Cirilab: Entity Extraction
April 6, 2009
I took a quick look at Cirilab in order to update my files about entity extraction vendors.
Cirilab develops practical search, retrieval and categorization software designed to increase organizational productivity by effectively harnessing key knowledge resources. Cirilab offers a range of advanced analysis and organization applications and tools.
I learned about the company when another consultant sent me links to several online demonstrations of the Cirilab’s technology. I located an older but useful discussion of the Crilab technology here. You can explore a Wikipedia entry about Winston Churchill here and a document navigator of Sir Winston’s writings here. The engine generating these demos is called the KGE or Knowledge Generation. The idea is that KGE can process unstructured text and generate insights into that text.
Source: http://www.cirilab.com/TSMAP/Cirilab_Library/Literature/Winston_Churchill/WikiKMapPage/index.htm
The company’s enterprise solutions include vertical builds of the KGE:
- Publishing. The Web Ready Publishing service allows an organization to take unstructured data in WordPerfect, Word, Adobe PDF, HTML, and even Text files, and publish it in a Web Ready Publishing format so that it is instantly available to your customers in a thematically navigable format.
- Pharma. Cirilab can “read” the documents and therefore allow “mining” of existing data.
- Legal. KGE permits discovery of information.
- Security and intelligence. Cirilab products provide unique insights into this information not otherwise available.
The company offers a range of desktop products. These are excellent ways to learn about the features and functions of the Crilab’s KGE system.
More recently, Cirilab has succeeded in developing and bringing to market a core suite of technologies known as KOS (Knowledge Object Suite) based on its Multidimensional Semantic Spatial Indexing Technology.
You can register and receive a free, thematic map of your Web site. The company is located in Ottawa, Ontario. You can get more information here.
Stephen Arnold, April 6, 2009
Google Health: Confidentiality Risk Alleged
April 6, 2009
Computer World (New Zealand) published “Lawyer Raises Google Health Confidentiality Risk” here. The article reviewed some of the basics of the Google Health service. Like Microsoft’s Health Vault, the notion of electronic patient records is a mini trend. Computer World said:
A Google Health record is bundled with a Gmail account — potentially easing patient-doctor communication — but Google should be asked about its access to that communication and how the information might be used, Sbarcea says. “I’m not saying they will use it wrongly, but the questions should be asked,” she says.
The article is New Zealand centric, but the issue will probably be recycled elsewhere. Information about Google Health is here. The addled goose finds this criticism of Google interesting. Finding fault with the GOOG seems to be a seasonal sport. Play ball.
Stephen Arnold, April 6, 2009
Another Password List
April 6, 2009
Short honk” PCMag.com published a list of the 10 most common passwords here. If you are curious, you may want to peruse the list. The used Mac Mini I bought to talk to my Apple TV box came with a password on this list. I’m delighted I paid $250 for the gizmo. I changed the password to something slightly more exotic.
Stephen Arnold, April 6, 2009
Google: Now an Alleged Internet Parasite
April 6, 2009
Colorful that “Internet parasite” phrase. The bad Google PR blitz continues. Australian IT’s Jane Schulze wrote “Google Dubbed Internet Parasite”. You can read the article with this colorful headline here. One of the most interesting passages in the write up quoted Robert Thomson from the Wall Street Journal allegedly saying:
They [Google] are basically editorial echo chambers rather than centres of creation, and the cynicism they have about so-called traditional media is only matched by their opportunism in exploiting the quality of traditional media,” he said.
Mathematicians are not exactly top notch marketers. Will Google respond or float above the hoi polloi, which now seems to consist of content patricians in a bit of financial bind.
Stephen Arnold, April 6, 2009
Facebook Usage Data
April 6, 2009
Short honk: Mashable published Mark Ghuneim’s “How Big Is Facebook?” here. This is a very good round up of available estimates about the size of Facebook’s audience. This was one of the better sizings of the Facebook audience that I have seen. A happy quack to Mashable for these data.
Stephen Arnold, April 6, 2009
LexisNexis Sues Data Mining Wizard
April 6, 2009
LexisNexis is a unit of Reed Elsevier, the Anglo Dutch professional publishing outfit. In case you have been in a more remote area than Harrod’s Creek, you know that professional publishing companies, like their newspaper counterparts, are not in tall cotton. Publishing and its 16th century business model are out of step with the iPod equipped trophy generation cohorts. In short, there’s financial trouble in what once was a cash carnival.
I found the article “LexisNexis Sues Data-Mining Pioneer Henry Asher” here quite fascinating. Henry Asher sold a company called Seisint Technologies to the LexisNexis business mavens. The price? A reasonable pre crash, MBA crazed $775 million.
Flash forward from 2004 to 2009 and the Anglo Dutch giant is allegedly taking legal action against the data mining wizard for violating a non compete agreement which seems to be have been part of the deal terms.
The Law.com write up digs into some details that make lawyers salivate, but the addled goose finds the tidbits tasteless. What the addled goose does find worth pondering are these questions:
- Hasn’t technology in data mining advanced in four or five years? If not, what’s the difference? If it has, why the fuss about old technology?
- Why hasn’t a company with Reed Elsevier’s resources dominated the data mining market? Perhaps implementation and sales ability are an issue so customers want newer methods from those individuals who have been able deliver in the past?
