Heavy hitters LG Electronics, Microsoft, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, and partners are up against 802.11n Wi-Fi technology.

Does the in-home wireless market need another technology that promises to link together devices ranging from PCs and HDTVs to cell phones and camcorders?

A group of 17 major consumer electronics, PC, and semiconductor companies believes the answer is yes and has formed the WiGig Alliance to use the 60-GHz spectrum to develop a short-range technology that would connect devices in a large room.

General Electric Co. said Thursday that it will invest $6 billion over the next six years in an attempt to lower the cost of health care and improve the quality of medical care in underserved regions of the United States and abroad.

The broad program sets goals of reducing health care costs by 15 percent through $3 billion of spending on new, lower cost medical technology. The initiative also plans to broaden the use of tools such as electronic medical records and other medical information technology, with the hope of providing more advanced care to 100 million additional people each year.

Implications:

GE announced this week tht it will spend $3 billion over the next six years on healthcare innovation to deliver better care to more people at lower cost.  In addition, the company will commit $2 billion of financing and another $1 billion in related GE technology and content to drive health care information technology and health in rural and other underserved areas.  This is all part of its "Healthymagination" Initiative.

Over the last decade, advances in heart surgery and improved heart disease prevention methods have resulted in a large decline in the number of patients in the United States having coronary artery bypass graft surgery, a new study finds.Rates of bypass surgery steadily increased between the late 1980s and 1997, but have fallen by more than one-third since then.

Earlier today, I wrote a post wondering whether music-search engine Seeqpod had finally sold itself to Microsoft because of a suggestive link on its homepage linking to Microsoft Search. Some other bloggers noticed also. Since then, I've been able to confirm that no acquisition has closed and that talks continue. Seeqpod is indeed speaking with Microsoft, but not about an outright acquisition. Rather, it is trying to negotiate a piecemeal sale of its technology assets and find new jobs for its core technology team.