The Watson Disease: Google and TPUs
June 9, 2017
I think IBM Watson has performed a useful service. Big Blue demonstrates that writing about future technology and its applications can send useful signals to investors, competitors, and analysts.
The Watson Disease is, to my way of thinking, a weird combination of marketing hyperbole and fanciful thinking. The outputs in the form of articles, interviews, and marketing collateral are entertaining and sometimes fun.
One example I spotted appears in “Cloud TPUs: A Chip to Make Every Business as Smart as Google.” The headline assumes that “every business” is less smart than Google. It follows that the less smart will want to be as smart or smarter than Google. It seems to me that Facebook has been zipping along quite nicely. So has Amazon. Too bad that these firms are one which the real journalists at PC Magazine include in the category of firms which want to be “as smart as Google.”
The guts of the story focus on Google’s response to the strong market uptake of Nvidia technology for assorted smart applications. AMD is working to catch up, but it seems to be cornering the bitcoin mining niche while Nvidia is capturing hearts and minds across applications.
Google wants to be the big dog with its TPU or once secret Tensor Processing Units. These confections perform magic when it comes to one trick pony machine learning functions. TPUs are specifically engineered to do artificial intelligence stuff.
The write up reports that:
Cloud Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) are part of a trend toward AI-specific processors, and for Google in particular these cloud-based TPUs are the underlying computer element driving a top-to-bottom AI rewrite fundamentally redefining how Google’s apps, infrastructure, software, and services function by building intelligence in from the ground up.
That’s quite a statement enriched with some amazing words like “in”, “from” and “up”.
The Google wizard explains that Google’s approach has been to build “a kind of drag racing car.”
When will I be able to drive this race car?
Well, there’s the promise of “soon.” Just like IBM Watson’s takeover of the smart software sector. “Soon.”
The car analogies provide a metaphorical anchor for the TPU revolution.
The exemplary use case explains that a Japanese used car dealer creates Web pages automatically.
Yep, used cars.
But there are more application opportunities. I learned:
“There are limits, it’s not magic, but it’s really exciting how many places it’s applicable and in how many businesses it makes sense,” said Hölzle [a Google wizard]. “We’re aiming to be the cloud platform for machine learning and analytics. We’re making it much more accessible to average companies because it works across so many circumstances, from AlphaGo and data center cooling optimization to image and speech recognition trained on the same neural network.”
An interesting nugget finds its way into the sci-fi vision. I highlighted this statement:
Once you have a machine learning project, 10 percent of time is spent on ML and 90 percent is on data preparation, cleaning, interpreting results, and iterating to find better models,” said Hölzle. “We have something in Cloud ML to automatically try out multiple models to find what works best. You may have to pay more because the training step is hundreds of thousands of times more compute power, but you get the optimal model and higher accuracy just by pushing a button and waiting four hours.”
I think this means that human grunt work is required. Where’s the smart software? Well, not yet. I like the “pay more” phrase too.
I wish I could just ask Watson. In the meantime, I will check out the Nvidia technology. I fear there is no antibiotic for the Watson Disease. Scary.
Stephen E Arnold, June 12, 2017
Verizon: The Spirit of Yahoot
June 9, 2017
I surmised from “Confirmed: Verizon Will Cut ~15% of AOL-Yahoo Staff after Merger Closes” that the spirit of Yahoot will live. At least for a while.
Here’s the passage I highlighted in Yahoot purple:
The proportion of jobs being made redundant across AOL and Yahoo is around 15 percent globally, we have confirmed with our sources. This shakes out to as many as 2,100 jobs being lost as part of the corporate merger.
With a price tag close to $5 billion, the new top dogs for Yahoot will have to shake a leg to:
- Get their money back
- Generate new, sustainable revenues as mobile search grows beyond 60 percent of search traffic
- Innovate in ways that open new revenue streams which are themselves profitable.
Yahoot is Oath with a colon.
How does one search for “Oath with a color”? Wonky names can pose some challenges for the New Age search and retrieval systems.
My query for Oath with a colon on Yandex.ru returned these results:
I then tried the same query on that popular service Izito and got these results:
My conclusion: When creating a name, it is a good idea to consider how that name is processed by online search systems.
