

Because of my inability to import information into the service, I find it of minimal use at the moment but I do see the potential, especially after more service providers come online. I also see the potential of linking this and similar services to health and fitness technology products such as blood pressure cuffs, scales and exercise equipment. By coincidence, Google launched the service the same day as the U.S. launch of Nintendo’s Wii Fit Balance board and workout software. I could easily see how Nintendo and Google could work together to make both products more useful by linking them via the Internet.

Dr. Dean Ornish, the preventive medicine author, serves as an advisor to Google Health and attended the launch event at Google headquarters in Silicon Valley Monday. I asked Dr. Ornish why putting health information into patients’ hands was better than relying on solely on doctors to provide necessary care and information. “That model,” he said “has been of limited value because it provides all the information and all the control with the physician … It’s much more powerful to have a collaborative relationship with the patient where the physician becomes the resource that has information, shares that information and provides choices to the patient about what to do with it – the risks, the benefits, the costs the side effects and so on.” He argues that “Google Health can help provide that information to the patient as well as the physician.”

Google is not without competition. Microsoft has launched its own HealthVault service which it bills as “the hub of a network of Web sites, personal health devices and other services that you can use to help manage your health.” So, in addition to fighting over Yahoo and search advertising, these two giant technology companies are slugging it out over your health records.

Thanks to Nintendo, I now know I’m a somewhat overweight couch potato with poor balance. But there is hope. If I stick with the plan, I may lose weight, get stronger and improve my balance and posture. At least that’s the theory behind Nintendo’s innovative Wii Fit – an $89.99 game and accessory for the Nintendo Wii designed to help people of all ages and both genders get healthier.

In addition to the CD, Wii Fit comes with a balance board that wirelessly communicates with the required Nintendo Wii Console (the list price is $249 but shortages make it hard to find at that price).

First, you tell the Wii your age and height. Then step on the balance board, which measures 20.5 inches by 13 inches by 3 inches. It weighs you and calculates your body mass index, or BMI. A balance test follows to calculate your “Wii age.” I’m too embarrassed to tell you mine but let’s just say that based on my Wii age, I could be collecting Social Security years ahead of schedule.

The one thing I wish it would do is explain the meaning of BMI. While it is generally accepted as an indicator of whether someone is the right weight for his or her height, it’s imperfect because it’s based solely on weight and height. A BMI of 24 or higher is considered “overweight,” while 30 or more marks you as “obese.”

The Wii Fit screen recommends that you achieve a BMI of 22 but fails to point out that BMI doesn’t distinguish body fat from muscle mass. Based on their BMIs, Barry Bonds and Arnold Schwarzenegger would be considered obese.A sedentary person with a big belly and a high BMI almost certainly does need to lose weight, but the number can sometimes be misleading if taken out of context. Having said that, I must admit that the Wii Fit was absolutely correct when it told me that I need to lose some weight.

The key to the Wii Fit is the balance board and the Nintendo controller’s motion-sensing capability. In addition to weighing you, the balance board can help determine your posture and center of gravity based on the way you’re standing on it.

There are numerous tests and games you can play with the Wii Fit in the categories of yoga, aerobics, strength training and balance games. The aerobics exercise that got my heart pumping the fastest was a running game. You don’t use the balance board but put the regular Wii controller in your pocket. Its movement is used to calculate how quickly you’re running in place, which helps you keep up with or lag behind your on-screen running partner.

If you have a friend and another controller, you can race against a real running partner. I also enjoyed the hula hoop game, where you work up a sweat by spinning your hips to keep the hoop from falling down. Every so often you’re thrown a new hoop and have to lean way over to catch it. I’m told that if you do well enough on it you get to play the “super hula” game. But I’m not there yet.

For me, the balance games were the most frustrating, not because there’s anything wrong with the Wii Fit but because I have a lot of work to do in that area. One game has you head-butting soccer balls that are thrown to you and another has you slalom on a ski run. In both cases, your balance and reaction time are tested and measured. What’s nice about the games is the “retry” option. By repeating these games I’m finding that I’m getting a bit better and, one hopes, healthier over time.

Strength training games seem a bit weaker than other areas, partially because the device has no weights, bands or other appendages to put an extra strain on your muscles. You can, however, do isometric exercises that help with both strength and balance.

I tried the deep breathing Yoga exercise. Again there isn’t any mechanized way to measure your breath but it does help you with your timing, which, I’m told, is very important in yoga.

Like any good game, the Wii Fit has incentives to succeed. If you do well on certain games you’re rewarded not only by positive on-screen feedback but by winning access to more games.

