So this is one of those head-smacking, "of course!" kind of ideas.
Google does a lot of cool stuff. Some of it involves browsers, some of it involves data mining, and some of it is also philanthropic. Like this cool little feature on google.org:
http://www.google.org/about/flutrends/how.html
It's been known for a while that the web is an amazing tool for sociology, demographic studies and anthropology. Ends up it's a great tool for predicting spikes in flu cases (and, god forbid, seeing a serious outbreak prior to it getting out of control). I mean, naturally if people get sick they want advice or remedies or what have you. So Google tracks certain keywords about the flu or ILIs (influenza like illnesses) and compares the frequency of the tag words with the historical data on flu outbreaks in the region the IP address originates. Insert some fancy statistics, regressions and hand waving, and Google can produce an estimate of the flu activity on a daily basis.
Put that all together and you have an eerily accurate tool that beats the standard data collection technique used by the CDC by nearly two weeks. It's just really really cool to see technology used in such an informative, but common sense manner.
End nerd rant.
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