Holodeck: For Your Spies Only
July 14, 2011
Wired announces. “Spy Geeks Want Holodeck Tech for Intel Analysts.” Yes, finally! Wait, intelligence analysis?
The U.S. intelligence community’s research group DARPA is working on the Synthetic Holographic Observation (SHO) program, which will allow intelligence analysts use holographic displays to collaborate. Oh. I guess that’s cool too.
Though we’re still a long way from the Holodeck as envisioned in Star Trek, writer Adam Rawnsley is emphasizes that this is a step in that direction. More importantly for the current point in history, it could become an indispensible tool for our intelligence officers. The article asserts:
The program is aimed at generating 3-D displays that let analysts get a better feel for the mountains of imagery that the intelligence community collects. In particular, SHO needs to render conventional imagery and LIDAR (light detection and ranging) into holographic light fields. . . .SHO needs to be able to let multiple analysts work together on the same image at the same time. To do that, it has to be interactive. DARPA asking prospective builders to make a hologram that analysts can navigate and manipulate in ways that regular maps don’t allow.
Sounds like a great idea. I look forward to learning more. We think a phase change is search and information access is underway.
Cynthia Murrell, July 14, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Protected: Fixing Your SharePoint Via Patching
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Booz, Allen: Alleged Security Misstep
July 13, 2011
“Anonymous Leaks 90,000 Military Email Accounts in Latest #AntiSec Attack” caught my eye. The story points out that Booz, Allen seems to have been caught with its security Brooks Brothers suit pants down. The story said:
The leak, dubbed ‘Military Meltdown Monday,’ includes 90,000 logins of military personnel—including personnel from US CENTCOM, SOCOM, the Marine Corps, various Air Force facilities, Homeland Security, State Department staff, and what looks like private sector contractors. Their correspondences could include exchanges with Booz Allen’s highly brassy staff of retired defense folk: current execs include three former Directors of National Intelligence and one former head of the CIA. Anon was also kind enough to gut 4 GB of source code from Booz Allen’s servers. Anon cites the firm’s alleged complicity in the SWIFT financial monitoring program as at least partial motive for the attack.
I used to work at Booz, Allen & Hamilton. Happier times. One of my goslings quipped, “Is this the same Bozo, Allen where you worked?” Happily I pointed out that my tenure took place when there was one highly regarded firm, no debt, and no allegations of broken toes with regard to security. I hope the story is incorrect.
Stephen E Arnold, July 13, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of the monograph, “The New Landscape of Enterprise Search.”
Google: The Knee Capper
July 13, 2011
More Google+ excitement. Not much about search, but I gleaned an insight from a Wall Street Journal blog that is a definite keeper. “Google Makes Facebook Look Socially Awkward” struck me as one step towards Facebook’s demise. I mean if Google wants to kill Facebook, it is just good fortune to get the WSJ helping. Here’s the passage I liked reasonably well:
In what appeared to be a hasty response to the launch of Google‘s rival social-networking product, called Google+, Mr. Zuckerberg on Wednesday unveiled Facebook’s new video-chatting feature. He called it “super awesome.” Too bad Google made the same feature available in 2008. Indeed, Facebook suddenly looks vulnerable. This could be bad news for investors who have recently paid top dollar for stock in Facebook in private sales.
Pretty good. Knife inserted. Time out of joint. But the best factoid in the write up was this passage about limiting sign ups and creating demand:
Facebook should take note that Google used the strategy before to kneecap Yahoo in all-important email, a key driver of Yahoo’s traffic. Then Google rolled out Gmail—but only by invitation at first.
I have a tough time picturing Messrs.’ Brin and Page in zoot suits watching big folks shooting Yahooligans in the patella. Colorful. Interesting metaphor. The dust up or knee capping will be interesting. I think the Wall Street Journals is owned by the same group of “real” journalists involved in the News of the World. Nah, just a coincidence.
Stephen E Arnold, July 13, 2011
This one is a freebie. I don’t want to be knee capped.
Is Enterprise Search Embracing Data Management?