After only a day with the device, it’s hard to fully evaluate the Wii Fit because the real value of any exercise routine is determined not just by how fun or informative it is at the beginning but by whether you stay with it. The Wii Fit is designed to motivate you with plenty of feedback and increasing levels of difficulty. I did have a lot of fun on day one and found myself motivated to keep trying to improve my score. The real question, however, is whether I’ll stick with it or if the Wii Fit, like so many other exercise devices and health club memberships, will go unused after a period of time.

If Nintendo could solve that problem it would go a long way toward making me – and lots of others – a bit healthier. But, alas, a device is only a device. The software we all need to keep fit doesn’t run on game consoles, it runs between our ears. It’s all about staying motivated and staying active.

Last week’s news about a new WiMax venture involving Sprint, Clearwire, Google, Intel and others could finally pave the way for a wireless networking system that’s not limited to a few hundred feet and – just maybe – not tightly controlled by cellular carriers.

Like WiFi, WiMax makes it possible to transmit signals between base stations, PCs and other devices, including media players and mobile phones. But rather than being limited to about 300 square feet, a single WiMax base station could theoretically radiate a signal for 30 miles to home and office devices, or 10 miles to mobile devices. These ranges, of course, are dependent on a great many factors including terrain and interference.

As for speed, the WiMax Forum claims it can support up to 40 megabits per second in fixed applications or up to 15 Mbps for mobile use (DSL typically delivers below 2 Mbps). But as anyone who’s used a WiFi network knows, speed – like range – depends on lots of factors.

The idea is to create a metropolitan area network where one or more base stations can serve large numbers of people. Such a network could be an alternative to DSL or cable modems for homes and businesses and an alternative to WiFi and cellular for people on the move. It could also provide connectivity to mobile devices, including WiMax phones that use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). A single WiMax station could connect thousands of users to the Internet.

Intel has been a major proponent of WiMax for years and is rolling out access cards, chipsets and other WiMax related technology. And it is embedding WiMax chips in Centrino-based laptops and other mobile devices.

During a question-and-answer session with a small group of reporters Thursday at Google headquarters, Google co-founder Larry Page told me the Clearwire deal is “a significant step in the direction of openness.”

Co-founder Sergey Brin added that Google “benefits from more people having more access to the Internet with greater bandwidth and fewer restrictions.”

Page confirmed that Google staff who work on the company’s Android cell phone operating system were also involved with the Clearwire deal. Android is designed to create a more open environment for cell phone services, and could work on the Clearwire network as well as on other wireless networks and existing cell phone systems.

While Google will offer its open Android mobile operating system to cell phone carriers, the advent of WiMax could allow the search giant to offer direct mobile services without having to negotiate with carriers. Google has already invested in a free citywide WiFi network for its hometown of Mountain View.

Although executives from Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and others have talked about a new spirit of “openness,” mobile carriers are notorious for being control freaks, limiting or attempting to monetize almost anything that happens on their network.

Creating open networks, or at least increasing the number of companies offering mobile services, should go a long way to break the oligopoly that the incumbent carriers now enjoy. Unlike the current U.S. cell phone model, the new WiMax networks are likely to allow for greater flexibility and choice including the ability to get compatible handsets from a variety of companies.

This will become increasingly important as new mobile services emerge, especially with the advent of “cell phone banking” services run by PayPal, Obopay and others that ultimately allow individuals and businesses to use mobile devices to exchange money.

As a cautionary note, it’s important to consider that this new venture has a pedigree that doesn’t exactly scream openness. The new Clearwire will be 51 percent owned by Sprint. Other investors include cable companies Time Warner and Comcast.

Sprint competitors AT&T and Verizon are working on competing high-speed mobile technology called Long Term Evolution (LTE), which involves upgrading existing cellular networks to so called “fourth generation” or 4G capabilities to offer much higher download speeds.

I do worry that the cellular carriers are the major forces behind both WiMax and LTE, and the investment of major cable companies in Clearwire is also a bit concerning. Still, I’m hoping that the presence of other players and increasing pressure toward openness will create a business climate that looks more like the open Internet and less like closed cellular networks.

You don’t have to wait for WiMax or LTE to get wireless access to your laptop. Over the past year, I’ve tested EVDO wireless services from both Sprint and Verizon and both provide reasonably fast Internet service to my laptop. It’s not cheap. Sprint’s unlimited plan is $59.99 a month, while Verizon charges that for up to 5 gigabytes a month. At speeds up to 1.2 Mbps, this solution is acceptable by today’s standards for basic data but still shy of what’s needed for high quality video and voice.

A lot of people – especially its stockholders – are worried about the future of Yahoo now that Microsoft has backed away from its offer to buy the company for $47.5 billion. But Microsoft shareholders also have reason to worry.

Bill Gates, with a lot of help from Steve Ballmer, built the Microsoft on the back of the personal computer. Ballmer is now CEO of Microsoft and, starting in July, he’ll no longer have Gates as a work make. Although he’ll remain as chairman, Gates is retiring from his day-to-day responsibilities to devote more time to philanthropy.