Oath with a colon is likely to generate some results which will leave Yahoot customers wondering what’s where.
Yep, one Yandex.ru link points to a dictionary and the definition does not mention Verizon. Why would it? And the Izito number one hit reminds me that Oath is the acronym for the State of New York’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings.
Yahoot! I suppose I should think of Yahoot as Oath with a colon. Love those cute names I do.
Stephen E Arnold, June 9, 2017
The Power of Context in Advertising
June 9, 2017
How’s it going with those ad-and-query matching algorithms? The Washington Post reports, “For Advertisers, Algorithms Can Lead to Unexpected Exposure on Sites Spewing Hate.” Readers may recall that earlier this year, several prominent companies pulled their advertisements from Google’s AdSense after they found them sharing space with objectionable content. Writers Elizabeth Dwoskin and Craig Timberg cite an investigation by their paper, which found the problem is widespread. (See the article for specifics.) How did we get here? The article explains:
The problem has emerged as Web advertising strategies have evolved. Advertisers sometimes choose to place their ads on particular sites — or avoid sites they dislike — but a growing share of advertising budgets go to what the industry calls ‘programmatic’ buys. These ads are aimed at people whose demographic or consumer profile is receptive to a marketing message, no matter where they browse on the Internet. Algorithms decide where to place ads, based on people’s prior Web usage, across vastly different types of sites.
The technology companies behind ad networks have slowly begun to address the issue, but warn it won’t be easy to solve. They say their algorithms struggle to distinguish between content that is truly offensive and language that is not offensive in context. For example, it can be hard for computers to determine the difference between the use of a racial slur on a white-supremacy site and a website about history.
To further complicate the issue, companies employing these algorithms want nothing to do with becoming “arbiters of speech.” After all, not every case is so simple as a post sporting a blatant slur in the headline; the space between hate speech and thoughtful criticism is more of a gradient than a line. Google. Facebook, et al may not have signed up for this role, but the problem is the direct consequence of the algorithmic ad-placing model. Whether on this issue, the scourge of fake news, or the unwitting promotion of counterfeit goods, tech companies must find ways to correct the wide-spread consequences of their revenue strategies.
Cynthia Murrell, June 9, 2017
Quote to Note: Hate That Semantic Web Stuff
June 8, 2017
I read “JSON-LD and Why I Hate the Semantic Web. “
Here’s the quote I noted:
I hate the narrative of the Semantic Web because the focus has been on the wrong set of things for a long time. That community, who I have been consciously distancing myself from for a few years now, is schizophrenic in its direction. Precious time is spent in groups discussing how we can query all this Big Data that is sure to be published via RDF instead of figuring out a way of making it easy to publish that data on the Web by leveraging common practices in use today. Too much time is spent assuming a future that’s not going to unfold in the way that we expect it to. That’s not to say that TURTLE, SPARQL, and Quad stores don’t have their place, but I always struggle to point to a typical startup that has decided to base their product line on that technology (versus ones that choose MongoDB and JSON on a regular basis).
There you go.
Stephen E Arnold, June 8, 2017
Tired of Google? Try These Alternatives
June 8, 2017
Though Google dominates 80% of the search engine market, your privacy is compromised, and the results mostly are sponsored. Numerous options exist if you do not want to use Google for finding something online.
Make Use Of in an article titled 13 Alternative Search Engines That Find What Google Can’t says:
There are some patches of green – because let’s face it – Google Search still can’t do everything. They just have close to a million data servers. A few alternative search engines have stepped in and mounted a challenge.
For instance, if you are an environmentalist, use Ecosia that will use 80% of its revenue from search to plant trees. Search engines like Qwant and Peekier are good at protecting user privacy. If your kids use search engines, give them access to Kiddle that will block out everything inappropriate for kids. For people who enjoy streaming, but are spoilt for choices, JustWatch is an excellent option. Who says Google has no competition?
Vishal Ingole, June 8, 2017
Privacy Enabled on Digital Assistants
June 8, 2017
One thing that Amazon, Google, and other digital assistant manufacturers glaze over are how enabling vocal commands on smart speakers potentially violates a user’s privacy. These include both the Google Home and the Amazon Echo. Keeping vocal commands continuously on allows bad actors to hack into the smart speaker, listen, record, and spy on users in the privacy of their own homes. If the vocal commands are disabled on smart speakers, it negates their purpose. The Verge reports that one smart technology venture is making an individual’s privacy the top priority: “Essential Home Is An Amazon Echo Competitor Puts Privacy First.”
