School Workers Charged with Stealing Thousands of Textbooks
September 26, 2013
I suppose school librarians can become jaded just like anyone else, but this story is fairly remarkable. L.A. Now reports, “13 School Workers, Librarians Indicted in Textbook Theft Ring.” The scam enriched participants at the expense of students in Los Angeles County school districts already strapped for cash. The scam-runner is said to have paid out over $200,000 to his thieves. Reporter Richard Winton tells us:
“A 37-page indictment unsealed Thursday tells of a book-selling scheme in which book buyer Corey Frederick recruited two librarians, a campus supervisor and a former warehouse manager, among others, to allegedly steal thousands of books from schools in Los Angeles, Inglewood and Bellflower.
“The scheme ran from 2008 to December 2010, prosecutors said.
“In return, the operators of ‘Doorkeeper Textz’ in Long Beach would pay the employees from $600 to $47,000 for acquiring textbooks, which were district property.
“In some cases, prosecutors allege Frederick would resell the books through other intermediaries back to the institutions from which they were originally stolen weeks before.
“Prosecutors, according to court records, allege the participants pilfered at least 7,000 textbooks from the Los Angeles Unified School District alone.”
The scheme only came to light, years later, after a sharp eye in the Inglewood district noticed something amiss and alerted authorities. Frederick and his recruits were (allegedly) able to pursue the strategy because no organized tracking system was in place. In fact, prosecutors cannot determine just how many books were stolen. I hope this will prompt the districts affected (or, really, any group tasked with managing public resources) to embrace well-organized tracking systems and inventory databases. We have the technology to prohibit this sort of thing, or to at least make it harder to get away with. Let’s use it.
Cynthia Murrell, September 26, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Bing Redesigns News Page to Follow Trends
September 26, 2013
The news wing at Bing seems to have adapted their curation algorithm to deliver more fluff with less substance, engadget reveals in, “Bing’s Overhauled News Layout Highlights Trending Social Topics, Rapid Downfall of Humanity.” Just as I was afraid we were in danger of paying more attention to matters of war and peace than to celebrity antics! We’ve got to keep our modern priorities straight, and Bing’s redesign should help make sure we keep our attention on the momentary instead of the momentous.
Writer Darren Murph is brief but sharp in his criticism of the change:
“You know who seems like someone well equipped to dictate what shows up on a news site? That weird guy in your Facebook feed who is way, way too vocal about his political beliefs. Blatant sarcasm aside, Bing News has overhauled its web portal in order to accomplish two primary goals: look less like Google News, and surface stories that are trending. . . . ‘The latest buzz’ from social channels will be highlighted, leaving news that actually matters to languish somewhere in the abyss. But hey, the next Casey Anthony trial is totally the most important thing ever, right?”
It is easy to blame aggregators for this sort of approach, but they are just trying to give users what we desire. Who really wants to read about serious stuff that poses real implications for all of humanity? What a downer.
It may be hard for younger folks to imagine, but there once was a time when citizens considered it a basic, personal responsibility to understand what was going on in the world so we could give sensible input to our representatives and cast informed votes. You know, intelligently participate in this democracy thing we talk so much about. Yet today we are too busy (or distracted) to give any brain power to understanding complex things. Instead, we demand the abridged versions from talking heads whose opinions we’ve been groomed to accept. Better yet, just give us some hapless public figure to rebuke. We’re really good at that.
Cynthia Murrell, September 26, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
High Hopes for Google Glass Revenue
September 26, 2013
We have reported that enthusiasm for Google Glass seems limited to a few tech geeks, but hopes for its future revenues are high. VentureBeat now reports, “Google Glass Could Be Worth $3.3B in Just 4 Years.” That is quite a number. The key to the projection—as few as 650,000 Glass users could supply Google with billions. Reporter John Koetsier writes:
“Robert Peck of SunTrust Robinson Humphrey suggests that Glass will retail for $349, which seems reasonable given current rumors, but he says that almost all the revenue Google earns from Glass will be from advertising, as he expects Google to sell Glass at or near cost. That could be primarily local search ads as users search for restaurants or cafes, or play with the Google Field Trip app, recently released on Glass, on a vacation to discover local landmarks, galleries, tourist attractions, and more.”
Did any of us really think we could utilize Google Glass without ads brushing our eyelashes? That is the route to riches for the company, which may sell the device close to cost. Perhaps they will consider a premium option, where we can eliminate ads with a reasonable monthly fee. I’d pay it.
