Galaxy Consulting Explains Vivisimo at IBM
September 5, 2014
The Galaxy Consulting Blog shares information on all things information. Recently, they spelled out details on one of IBM’s smarter acquisitions in the profile, “Search Applications – Vivisimo.” In our opinion, that outfit is one of the more solid search providers. The write-up begins with a brief rundown of the company’s history, including its purchase by IBM in 2012. We learn:
“Vivisimo Velocity Platform is now IBM InfoSphere Data Explorer. It stays true to its heritage of providing federated navigation, discovery and search over a broad range of enterprise content. It covers broad range of data sources and types, both inside and outside an organization.
“In addition to the core indexing, discovery, navigation and search engine the software includes a framework for developing information-rich applications that deliver a comprehensive, contextually-relevant view of any topic for business users, data scientists, and a variety of targeted business functions.”
As one should expect, InfoSphere handles many types of data from disparate sources with aplomb, and its support for mobile tech is a feature ahead of the curve. Perhaps most importantly, the platform boasts strong security while maintaining scalability. See the article for a detailed list of InfoSphere’s features.
Before IBM snapped it up in 2012, Vivisimo passed through the hands of Yippy, which had purchased it in 2010. The firm is headquartered in Pittsburgh but maintains other offices on the East Coast and in Europe.
Cynthia Murrell, September 05, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google: Is Life Extension Helping Web Search?
September 4, 2014
I read “Google Backed Calico to Launch $1.5 Billion Aging Research Center.” The idea of wellness is a good one. The concept of life extension does not match up with information retrieval. As Google marginalizes blog search, Google’s initiatives are fascinating. The company has not been able to diversify its revenue stream from search based advertising. The company has been able to diversify its science projects. From Loon balloons to investments in quantum computing, Google’s activities remind me of a high school science fair on steroids.
I learned that this new venture which joins Google delivery drone investments is focused on:
The new San Francisco Bay Area facility will focus on drug discovery and early drug development for diseases like neurodegeneration and cancer. Calico’s larger aim is lifespan extension.
What’s this bode for good old fashioned relevant search results? More ads, less relevance is one possibility. Search is parked on an access road to the information highway I fear.
Stephen E Arnold, September 4, 2014
Questions about Statistical Data
September 4, 2014
Autonomy, Recommind, and dozens of other search and content processing firms rely on statistical procedures. Anyone who has survived Statistics 101 believe in the power of numbers. Textbook examples are—well—pat. The numbers work out even for B and C students.
The real world, on the other hand, is different. What was formulaic in the textbook exercises is more difficult with most data sets. The data are incomplete, inconsistent, generated by systems whose integrity is unknown, and often wrong. Human carelessness, the lack of time, a lack of expertise, and plain vanilla cluelessness makes those nifty data sets squishier than a memory foam pillow.
If you have some questions about statistical evidence in today’s go go world, check out “I Disagree with Alan Turing and Daniel Kahneman Regarding the Strength of Statistical Evidence.”
I noted this passage:
It’s good to have an open mind. When a striking result appears in the dataset, it’s possible that this result does not represent an enduring truth or even a pattern in the general population but rather is just an artifact of a particular small and noisy dataset. One frustration I’ve had in recent discussions regarding controversial research is the seeming unwillingness of researchers to entertain the possibility that their published findings are just noise.
An open mind is important. Just looking at the outputs of zippy systems that do prediction for various entities can be instructive. In the last couple of months, I learned that predictive systems:
- Failed to size the Ebola outbreak by orders of magnitude
- Did not provide reliable outputs for analysts trying to figure out where a crashed airplane was
- Came up short regarding resources available to ISIS.
The Big Data revolution is one of those hoped for events. The idea is that Big Data will allow content processing vendors to sell big buck solutions. Another is that massive flows of unstructured content can only be tapped in a meaningful way with expensive information retrieval solutions.
Dreams, hopes, wishes—yep, all valid for children waiting for the tooth fairy. The real world has slightly more bumps and sharp places.
Stephen E Arnold, September, 2014
I Thought Big Data Were Already Relevant
September 4, 2014
Here is an article that makes you question the past two years, from the Federal Times comes “Steps To Make Big Data Relevant” from August 2014. For the past two years, big data has been the go-to term for technology and information professionals. IT companies have sold software meant to harness big data’s potential and generate revenue. So why is there an article explaining how to make it relevant now? It is using the federal government as an example and any bureaucrat can tell you government implementation is slow.
If, however, you do not even know what big data is and you want to get started, this article explains it in basic terms. It has three steps people need to think about to develop a big data plan:
- Determine what questions need to be asked of the data.
- Determine where all of the data you want is located and ask the data owners’ to understand the data’s quality.
- Decide what it means to answer these questions and use technology to help answer them.
Then the last suggestion is to have a dedicated team to manage big data:
“To address that challenge, federal agencies need a chief data officer and data architects or scientists. The chief data officer would keep the chief information officer and chief information security officer better informed about the value of their information and how to interact with that information to make it useful. Chief data architects/scientists are needed to design the data infrastructure and quantify the value of the data at its lowest common elements.”
When you read over the questions, you will see they are an implementation plan for any information technology software: what do you want to do, figure out how to do it, make a plan to implement it. Big data is complex, but the steps governing it are not.
Whitney Grace, September 04, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Blowing New Speech Technology Winds Into Sail Labs
September 4, 2014
We have been monitoring Sail Labs and they have been quiet on the news front for a long time. At the beginning of July, Sail Labs posted this press release: “Sail Labs Announces Availability Of Release Version 2013-2 And Media Mining Indexer 6.3.” The company is a leading provider of speech technology. Sail is an acronym for “speech artificial intelligence and language lab.” It is located in Vienna, Austria and has a strong commitment to open source.