Andy Rubin’s recently released the Essential Home, essentially a digital assistant that responds to vocal, touch, or “sight” commands. It is supposed to be an entirely new product in the digital assistant ring, but it borrows most of its ideas from Google and Amazon’s innovations. Essential Home just promises to do them better.
Translation: Huh?
What Essential Home is exactly, isn’t clear. Essential has some nice renders showing the concept in action. But we’re not seeing any photos of a working device and nothing in the way of specifications, prices, or delivery dates. We know it’ll act as the interface to your smart home gear but we don’t know which ecosystems will be supported. We know it runs Ambient OS, though details on that are scant. We know it’ll try to alert you of contextually relevant information during the day, but it’s unclear how.
It is compatible with Nest, SmartThings, and HomeKit and it is also supposed to be friendly with Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri. The biggest selling feature might be this:
Importantly, we do know that most of the processing will happen locally on the device, not in the cloud, keeping the bulk of your data within the home. This is exactly what you’d expect from a company that’s not in the business of selling ads, or everything else on the planet.
Essentially, keeping user data locally might be a bigger market player in the future than we think. The cloud might appeal to more people, however, because it is a popular buzzword. What is curious is how Essential Home will respond to commands other than vocal. They might not be relying on a similar diamond in the rough concept that propelled Bitext to the front of the computational linguistics and machine learning market.
Whitney Grace, June 8, 2017
Google and Hate Speech: None of This I Know It When I See It
June 7, 2017
I read “YouTube Clarifies “Hate Speech” Definition and Which Videos Won’t Be Monetized.” I don’t know much about defining abstractions because I live in rural Kentucky. Our governor just recommended prayer patrols to curb violence in Louisville, home of the Derby and lots of murders on weekends.
Google has nailed down the abstraction “hate speech.” According to the write up, Google’s definition is:
[content which] “promotes discrimination or disparages or humiliates an individual or group of people on the basis of the individual’s or group’s race, ethnicity, or ethnic origin, nationality, religion, disability, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other characteristic associated with systematic discrimination or marginalization.”
And
“inappropriate use of family entertainment characters,” which means content showing kid-friendly characters in “violent, sexual, vile, or otherwise inappropriate behavior,” no matter if the content is satirical or a parody. The final category is somewhat broad: “incendiary and demeaning content” means that anything “gratuitously” demeaning or shameful toward an individual or group is prohibited.”
And
“controversial issues or sensitive events,” which YouTube defines as “video content that features or focuses on sensitive topics or events including, but not limited to, war, political conflicts, terrorism or extremism, death and tragedies, sexual abuse, even if graphic imagery is not shown… For example, videos about recent tragedies, even if presented for news or documentary purposes, may not be eligible for advertising given the subject matter.”
This is good to know for three reasons:
- Google can define abstractions. No disambiguation subroutines are required.
- Google could run ads against this type of content and make money, but Google will not do that. (Did Google run ads against these types of content in the past? Nah, “do not evil” shuts the door on that question.)
- Facebook can process Google’s definitions and craft even more functional guidelines. (Me too is the basic process for innovation or becoming a publisher with editorial guidelines.)
Next up for Google to define are “love,” “truth,” justice,” and “salary data.”
Stephen E Arnold, June 7, 2017
The WSJ Click Crater
June 7, 2017
Big name, old school publishers share a trait. These folks perceive themselves as a traffic magnets. I have been in meetings in which the shared understanding was that a publisher’s “brand” would sustain a flow of a digital revenue.
Again and again the “brand” fallacy proves itself. Examples range from the original New York Times’ online service (hello, Jeff Pemberton) to the Wall Street Journal’s early attempt to make its content available in a sort of wonky online interface decades ago (hello, Richard Levine?).
I just read “WSJ Ends Google Users’ Free Ride, Then Fades in Search Results.” The main point: The brand magnet is weak. Without the Google attracting eye balls and routing traffic to the Murdoch “blue chip”, the WSJ has found itself in a click crater.