Koetsier mentions a discussion he recently had with an early adopter who had forked over $1,500 for the device. He says that, though his acquaintance kept interacting with the Glass every few minutes, he “stayed completely in our conversation.” That will be a welcome advantage of the device once it hits the market: you can check your tech without folks around you thinking (realizing?) you are tuning them out. Ah, progress!
Cynthia Murrell, September 26, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
LucidWorks Leads Industry with Marketplace Plus Search
September 25, 2013
LucidWorks, a long-time industry leader in enterprise search, has changed the future yet again with their introduction of the Solr Marketplace. The Marketplace allows organizations to easily find and integrate pre-built add-ons into their open source infrastructure. All offerings are built on the trusted infrastructure of Apache Lucene Solr, so quality and usability are guaranteed. Read more of the exciting news in the article, “LucidWorks Creates Industry’s First Marketplace for Pre-built Application Add-ons to Enrich Solr Search.”
The piece begins:
“LucidWorks, the company transforming the way people access information, today announced the Solr Marketplace, the industry’s first marketplace for pre-built application add-ons that make it easier for organizations to integrate open source enterprise search capabilities into existing applications. The Solr apps and add-ons . . .T% allow Solr developers to extend the capabilities of their applications with ready to use and easy to deploy modules, apps and connectors . . . For a limited time, most of the app add-ons in the Solr Marketplace are available for a free download.”
An impressive list of partners contributing to the marketplace already includes Avalon Consulting, Basis Technology, Raytion, Smartlogic, and others. Stay tuned for more partners as they are added. As was mentioned, most current offerings are free for a limited time. The Marketplace had 35 apps available upon launch but keep an eye out, as that number will likely grow as well. What sets LucidWorks apart is its ability to see where the market is headed, and innovate proactively. While others are too busy playing catch up, LucidWorks is just getting started crafting the future.
Emily Rae Aldridge, September 25, 2013
Shodan and the Scary Side of Search
September 25, 2013
Search can be a lot of things, but “terrifying”? Yes, I’m afraid so. Forbes describes a thoroughly modern, search-related threat in, “The Terrifying Search Engine that Finds Internet-Connected Cameras, Traffic Lights, Medical Devices, Baby Monitors, and Power Plants.”
You may have heard the story about the hacked baby monitor, through which one truly deplorable individual viewed and harassed a sleeping two-year-old who was tucked into her own bed. In this piece, journalist Kashmir Hill examines the search engine Shodan, which she says probably facilitated that digital predator. Such a trespass is just the tip of the chill-inducing iceberg. She writes:
“Shodan crawls the Internet looking for devices, many of which are programmed to answer. It has found cars, fetal heart monitors, office building heating-control systems, water treatment facilities, power plant controls, traffic lights and glucose meters. A search for the type of baby monitor used by the Gilberts reveals that more than 40,000 other people are using the IP cam–and may be sitting ducks for creepy hackers. . . .
“Shodan’s been used to find webcams with security so low that you only needed to type an IP address into your browser to peer into people’s homes, security offices, hospital operating rooms, child care centers and drug dealer operations. Dan Tentler, a security researcher who has consulted for Twitter, built a program called Eagleeye that finds webcams via Shodan, accesses them and takes screenshots. He has documented almost a million exposed webcams.”
Scary stuff, but that is not all. The article notes that many modern buildings that house everything from apartments to businesses to government facilities have security, lighting, and HVAC systems connected to the Internet, where they could be hijacked. Even entire power grids could be usurped. The unnerving possibilities seem endless.
Like many scary things, Shodan can also be used for good. Folks working in security, academia, law enforcement, and white-hat hacking have used the tool to find susceptible devices and see that they are secured. It is also at least a bit comforting that the FTC is aware of Shodan’s capabilities and the vulnerabilities it reveals. The takeaway for consumers, of course, is to pay close attention to locking down devices from our end, with things like obscure user names (not “admin”!) and hard-to-guess passwords. Better yet, at least for now, we may wish to tune out the growing siren song that promises convenience through universal connectivity. The cost could be too high until security is significantly improved.
The programmer that developed and now runs the search engine, John Matherly, originally envisioned it being used by corporations for, let’s call it, competitor research. The sharp turn into creepy territory, though, does not seem to bother him. In fact, he seems to see this development as a good thing, shining light on inadequate security practices at companies that sell internet-connected devices. See the article for more about the man behind Shodan and the hornets’ nest that he has soundly thwacked.