As early as 1975, Gates saw the potential of PCs, predicting that the growing platform would create an enormous appetite for software. In 1981, he cemented Microsoft’s role by signing a deal to create the operating system for IBM’s first personal computer. Even though there wasn’t even a hint that Compaq would eventually release the first “PC clone,” Gates was smart enough to make his IBM deal non-exclusive allowing him to ink lucrative software deals with Compaq and eventually Dell, HP and the myriad of PC makers who needed Microsoft software to be sure their machines were compatible with the then gold standard IBM PC.

Gates, Ballmer and the thousands of other Microsoft employees rode this platform to such highs that they eventually wound up, literally, monopolizing the world’s desktop operating system market, prompting the U.S. Justice Department and governments around the world to file a variety anti-trust cases against the software giant. In 2000, U.S. District judge Penfield Jackson found Microsoft guilty of anti-trust violations and ordered the company split in two with one entity in charge of desktop software and the other able to sell operating systems. After a change in administrations, the Justice Department ultimately reached a less stringent settlement that allowed Microsoft to remain intact while promising to modify its behavior and submit to ongoing scrutiny.

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Podcast: Larry Magid talks to veteran Silicon Valley technology analyst Tim Bajarn about the impact of Microsoft’s decision to withdraw its offer to buy Yahoo. furniture Videnov

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During the midst of the anti-trust fervor, Gates told a Congressional hearing that market forces, not the government, should be in charge of determining who’s on top. “People who feared IBM were wrong,” he told a Senate Judiciary hearing in 1998, “technology is ever-changing.” A lot of people thought that was hyperbole, but in some sense history proved Gates to be right.

That very year, two graduate students from Stanford set up shop in a garage in Menlo Park, California and raised $100,000 to start Google, a Web-based company that’s now worth about $186 billion. If they were to combine their net worth, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin would be number three on Forbes’ list of the world’s wealthiest people. As it is, they share the number five spot.

Although Microsoft continues to be a powerful and profitable company, it has continually faltered where Google has succeeded. It’s not as if Microsoft hasn’t tried. It launched Microsoft Network, MSN, back in 1995 and promoted it so heavily on the Windows 95 desktop that some people worried it would be the death knell for all other online services. It wasn’t AOL wound up dominating the field until it too started to falter as broadband penetration ate up much of its dial-up business. Microsoft Hotmail came along in 1998 and the company has continued to invest in MSN and other Internet services. From a features perspective, it competes very well with Google, Yahoo and AOL. Like Alice’s Restaurant, you can get pretty much “anything you want” at Microsoft’s various websites. But, in February 2008 Comscor ranked Microsoft a distant third in search sites with 9.8% share of behind Google (58.5%) and Yahoo (22.2%). Microsoft also came out third in total visitors. Yahoo came in first followed by Google, Microsoft and AOL.

Yahoo’s number one position at attracting visitors and number two spot in search is not lost on Steve Ballmer, especially as he eyes Google’s enormous earnings from Internet search.

With its online services division losing an estimated $745 million in the past three quarters, Ballmer has to find a way to turn things around without the help of Yahoo.

That’s not going to be easy as the technology landscape turns from PCs to web-based and mobile applications and as consumers greatly overtake businesses as the most important technology buyers.

For the first 25 years of its history, PCs were pretty much the only game in town when it came to information and productivity applications but Microsoft is fighting Google, Yahoo and others on two fronts. Though Web-based productivity applications are still in their infancy, Google has shown that it is possible to bring Microsoft Office-like applications to the web. Gmail (along with competing products form Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL) is serving needs that once required desktop mail applications such as Outlook. But perhaps more importantly, Google Docs and Spreadsheets is now competing with Microsoft Office. I’m not saying that Google’s free web applications are going to put Office out of business. For example, I’m writing this column in Microsoft Word because it has far more robust features than Google and I still use Excel when I need a complex spreadsheet. Besides, there are times when people need these applications when they don’t have Internet access.

But times are changing. Web-based applications from Google and others are only going to get better and Google has already launched programs that will run when you’re not connected to the Internet. In the mean time, Microsoft faces operating system pressure not just from Apple (which is gaining in market share) but from Linux – a free “open source” operating system that’s growing in popularity, especially in the developing world where the cost of Microsoft software is simply prohibitive.

We’re also seeing the growth of the mobile phone as a platform of choice. Again, if you look to the developing world, you’ll find that cell phone penetration is far higher than PC use and as cell phones become more powerful, people are starting to use them instead of PCs for email, web surfing and even financial transactions. Microsoft has spent billions trying to compete in this market with its Windows Mobile products but despite some pretty good sales, it’s not winning too many comparative reviews against RIM’s Blackberry software and Apple’s highly regarded iPhone. And even in this arena Microsoft has to worry about Google which has recently launched development software cell phones and Yahoo which is trying to move most of its web services over to mobile phones.