July 13, 2011
As the economic noose tightens around the next of some enterprise search vendors, some remarkable transformations are underway. Who thought that the motion picture Transformers would presage the remarkable shift of brute force search to customer support (an oxymoron?), eDiscovery, and business intelligence. I am indeed surprised.
If companies have become the equivalent of data hoarders, then firms like Brainware are the professional organizer called in get things under control. As reported in RedOrbit’s “Brainware Launches Cloud-Based Intelligent Data Capture,” the vendor has launched Brainware Distiller, a service for the automation of document-centric business processes. The write up asserted:
Hosted on Microsoft’s Azure platform, Brainware becomes the first intelligent data capture vendor to make the transition to software-as-a-service.
The online solution uses a patented template-free data extraction method. Think trigrams. Not sure what these are? Click and read this write up which makes a three letter sequence more exciting than I thought possible.
Brainware has done a good job of moving from search to eDiscovery, to enterprise search, to online public access catalog search, and to back office paper processing, optical character recognition, work flow and forms processing.
Agility, thy name is Brainware. Can other enterprise search vendors with or without trigrams match this acrobat of information retrieval?
Stephen E Arnold, July 13, 2011
Sponsored by Stephen E Arnold, author of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
SEO, Curation, and Algorithms
July 13, 2011
I read an unusual blog post “Sometimes I Really Get It Wrong; My Apology to SEO Industry.” The sentence that caught my attention (albeit briefly) was:
I thought more human-oriented approaches, like Mahalo, would get better results than algorithmic approaches, like Google.
The write up points out a mea culpa:
it’s 2011 now and it’s clear that the Google way of doing things is still better for most people.
Fascinating. Google has a fan. The paragraph I tucked into my “Online Touchstones” was:
I went for cheap SEO tricks. Truth is, if you bash the SEO world they will all link to you, argue with you, etc. (Bloggers even have a name for this: “link bait”). Folks who do SEO as a profession love fighting about that stuff and it almost always works. But, does it really help you get the traffic you want? The reputation you want? No way. Putting up great content, like when I interviewed Mike McCue and told the world about Flipboard is a far more effective way to get good Google Juice. Taking shortcuts just tarnishes your reputation. Anyway, just wanted to say I’m sorry to the SEO industry.
Several observations on this sunny morning in Harrod’s Creek, far from the roiling popularity fish tanks on the left and right coasts.
First, I recall reading in the paper edition of the New York Times about Google’s apparent inability to filter certain types of content. My recollection is addled, but it seems finding a locksmith is allegedly a scam. I just look in the Yellow Pages, but I am in the intellectual dead zone. Use the Google and you may not get the old fashioned service still available in a rural backwater. I am not sure if the locksmith issue, if true, is search engine optimization or a slightly more sophisticated content operation. Doesn’t matter. Humans are doing these alleged actions and the Google algorithms are either on vacation or watching “Lizard Lick” reruns on Tru TV.
Second, the Google+ service is Google’s most recent attempt to get involved with human centric content generation. The social part is nice, and it is alluring to those looking for “connections”, but there is the content part. Humans are generating lots of data. The “lots of data” part translates to money because algorithms and scripts can generate ad revenue. The algorithm part makes money. I am not so sure about the relevance part anymore.
Third, my view of search engine optimization is that traffic makes jobs. When traffic to a Web site declines, search engine optimization kicks into gear. Adwords and Google love become an “organic” and logical response when organic methods no longer work.
Net net: information originates with humans via intent or as a consequence of an action. Machines can generate meta information. Now the trajectory of the Internet is moving toward broadly based human functions: talking. Finding is important, but it is a sub function. SEO is going to have to work overtime to recapture the glorious years of BP 2009. “BP” is before Panda. Brute force search is not where it is at. AltaVista-style finding will remain, but the datasphere is more human centric than algorithmic. HAL? HAL? What’s with the nursery rhyme.
Stephen E Arnold, July 13, 2011
Sponsored by ArticleOnePartners.com, the source for legal research.