Cynthia Murrell, September 25, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Tips on Finding Documentaries Online with DocuWiki
September 25, 2013
At this point, there are thousands of good (and sometimes poorly made) documentaries at our disposal via the internet. Hulu and Netflix are the obvious choices, but they don’t always have what you’re looking for. In this vein, the recent Instant Fundas article “The Big Fat List of Documentaries” provides a list of sites that allow users to stream and watch all of the documentaries their heart could desire for free.
The article explains how to find them:
“DocuWiki is Internet’s biggest resource for documentary lovers. The website serves as an index of documentary films and series on the Edonkey Network, originating from many broadcasters including the BBC, PBS and more. The website lists nearly every documentary that has been produced, and sorted by subject, publisher, year of release, narrator, language etc. Each documentary is accompanied by a brief description of its content, posters and screenshots from the video. Because DocuWiki also provides links to download these documentaries via the file sharing network, some may view the website as endorsing piracy. Regardless, it’s still the best and the most resourceful encyclopedia of documentaries on the Internet today. The dedication and research that went into building the collection is unparalleled.”
The article goes on to provide readers with a breakdown of how to search and access the various documentaries. If you are a docu junky like I am, this site could be very useful.
Jasmine Ashton, September 25, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
New Startup Transforms the Treatment of Site Search
September 25, 2013
The recent AllThingsD article “Swiftype Raises $1.7M for Smarter Site Search” highlights a new startup that could completely transform the way that companies use SEO. According to the article, Swiftype, a company that focuses solely on site search, updates and re-ranks content based on factors like popularity, number of comments and partner relationships. It even allows users to change the order with a drag and drop feature.
Here is how it works:
“Customers pay $17 per month or more than $300 per month based on how big and complex they are. They also get access to search analytics — so, for example, customer DramaFever, which streams Korean TV and movies, decides what new content to buy, in part by ranking the most popular unsatisfied search queries.”
I don’t know about you, but I think this is incredibly interesting. Here at Beyond Search, we’re excited to see some funding go towards web site search.
Jasmine Ashton, September 25, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
LinkedIn: Search Less and Less Relevant?
September 24, 2013
I read “Today I Deleted My LinkedIn Account”. One of the goslings handles my LinkedIn account. If a comment is required, the gosling alerts me. One of the researchers snags relevant material and crafts either questions or a statement based on my previously published writings. One research librarian filters requests to be my “friend.” The policy is to ask, “When and where did we meet?” For the most part, the system works, but the information flowing through LinkedIn is not directly relevant to the work we do. Like any social media service, the process helps prevent abuses. We did experience a script kiddy who routed our tweets of articles in this blog and our other online publications through Miley Cyrus’ account. When I looked at what the clever teen had done, I learned a great deal about Ms. Cyrus. Great parenting at work I suppose.
The main point of the “Today I Deleted” write up is that LinkedIn is annoying to the author of the write up. I sympathize with folks who are annoyed at online information services today. The good old days of paying to access File 15 on Dialog are long gone. The hassles were mostly the cost of information and the silliness of the dial up terminal with bunny rabbit ears. I bet you don’t know what bunny rabbit ears are, do you?
The numbers the author presents are astounding. LinkedIn, according to the write up, has 225 million “members.” I am not sure how many are like me, operating through research professionals who are paid to ride herd on social interactions. I am not sure how many are human resource professionals looking to make a buck by referring a person whom the HR professional does not know to a company about which the HR professionals knows only a bit more.
I surmise that the majority of the 225 million are people looking for:
- Work
- Human contact albeit digitally intermediated
- Information about something that will yield money, power, or prestige
- A way to kill time whilst “looking at potentially high value content”
- Horn tooting.
The write up focuses on what LinkedIn does to a particular user. For example, LinkedIn emails are annoying. A more interesting aspect of LinkedIn surfaces in this statement:
For the quarter ending June 2013, Facebook reported 1,155,000,000 monthly active users. Calling their original registration numbers ~1,300,000,000 which is generous), that means that 88% of Facebook’s users actually use the site regularly.
Compare that to LinkedIn, which claims that 170,000,000 of its 218,000,000 users logged in during the quarter ending March 2013, for a total of closer to 77%. That number actually understates the disparity, because it just measures unique visitors.
