Blippex: By the People, For the People
October 17, 2014
Would Blippex be the search engine Alexis de Toqueville would love? The search engine is, according to Bloomberg, “a new crowd sourced public search engine.” Blippex makes use of technology developed for Archify, a system providing users with access to their online history. According to CrunchBase, the system has received seed funding of $700,000.
A year ago, Blippex was described as “the first interesting search engine since Google?” Like Qwant, Blippex is a search system crafted in Europe. Like Qwant, Blippex has ambitions for nibbling into Google’s market share for Web search.
The idea is that the search system is “built by its own users,” a phrase used in the Quartz article to describe the system. Quartz continued:
One of Blippex’s key selling points is that Kossatz and Baeck [the founders] are fanatical about privacy. Though Blippex constructs its search results on the basis of data gathered from its users, it does it in a way that’s anonymous and untraceable to any individual Blippex user. This obsession with privacy allows Blippex to rank pages—i.e., decide which pages to show people—with an algorithm that Google can’t match, because if Google gathered the data that Blippex does, users would find it unacceptably creepy.
Blippex does not track its users. One of the key technologies for the system is WebRTC. WebRTC is an open project that enables Web browsers with Real-Time Communications (RTC) capabilities via simple JavaScript APIs. If you don’t want to fool around with browser add ins, you can use Blippex like any other Web search system.
I ran a query for “enterprise search.” The results were interesting. I did not know that sold state drives were related to a search by a sheriff’s department or to Lenovo.
The order of the results is determined by the amount of time a user spends on a page. This is the “dwell time.”
Worth a look. A privacy centric European search system will have its supporters. The challenge, of course, is that Google dominates Web search in Europe. What is Google’s market share? 80 or 90 percent? Perhaps European regulators can adjust this situation?
Stephen E Arnold, October 17, 2014
Talend Gets a New CTO
October 17, 2014
For a technology-driven company, the position of CTO takes on special significance. We learn from Edubourse.com that “Talend Appoints New Chief Technology Officer and Head of R&D.” (The original article is in French; I used Google Translate.) The company is confident that Lawrence Bride’s two decades of experience make him the right pick to steer the company’s strategy into the future. The press release sums up the executive’s bona fides:
“More recently, Laurent Bride served as CTO of Axway, the market leader in the governance of data flow. Before joining Axway, he was Senior Vice President of Advanced Development division of SAP, leading a team of 350 developers to design solutions Big Data, cloud, analytics and next generation mobile. Laurent Bride arrived at SAP following the acquisition of BusinessObjects, where he spent 10 years overseeing software development. He graduated from EISTI (International School Science Information Processing).
“‘Lawrence brings extensive management expertise to development teams advanced size that aim to driver technological innovation policy of a company,’ commented Mike Tuchen, CEO of Talend. ‘Laurent is a real techie with a recognized ability to enable the visionary development of new products to meet future customer needs.’”
Founded in 2005, Talend supplies data-management and application-integration middleware to organizations of all sizes. Already a leader in Hadoop-based data management, the company boosted that standing in 2010 with its acquisition of Sopera. They cite their scalable platform, flexible architecture, and easy-to-use tools as reasons they have grown to serve more than 4,000 enterprise customers. Talend maintains offices around the world but splits its headquarters between Surenes, France, and Redwood City, California.
Cynthia Murrell, October 17, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
IBM Downloads More Brains Into Watson
October 17, 2014
IBM is really pushing ways to prove that Watson was a smart invention. Technology Review explains that “EMTech: IBM Tries To Make Watson Smarter” by seeking ways for it to be used commercially. Watson was programmed in a question and answer format for its time on Jeopardy! The format can be expanded and augmented with applications geared towards a specific industry.
IBM has been discussing how its been making Watson smarter for most of 2014 and the article simply reiterates projects in financial, medical, and legal sectors. IBM wants to deploy Watson to automated call centers next.
One new point was mentioned:
“At the EmTech conference, a questioner from USAA pointed out that the system was having some trouble, in part because it would not allow users to ask follow-up questions. Each request was treated as a standalone problem, making Watson awkward to use at times. [Mike Rhodin, senior vice president of the IBM Watson Group] said he would meet with USAA later this week.”
Watson is still not quite human, not that we want it to be. Watson has a pretty good PR team to puff its capabilities up, but the results are still in development.
Whitney Grace, October 17, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Gool.li Service Offline
October 16, 2014
This may be old news. We were updating out list of search engines and received an error from the service called Gool.li, a metasearch system. Our last check for this system was in January 2013. At that time the company’s Web site was online and an Android app was available. The name is a variant of the Arabic phrase for “tell me”. More information about the system is available in a nine deck slide presentation at this link.
As you may recall, the service used a panel-style interface or what the company called “cards design”. Each panel corresponded to particular types of content.
The system was described as delivering “knowledge as a service.” One interesting feature of the search results was a grouping of links by domains.
The company was based in Montréal and was a project of Al Akhawayn University. My search file suggests that the system architect may have been Jawad Jari and the service utilized Amazon Web services.
Web metasearch seems to be a harsh taskmaster.
Stephen E Arnold, October 17, 2014
Google Made Simple
October 16, 2014
Google is just so darned friendly. The system knows exactly what users want. The GOOG offers helpful suggestions for just about everything.
Now how does Google work?
To answer this question, study “How Google Works.” This is a very sophisticated presentation that is so darned clever. The information is so darned relevant. Darn it. I wish every 60,000 person company controlling information access would explain itself in this way.
Here’s an example:
Isn’t this type of presentation darned magnificent? Why fool around with Google patent documents? Why waste time on Google technical papers like this one
Why waste time fooling around with trivial activities like this?