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Cheerleading for Google+ Will Not Drown Out Foundem
July 12, 2011
The noise about the two week old Google baby, Google+ is loud, heavy metal loud. But I am not sure Google+ will drown out the peeps from the Foundem matter. This firm is a shop and compare service in the UK. It’s pretty good, but the firm alleges that Google’s method of indexing did some harm to the Foundem traffic.
“Foundem Takes on Google’s Search Methods,” relates the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate. Here we go again– more legal pressure over Google’s search practices.
The small British shopping comparison site Foundem was one complainant who prompted last year’s European Commission antitrust probe against Google. The site’s representatives have also spoken to U.S. antitrust agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission. That agency currently has Google under investigation.
Foundem’s complaints stem from the period between 2006 and 2009, when its Google rankings were so low as to be nearly absent. The article elaborates on their perspective:
Specifically, Foundem says that Google tweaked its search algorithm to give a lower ranking to sites that had little original content and were mostly designed to send users to other places on the Web. Such a change sounds like a reasonable effort to filter out low-quality sites, but it had the effect of eliminating from results those vertical-search engines that in one manner or another compete with Google, the company maintains. After all, sites without much original content designed to send users elsewhere is basically the definition of any search engine, including Google.
Foundem also alleges that Google’s prominent placement of its own products such as Maps and YouTube videos gives it an unfair advantage.
For its part, Google portrays Foundem as a low-value site that deserved its low rankings.
More and more challenges of this type are sure to add fuel to the U.S. investigation of Google’s alleged methods. We’re intrigued to see how it all plays out; stay tuned. I am not sure Foundem is going to get lost. Just a hunch.
Stephen E Arnold, July 12, 2011
From the leader in next-generation analysis of search and content processing, Beyond Search.
Questioning the Voice of the Customer
July 12, 2011
With search vendors embracing customer service and customer support, here’s an interesting insight into the niche: Steve McKee at Bloomberg Businessweek declares that “The Customer Isn’t Always Right.” Yeah, customers—who needs ‘em!
Actually, McKee does acknowledge that businesses should heed consumer voices much of the time. However, he insists that the reality of competing interests limits the value of that information:
As Adam Smith pointed out: ‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self interest.’ The same is true of the people who purchase the meat, the beer, and the bread. If you ask customers to design the perfect product, they’ll rack up the features and ratchet down the price, then be thrilled to buy from you all the way through your ‘Going Out of Business’ sale.
Businesses must balance customer input with knowledge about their own needs. The sting of losing a few sales because your prices are too high is small compared to the importance of protecting your bottom line.
What’s becoming increasingly clear, search vendors who offer customer support solutions are helping companies which want to reduce their customer support costs. Helping the customer? Maybe that is a secondary or tertiary benefit?
Cynthia Murrell, July 12, 2011
Russian Search Engine Yandex Fortifies its Position
July 12, 2011
Search Engine Watch reports that “Yandex and Rambler Band Together Against Google Russia.” Unlike in most markets, Google is not the supreme search engine in Russia. Yandex holds that position, and it has no intention of letting it slip away.
To that end, the company has partnered with Rambler, a Russian web portal that reaches 4.2 million users, not including its side branches. Writer Rob D. Young puts the match into perspective for Americans:
In some ways, this deal looks similar to Microsoft’s partnership with Yahoo: Yandex is running Rambler’s search and ad element in much the same way as Bing is running Yahoo’s. However, the purpose is quite different. While Microsoft and Yahoo were joining forces in a bid for survival against the monolithic beast that is Google, Yandex is already the superior entity (64.8 percent of search market share) and is fighting to keep a one-sided fight going in its favor. It would be more like if Yahoo had decided to throw its chips in with Google back in 2010.
Google faces a challenge here. As that company chases Facebook and pursues its mobile vision, Yandex is poised to siphon off search traffic. Has Google’s focus become too scattered? If Google gets distracted with me too plays in social media and playing the global mobile operating system game, Yandex could become a better search engine and do to Google what Google did to other search systems in 1998 and 1999. Interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, July 12, 2011
From the leader in next-generation analysis of search and content processing, Beyond Search.
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