While LinkedIn users spend an average of 8 minutes on the site daily, Facebook users hang round for over 33 minutes, or OVER HALF AN HOUR each. In fact, LinkedIn puts this problem much better than I can:“The number of our registered members is higher than the number of actual members and a substantial majority of our page views are generated by a minority of our members. Our business may be adversely impacted if we are unable to attract and retain additional members who actively use our services.” (source)
(traffic stats: Facebook,LinkedIn, SEC data: LinkedIn, Facebook).
You should read the original post.
What struck me is that search or finding information within LinkedIn is not mentioned as an issue. LinkedIn hired a Googler to supplement their open source search team. I find that looking for content using the LinkedIn search box is a very interesting process. A direct query leads to the request to log in. (I call the gosling to find out what my user name and password are.) Once logged in, I am asked to upgrade to a paying service. I ignore that and go to third party search systems.
I can access some interesting LinkedIn information using the services which I highlight in my ISS World lecture this week. It appears that some LinkedIn information is indexed by third party services. A click on a link from some of these third party services displays the person’s profile. In some cases, I can view the people in some way “related” the the person about whom I seek information. I find this interesting because I have not been able to answer these questions:
- What services index LinkedIn content?
- How much information is available to third party services either via the LinkedIn tools, deals, or just clever spidering?
- What are the constraints on the use of the LinkedIn data within the third party indexes?
It makes sense to me that LinkedIn would want some of its content in various third party indexes. Because LinkedIn’s search function is unsatisfactory for my purposes, I find the third party approach more helpful to me.
What annoys me about LinkedIn is not its play to make lots of money. I don’t care too much about spam which is easily filtered. I don’t care a whit about the ego centric nature of the system.
I care about search, and I sure hope that LinkedIn improves its search system and I hope it makes explicit what services index LinkedIn content with or without explicit permission.
But saying, doing, and appearing are very different things in today’s challenging business environment. I may get a gosling to look into third party indexing of LinkedIn. For now, I boil down much of an online system’s value to search. For me, that’s the key function. LinkedIn, like other social media systems, wants to focus on other features. Too bad. I think that part of the value of LinkedIn is its content, however flawed. Access would urge me to pay more attention to a service fueled by financial need/desperation, professional branding/visibility, and sales/marketing.
Stephen E Arnold, September 24, 2013
Big Data Challenges Explained
September 24, 2013
According to the recent Info World story “Big Data Means Big Challenges in Lifecycle Management” Whereas we thought that managing data was an old challenge, there are more Big Data challenges on the horizon.
As the article explains, integrated lifecycle management faces a whole set of new problems when it comes to tackling big data. The issues addressed have to do with: volume, velocity, and variability.
The article highlights issues surrounding big data scales:
“Big data does not mean that your new platforms support infinite volume, instantaneous velocity, or unbounded varieties. The sheer magnitudes of new data will make it impossible to store most of it anywhere, given the stubborn technological and economic constraints we all face. This reality will deepen big data managers’ focus on tweaking multi-temperature storage management, archiving, and retention policies. As you scale your big data environment, you will need to ensure that ILM requirements can be supported within your current constraints of volume (storage capacity), velocity (bandwidth, processor, and memory speeds), and variety (metadata depth).”
As data continues to grow in size and become more ephemeral, tech companies must keep up by creating software to tackle it.
Jasmine Ashton, September 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Bloomberg Has Web Traffic Bragging Rights
September 24, 2013
Bloomberg and Reuters are competitive information sources, each one is always trying to out do the other in some form or another. We just learned from Mashable that Bloomberg claimed some bragging rights: “Bloomberg Surpasses Reuters In Web Traffic For July.” Since December 2010, Reuters has had the most Web traffic, but now the tower has toppled. In July, Reuters had 248.4 million page views and 24.1 million uniques, while Bloomberg had 418.6 million page views and 24.8 million uniques.
How did this happen?
“Trevor Fellows, head of advertising sales for the Bloomberg Media Group, says the rise in traffic partially stems from the expansion of the content on both Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg.com. The former, the outgrowth of Bloomberg’s 2009 acquisition of Businessweek, led to more business-centered content rather than a narrower focus on finance news.”
Fellows also mentions that Bloomberg has been increasing its video output and many users are coming to its news service Web sites specifically for that. Bloomberg is making more than 200 videos a day and the company is concentrating on diversifying its content for watching on multiple platforms. Reuters, not surprisingly, did not comment on the change over. Does this point towards a change in how users are consuming their news? Watching instead of reading?
Whitney Grace, September 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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