So, with this as a backdrop, one wonders what Steve Ballmer will do. He hasn’t confided in me, but after watching him and Gates for nearly a quarter of a century, I think I know a thing or two about their tenacity. Ballmer won’t give up. He’ll continue to keep an eye on Yahoo and perhaps come back later – maybe with a lower offer – if Yahoo continues to stumble. And he’ll keep shopping for smaller companies or perhaps AOL all the while continuing to invest money in Microsoft’s own web services

By Larry Magid
Reposted from San Jose Mercury News

I’m happy to be a member of a recently formed Internet Safety Technical Task Force, but it has caused me to feel a bit of a disconnect. One of the major goals of the task force is to explore whether it’s possible to use technology to verify the age of people signing up for social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to give parents more control over whether their kids can use these services and to avoid inappropriate online contact between kids and adults. Yet, the first four experts to address the task force painted a picture that causes me to wonder if such technology would be helpful even if it could be employed.

The task force was formed in February as a result of an agreement between MySpace and 49 state attorneys general. The group consists of representatives of major Internet and social-networking services including MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, AOL, Google and Yahoo, along with officials from companies that offer age- and identity-verification technology. Several non-profit organizations are also represented, including ConnectSafely.org, which I co-founded with Anne Collier. (Disclosure: ConnectSafely receives financial support from several social-networking companies.)

The task force is a welcome intervention into what has been a nasty war of words. For the past couple of years, several attorneys general, lead by Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Roy Cooper of North Carolina, had been hammering at MySpace and other social networks because of the perceived danger of predators using the sites to contact children.

But that’s not what the task force heard from a panel of experts who actually know something about how kids can be harmed online. At its meeting in Washington on Wednesday, members heard from researchers Michelle Ybarra, from Internet Solutions for Kids; Janis Wolak, from the University of New Hampshire Crimes Against Children Research Center; Amanda Lenhart, from the Pew Internet & American Life Project; and Danah Boyd, a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Information at the University of California-Berkeley and a fellow at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Drawing from several surveys and studies, all of the researchers said the risk of a child being forced into sex from an online predator is almost non-existent. And in the relatively few cases where a youth does engage in sex with someone they first met online, the young person is almost always compliant in some fashion.

That doesn’t excuse the adult – having sex with someone under the age of consent is rightfully a serious crime. But as part of what we need to know to better protect kids, it’s important to realize that deception is rarely involved. Most teens are aware of the approximate age and intentions of the adults who contact them. Only 5 percent of the offenders pretend to be teens. In some cases, the kids themselves are being aggressive and sexually suggestive and pose in ways to make them look older than they are.

When unwanted sexual solicitations do occur, most youths deal with them appropriately. Two-thirds of youths didn’t view the solicitations as serious or threatening and “almost all youths handled unwanted sexual solicitations easy and effectively,” according to data reported by Wolak.

Researchers reiterated that the overwhelming majority of kids who are sexually exploited are victims of people they know from the off-line world. And they pointed out that children have a far greater chance of being harassed or “cyberbullied” by peers than by adults, and that nearly half of the cases of sexual solicitation were teen to teen.

Please don’t interpret these findings as being soft on predators or oblivious to the dangers on the Internet. Everyone in the room was deeply committed to protecting kids from the very real harms that do exist. But in the interest of safety it’s important to not confuse the perceived risks with the likely ones. To do so would be like worrying about some horrible but rare disease while failing to wear seat belts, washing your hands and flossing your teeth.

The task force’s main mandate is to explore age-verification technology that would make it a lot harder to claim you’re 14 when you’re actually 12 or that you’re 17 when you’re really 40. Social networks have age restrictions (typically kids have to be at least in their teens) but they now rely on user-supplied birth dates.

Some attorneys general want to see the electronic equivalent of showing an ID at the door. There are companies represented on the task force with tools that might be able to accomplish this including Aristotle, IDology and Sentinel Tech. But Sentinel Chief Executive John Cardillo told me age- and identity-verification schemes typically rely on credit reports and other data that is accessible for most adults but generally not available for people under 17. One could, in theory, access school, birth or Social Security records, but for a variety of good reasons, these databases are off-limits to private entities.

Though the task force has yet to hear from any age-verification vendors, I’m keeping an open mind about the efficacy of the technology. Yet, even if age verification is possible, I still question whether it’s desirable. I worry about some teens – including victims and youths questioning their sexual identity – being harmed because they’re denied access to online support services that could help them or even save their lives.