The new upgrades improve the already popular media mining client and media mining server. They include new supported languages, API documentation, time range filter for search and retrieval of workflow data items, scheduling Web sites without a RSS feed, and support for new cloud features. Even longer are the product enhancements, which make search, ontology creation, and more treats for open source:
“Improve performance of Suggest Open Source Information item for Report view, by applying result paging
Show count of referenced and suggested Open Source Information item in chapter tree of reports”
It is great that Sail Labs is still creating quality speech technology products. Too bad they do not have the same presence as Nuance in the US.
Whitney Grace, September 04, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Microsoft Clarifies SharePoint Patch Process
September 4, 2014
Microsoft has not had good luck with their service pack updates and patch processes this year. Riddled with complications, Microsoft has had to overcome some bad press, and this week had to offer some clarification for regarding its recently released August Cumulative Update. Read all the details in the article, “Microsoft Clarifies SharePoint 2013 Patch Process and New ‘Uber Packages’.”
The article begins:
“Microsoft offered clarification about its patch process for SharePoint Server 2013 this week. The occasion for confusion, prompting Microsoft’s clarification, was the release of the August Cumulative Update (CU) for SharePoint 2013. The August CU came with a caveat about having to install the July CU first. That led SharePoint experts, such Microsoft MVP Todd Klindt, to say that the August CU really wasn’t a cumulative update after all.”
This constant back and forth from Microsoft forces administrators into persistent vigilance regarding the latest news and changes to the SharePoint platform. Stephen E. Arnold has devoted his life to search and his Web site ArnoldIT.com is a good repository for helpful information. His SharePoint feed is a good one to bookmark to stay on top of the latest changes, and offers advice on how your organization can overcome the latest SharePoint struggle.
Emily Rae Aldridge, September 04, 2014
Instagram Search from Picturegr.am
September 3, 2014
If you are interested in searching Instagram images, navigate to www.picturegr.am.
The site says:
Picturegr.am is a new Instagram search engine and web viewer. Featuring millions of pictures, users, likes and comments, Picturegr.am is your go-to source when you want to browse Instagram on computer or desktop. Picturegr.am works on both PC and Mac.
A user can query Picturegr.am by hashtags or user name. Instagram users assign hashtags and their handles. As a result, a query for “visualization” returns images and terms; for example, on September 2, 2014:
A more popular hashtag like “chicagobears” returns images more in line with non specialist content; for example:
Interesting but filtering and limits on access to user content may trouble some.
Stephen E Arnold, September 3, 2014
Tribler: A File Finder That Legal Eagles Will Want to Check
September 3, 2014
Short honk: We learned about Tribler, a rich media file finder. There is an interesting body of content; for example rich media. The site says:
Tribler can find files for you. No need for websites. Tribler can do 100 Mbps, sadly we cannot fix slow Internet or poor swarms. Lots of “pro” features: magnet links, streaming, sub-second search, channels and our upcoming anonymous mode.
Note the word “anonymous.” Tribler can play videos. The site says, “You can watch even before the download is finished.”
For more information, navigate to www.tribler.org.
Stephen E Arnold, September 3, 2014
New Analytics Startup Might Start Up Price Wars
September 3, 2014
Amplitude is a new analytics startup backed by Y Combinator and recently raised $1.975 million in seed funding. TechCrunch reports on the fundraising efforts and how Amplitude differentiates itself from its competition in the article, “Amplitude, The Analytics Startup Undercutting Mixpanel, Raises $2 million Seed Round.”
Amplitude grew because there was a 400 percent increase in their enterprise customer base. Its founders originally were working on a text-by-voice app and they created an analytics tool to examine their data. It did not take them long to discover that the analytics tool was the better application. Amplitude is a valuable product, because of its skilled engineering team and the claim that it a predict customer queries and save space. Which brings us to the price:
“Amplitude offers a freemium service that gives customers up to 5 million monthly events for free. In comparison, Mixpanel charges $600/month for 4 million data points. Amplitude also offers a $299/month plans for up to 50 million monthly events – something that would move into custom pricing territory at Mixpanel. Beyond that, Amplitude offers enterprise plans, and today has customers like The Hunt, Heyday, KeepSafe, and other larger customers still under NDA.”
That is very cheap compared to other popular business analytics plans. Amplitude offers a high quality product at a reasonable price. Will it catch on in today’s cash-strapped market? It already has. Be forewarned that prices need to change for other analytics companies or they will lose customers.
Whitney Grace, September 03, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
SEO Push Or Objective Review?
September 3, 2014
Butler Analytics recently evaluated a business analytics firm and showed the results in “InetSoft Review.” InetSoft is described as a top tier business intelligence platform and allows functions for ease of use. Further into the review, InetSoft is called “understated” due to the lack of praise for its stellar products. Potential users can choose from three packages:
- Style Report Enterprise-an enterprise reporting application that supports many constructs.
- Style Scope-an interactive dashboard software application with visualized analysis and real-time reporting.
- Style Intelligence-an operational business intelligence platform with a data mashup engine for dashboards, visual analyses, and reporting creation.
The packages have varied options:
“InetSoft offers both perpetual licenses and on-premise annual subscriptions. Small to midsize organizations and business units can take advantage of user-based licensing, while large organizations can leverage server based licensing for enterprise deployments. A maintenance and support charge of 20% is added to perpetual license sales and is included in the annual subscription price.”
This is definitely high praise for an “understated” company. The review is objective enough and will definitely add to InetSoft’s content marketing and SEO value.
Whitney Grace, September 03, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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