- What’s the benefit to Henry Asher, a pretty savvy innovator, to take actions that would anger a multi billion dollar outfit that seems unable to generate sufficient new revenue to offset losses in the dead tree side of the firm’s business?
I wonder if there is more to this story than a spat over a non compete. I recall a number of conversations about non compete agreements. I am confused about some aspects of such agreements. In a lousy economy, a person must have sufficient latitude to innovate, commercialize, and build a successful business. The entity demanding a non compete probably sees financial trouble ahead and fears the consequences of a wizard who can deliver. Who is right? Who is wrong?
The addled goose will have to wait and see what the legal process spits outs. What this matter tells me is that tension and pressure are increasing at Reed Elsevier. Will some other problem burst to the surface? If I had more interest in the problems of professional publishing, I would poke into it. But in my view, these are ships modeled after the Titantics of the newspaper business. I will watch from the dock, thank you very much.
Stephen Arnold, April 6, 2009
IBM Sun: Java Cools
April 5, 2009
Short honk: The New Zealand Herald reported on Monday, April 6, 2009, that “IBM Pulls $11.8 Billion Sun Bid.” You can read the story here. If true, will a Japanese firm step forward and snap up the customers and patents held by a company that coined the catchphrase “the network is the computer”? The question in my mind is, “Whither Java, a lanaguage of some utility for certain search and content processing companies?”
Stephen Arnold, April 5, 2009
Google Apps Offline
April 5, 2009
Short honk: The Register reported here that Google Apps will work when the user is offline. The addled goose thinks this means trouble brewing for Microsoft. Negative PR won’t make much difference.
Stephen Arnold, April 5, 2009
More Google Layoffs – Maybe
April 5, 2009
Gawker’s ValleyWag.com reported here that Googzilla may be preparing to sacrifice some of its young. Owen Thomas’ “Google Execs in Secret Layoff Meetings” here made this assertion on April 4, 2009. If true, this is no April Fool jest. Mr. Thomas wrote:
Googlers have been expecting substantial job cuts for some time, beyond the hundreds of recruiters, marketers, and salespeople laid off earlier this year. One reason for a sudden, panicked push to slash jobs: Google CEO Eric Schmidt spent most of last fall blithely ignoring the economic carnage. When Google started to feel an impact, it tried to limit cuts to its vast ranks of contractors. (Google has never confirmed the numbers, but some in the Valley believe it fired as many as 10,000 contract workers.)
If true, companies that are hiring will be able to tap into some Googley talent and insights. Might not be a bad thing for some outfits. If true, the media mavens at the Guardian and New York Times will probably break out the party hats. My thought is that the GOOG may be slipping down, but the old girl has some fight left in her.
Stephen Arnold, April 5, 2009
New York Times Grouses about Google: Dead Trees Falling in the Forest
April 5, 2009
Gray Sunday about an hour south of Chicago. I checked my newsreader and learned that another one of the dead tree crowd is concerned about Google, affectionately labeled by me as Googzilla. Fresh from threatening the folks at its Boston newspaper here, the New York Times’s patricians shift to old news. The Google Books’ project is fished from la poubel and presented as a not-so-special deal. You can read Miguel Helft’s “It’s Not Just Microsoft That’s Balking at Google’s Book Plans” here. (Click quick. The story may cost you money unless you are lucky enough to receive a dead tree version of the newspaper of record as I do. Yep, I am still a paying customer for the dead tree version of the Saturday paper presented as the Sunday New York Times in Kentucky.)
The Julia Child sauce on this aging fish is that Microsoft is not happy with the Google Book project–its scope, functions, names, technology, whatever.
Please, keep in mind that Microsoft tried to pull a me too in this book scanning sector and bailed out.
Mr. Helft’s argumentative North Korean missile was this passage:
Mr. Macgillivray, who listened to critics — as well as supporters — for hours at the Columbia conference, said he wasn’t terribly surprised that the complex 134-page agreement had sparked a lot of concern. “This is a deal that was negotiated with various parties that don’t typically get along,” he said. “I don’t think it is perfect from the perspective of any of the people who negotiated it. It is not surprising that other people had issues with it.” He later added: “I do think it is a tremendous improvement from where we are today.”
Mild stuff compared to other critics’ views of Googzilla in my opinion.
But the New York Times’s editorial team is in what I think of as a bit of a bind.
On one hand, some of the folks covering the GOOG are starting to understand that the GOOG is not just search and advertising.
On the other hand, the New York Times’s itself faces a steep financial hill and has some MBAs on staff who understand the perilous position in which the publisher finds itself.
I think I admire the Times for making an attempt to explain aspects of the GOOG in short essays like Mr. Helft’s. The problem is that these are in my opinion the informational equivalent of a dead tree falling in a forest ravaged by global warming.
Is it possible to reverse the legal agreement? In my experience, it’s expensive to try and reverse legal agreements, online infrastructure, and a company whose users are the children of people like publishing executives. The enemy is not Google. The enemy in my opinion is like the commuter who blames the automated system for shutting the doors before the passenger could board the automated shuttle at the Atlanta airport. Maybe another train will come along and the passenger can hop on that one?
Stephen Arnold, April 5, 2009
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