Oh, wow. This slide show is not about technology. The slide show wants to convince you to buy Eric Schmidt’s new book.
Isn’t that so darned clever? You can buy a copy from the company that is Google’s closest competitor, Amazon. Isn’t that a darned good way to do cooperative competition?
Stephen E Arnold, October 16, 2014
Google Gets Into Balloons Does It Have WiFi?
October 16, 2014
Google has a thing for transportation and maps. They mapped the entire world and gave us Google Street View and then they created a self-driving car. Google seems to have conquered streets and motor vehicles. Now they want to conquer the air. How? Are they using planes? No. Helicopters? No. Trained pigeons? No. Google decided to take to the air with balloons. Computer World tells us about a new balloon fleet in “GoogleX To Circle The Earth With Internet-Connected Balloon.”
Google plans to launch high-altitude balloons that will circle the planet and provide Internet to rural areas. Astro Teller, head of GoogleX, announced the new endeavor at the MIT Technology Review’s EmTech. It has been dubbed Project Loon and if it successful more people will access the Internet.
“Google’s vision is to build a ring of balloons, flying around the globe on stratospheric winds about 12.4 miles high, providing Internet access to remote and underserved areas. The balloons communicate with specially designed antennas on the ground, which in turn connect to ground stations that connect to the local Internet service provider.”
The balloons will provide Internet using the same networks as mobile phones and issues about bandwidth are already popping up. There are also concerns about how many people the balloons will be able to support?
While GoogleX wants to deploy around the globe, how will countries like China respond? Will North Koreans find ways to learn about the world with the balloons? How about Russia? And the seeds of rebellion will be sown.
Whitney Grace, October 16, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Fleeting Image Search
October 16, 2014
Image search is touted as being intuitive and accurate. Users simply need to submit an image to the search engine and based off the picture analyzing algorithms similar images will be returned. It, however, is still in the works. Image search still proves to be a difficult task for search engines to master. Search Engine Watch brings us the news “Bing Unveils Responsive Design For Image Search” that the search engine is ramping up to improve its image search.
The newest improvements optimizes image search for touch screen mobile devices. Bing has changed the way uses can browse through images, making it simpler to explore and refine results. Pinterest board searches have been added and a mini-header that will slide with users as they scroll down will offer quick access to popular results. The image hover feature has also been updated.
Along with the updates, Bing has these tips to improve image search:
• “Quality: No matter what the user is searching for, Bing is focused on providing high-quality and relevant image search results.
• Suggestions: Users that are scrolling page after page are clearly having a difficult time finding what they are looking for. Bing maintains a set of search suggestions and collections to help users find what they need.
• Actions: There are many different ways to search and endless topics to search about. Bing has provided the tools necessary to filer results, create an image match, and create one-click access to Pinterest.”
These upgrades will improve image search, but it still has a long way to go.
Whitney Grace, October 16, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Microsoft Delve A Useful Spy
October 16, 2014
Microsoft is adding a new big data piece to its Office 365 lineup. And in a bit of a change of direction for the company, Microsoft has sought to make this element aesthetically pleasing as it points out patterns of likes and dislikes. Read more about Microsoft Delve in the InfoWorld article, “Microsoft’s Delve: The Office 365 Spy You Just Might Love.”
The article says:
“Microsoft’s Delve is an intriguing new offering for Office 365 business customers. Previously known as Oslo, Delve brings a concierge, Instragram-like pulse to business environments, as curated by Office Graph, sophisticated machine-learning technology that maps relationships between people, content, and activity across Office 365 accounts. Delve pulls content from within your organization’s OneDrive, SharePoint, and Yammer accounts, serving it up to users in a card-based interface reminiscent of Pinterest.”
The verdict is still out as to how helpful the product will really be in the business environment. It does behave without existing permissions, only showing users that which they are granted permission to see. Stephen E. Arnold is a longtime leader in search and reports on the latest news in his SharePoint feed. Since Delve may have helpful implications for SharePoint, keep an eye on ArnoldIT.com for all the latest tips and tricks.
Emily Rae Aldridge, October 16, 2014
Open Source Search and Kicking the Bukkit
October 15, 2014
There is a presentation “Kicking the Bukkit: Anatomy of an Open Source Meltdown” by Ryan Michela, a developer with experience in open source. Over several years, a game open source project rose and fell. I am not too interested in open source games. At the end of the Slideshare document, there are five reasons an open source game project failed.
Let me summarize these and encourage you to work through he full 55 slide deck. How many of these issues may have an impact on open source search systems. Keep in mind that commercial enterprises like Attivio and IBM make use of open source technology.
- Inclusion of decompiled code in an open source project
- License issues
- Ties ups within the community before a project gains momentum
- No contributor license agreement
- Disgruntled developers in the community.
The presentation includes a quote that I noted:
It only takes one unhappy developer to kill an unprotected project.
Is there an open source search company vulnerable to one or more of these issues? I can name a couple. I wonder if the firm’s funding sources are concerned about their investment “kicking the bucket”?
Stephen E Arnold, October 15, 2014
Search and Deceptive Ads
October 15, 2014
Short honk: I read “Study Says Google, Yahoo And Bing Are Running ‘Deceptive’ Ads — And Regulators Are Doing Nothing To Stop It.”
I assume this statement is a surprise to some folks:
Now, disclosure text has become very small, and the shading very subtle, meaning users often don’t realize they are clicking through to ads rather than the most relevant result for their query.
In an increasingly important quest for revenue, these allegedly deceptive ads may be just the beginning of math club maneuvers. Relevance has a new meaning. Perhaps it is a synonym for revenue?
Stephen E Arnold, October 14, 2014
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