What’s the fix?
Well, dear WSJ, the answer is to buy Adwords. Yep, the WSJ has to fork over big money per month to get the traffic up. Then the WSJ has to figure out how to monetize that traffic.
That’s not easy.
I subscribe to the dead tree edition of the newspaper. The digital version is allegedly available to me as part of my subscription. I don’t bother. The WSJ is not able to provide me with an email and a temporary password so i can enter data from the newspaper’s mailing label into the WSJ online system. Nah, I have to phone the WSJ. Go through a crazy process and I don’t want to do this. I am okay with a magic marker and a pair of scissors.
I learned from the Bloomberg write up:
Executives at the Journal, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., argue that Google’s policy is unfairly punishing them for trying to attract more digital subscribers. They want Google to treat their articles equally in search rankings, despite being behind a paywall.
Right, click crater.
Bad Google. Baloney.
Publishers fumbled their digits. Don’t believe me? Chase down someone involved in the early versions of the Times Online or the Dow Jones News Service.
These did not work.
Why?
A newspaper is one thing. Online information is another.
Bad Google. Wrong. Publishers with horse blinders can find their way to the stable. Anything else is tough.
Stephen E Arnold, June 7, 2017
News or Speculation: Google and a Big Euro Fine?
June 7, 2017
I read “Google in Trouble? Company May Face $9 billion EU Fine over Its Shopping Service.” The headline surprised me. I had forgotten that Google failed with Froogle and never got its talons in the back of Amazon. But there you go. Google and shopping.
The write up grabs the weasel word “may” and goes to town. I learned from the write up:
In April 2015, the EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager accused the company of cheating consumers and competitors by distorting internet search results to favor its own shopping service. The latest development comes after a seven-year investigation into Google following complaints raised by both US and European rivals.
The magic $9 billion comes from a news report from the always on the beam real news outfit Thomson Reuters. Here’s the passage I highlighted in True Blue:
If found guilty of breaching EU antitrust rules, fines for companies can reach up to 10% of their global turnover. And, in case of Google, the fine could be about $9bn (£6.99bn) of its 2016 turnover, a Reuters report said. In addition to the fine, the Commission could also tell Google to stop its anti-competitive practices.
Bad Google.
Now about that shopping service. The service is number one with a bullet when I searched Google for “Google Shopping.” In case you have never looked at this service, you can navigate to the site by clicking on the image below:
What’s available to me in rural Kentucky? I ran a query for PCI eSATA RAID cards and here are the results:
That first result is not a card; it is a rack mounted one mu uninterruptable power supply. Not exactly a PCI card.
The other results were not too useful. None of the items was a PCI RAID card. (I know these exist because there is one in my server named Fred.)
From a practical point of view, Google Shopping does not seem to meet my needs. With the alleged $9 billion fine hanging over the GOOG, I wonder if any of the lawyers involved in this have checked out the service.
Google Shopping is, in my opinion, not going to lure me from sites which deliver on point results for the type of stuff I buy. Maybe Google makes oodles from one mu rack mounted UPS devices, but offering that product just drives me to Pricewatch.com.
Your mileage may vary. It certainly does for the folks in Europe it seems. What about Amazon? Guess that service is less of an offender. Surprising.
Stephen E Arnold, June 7, 2017
Giffying All the Way to Profits
June 7, 2017
Giphy, the GIF search engine has secured $150 funding at $600 million valuations. What started as a web crawler is on its way to profitability.
Business Insider in an article titled Inside the GIF Factory: How Giphy Plans to Build a Real Business by Animating the Internet says:
Giphy isn’t profitable yet. In fact, the company doesn’t even have a reliable means of generating revenue at this point. But now that GIFs are an ingrained aspect of online behavior, the company is hard at work drafting a blueprint to turn its popular service into a money-making business.
Though there are multiple ways to monetize GIFs, a mainstay of personal messages and online forums and social media networks, Alex Chung, the founder is yet to find a way to monetize it. Giphy can be integrated into various communication tools for inserting reaction GIFs into comments. Internet users also flock to the website to get entertained. The website claims to have 150 million users daily. With that kind of user base, it would not be difficult for the company to turn profitable.
Vishal Ingole, June 7, 2017
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