Amazon Cloud Injected with AI Steroids
January 17, 2018
Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are huge cloud computing rivals. Amazon wants to keep up with the competition, says Fortune, in the article, “Amazon Reportedly Beefing Up Cloud Capabilities In The Cloud.” Amazon is “beefing up” its cloud performance by injecting it with more machine learning and artificial intelligence. The world’s biggest retailer is doing this by teaming up with AI-based startups Domino Data Lab and DataRobot.
Cloud computing is mostly used by individuals as computer backups and the ability to access their files from anywhere. Businesses use it to run their applications and store data, but as cloud computing becomes more standard they want to run machine learning tasks and big data analysis.
Amazon’s new effort is code-named Ironman and is aimed at completing tasks for companies focused on insurance, energy, fraud detection, and drug discovery, The Information reported. The services will be offered to run on graphic processing chips made by Nvidia as well as so-called field programmable gate array chips, which can be reprogrammed as needed for different kinds of software.
Nvidia and other high-performing chip manufacturers such as Advanced Micro Devices and Intel are ecstatic about the competition because it means more cloud operators will purchase their products. Amazon Web Services is one of the company’s fastest growing areas and continues to bring in the profits.
Whitney Grace, January 17, 2018
Out with the Old, in with the New at Google
January 17, 2018
It may have started with its finance app, but Google is making some drastic changes you might want to keep an eye on. We discovered the tip of the iceberg with Google Blog piece, “Stay on Top of Finance Information on Google.”
According to the story:
Now under a new search navigation tab called “Finance,” you’ll have easier access to finance information based on your interests, keeping you in the know about the latest market news and helping you get in-depth insights about companies. On this page, you can see performance information about stocks you’ve chosen to follow, recommendations on other stocks to follow based on your interests, related news, market indices, and currencies.
As part of this revamped experience, we’re retiring a few features of the original Google Finance, including the portfolio, the ability to download your portfolio, and historical tables. However, a list of the stocks from your portfolio will be accessible through Your Stocks in the search result, and you can get notifications when there are any notable changes on their performance.
Not a big shock, but a big part of Google trying to freshen things up. The company has been in hot water with a string of YouTube videos deemed too much. So, with moves like improving its algorithm to weed out fake news, changes to Google Home, and even Maps, Google is sending a message. The message is one of change and one we hope is for the better.
Patrick Roland, January 17, 2018
DarkCyber, January 16, 2018, Now Available
January 16, 2018
This week’s DarkCyber examines the Experian Dark Web alerting service. Based on an examination of the Digital Shadows’ Web site, that company is working with Experian to provide the Experian consumer service. Digital Shadows appears to be moving from its law enforcement and intelligence focus into a broader business to business and consumer market.
The video is available on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/250765019 The video can be accessed via Beyond Search at www.arnoldit.com/wordpress.
The program also takes a different approach to the changes in net neutrality. DarkCyber reports that law enforcement and intelligence agencies may have wider scope for action for certain data collection methods. Companies like FinFisher allow non US customers a way to gather information using higher levels of network access.
Stephen E Arnold, publisher of the Beyond Search blog and producer of HonkinNews DarkCyber, said:
“Outside of the US certain governments are able to use the capabilities of Tier 1 and Tier 2 network providers, aided by specialized software from companies like FinFisher. With a higher level of network access, placing special software on suspected bad actors computing devices is less complicated. Changes in net neutrality in the United States may facilitate a similar capability. In order to deal with the increasingly rapid changes in technology available to bad actors, access to higher level network access can pay significant dividends for law enforcement and intelligence authorities.”
Dark Web eCommerce vendors, Stephen E Arnold reports, are now showing more interest in digital currencies with more robust obfuscation. Monero and Zcash are two currencies gaining momentum in the Dark Web. Investigators’ ability to figure out who is conducting certain digital currency transactions continues to improve.
The final story takes a look at the alleged kidnapping of a British supermodel. The alleged wrongdoer is awaiting trial in Italy, but the publicity about the alleged auctioning of the supermodel as a Dark Web sex slave remains controversial.
Check out the video at this link.
Kenny Toth, January 16, 2018
Google Tries Like Crazy to End Extreme Content Controversy
January 16, 2018
Google is having a tough time lately. When it purchased YouTube few thought extremist videos and wonky children’s programming would be its most concerning headaches. But their solutions remain strained, as we discovered in a recent Verge story, “YouTube Has Removed Thousands of Videos from Extremist Cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki.”
Google removed hundreds of al-Awalaki’s videos in 2010 which directly advocated violence, following the conviction of Roshonara Choudhry, a radicalized follower who stabbed British MP Stephen Timms earlier that year. At the time, a YouTube spokesperson cited the site’s guidelines against inciting violence. But al-Awalaki posted tens of thousands of other videos, and in subsequent years, was cited as an influence in other notable terrorist attacks at Fort Hood, the Boston Marathon, San Bernardino, and Orlando, Florida.
This comes on the heels of another Verge story with a similar issue, “YouTube Says it Will Crack Down on Bizarre Videos Targeting Children.”
We’re in the process of implementing a new policy that age restricts this content in the YouTube main app when flagged,” said Juniper Downs, YouTube’s director of policy. “Age-restricted content is automatically not allowed in YouTube Kids.” YouTube says that it’s been formulating this new policy for a while, and that it’s not rolling it out in direct response to the recent coverage.
Google is trying to do better, but it seems like they are fighting off an avalanche with a snow shovel. Luckily, as Washington Post points out, the United States leads the world in terms of big data. One can hope that a solution lies in their somewhere, but good luck predicting what it will be.
Patrick Roland, January 17, 20186
Averaging Information Is Not Cutting It Anymore
January 16, 2018
Here is something interesting that comes after the headline of “People From Around The Globe Met For The First Flat Earth Conference” and beliefs that white supremacists are gaining more power. The Frontiers Media shares that, “Rescuing Collective Wisdom When The Average Group Opinion Is Wrong” is an article that pokes fun at the fanaticism running rampant in the news. Beyond the fanaticism in the news, there is a real concern with averaging when it comes to data science and other fields that heavily rely on data.
The article breaks down the different ways averaging is used and the different theorems that are developed from it. The introduction is a bit wordy but it sets the tone:
The total knowledge contained within a collective supersedes the knowledge of even its most intelligent member. Yet the collective knowledge will remain inaccessible to us unless we are able to find efficient knowledge aggregation methods that produce reliable decisions based on the behavior or opinions of the collective’s members. It is often stated that simple averaging of a pool of opinions is a good and in many cases the optimal way to extract knowledge from a crowd. The method of averaging has been applied to analysis of decision-making in very different fields, such as forecasting, collective animal behavior, individual psychology, and machine learning. Two mathematical theorems, Condorcet’s theorem and Jensen’s inequality, provide a general theoretical justification for the averaging procedure. Yet the necessary conditions which guarantee the applicability of these theorems are often not met in practice. Under such circumstances, averaging can lead to suboptimal and sometimes very poor performance. Practitioners in many different fields have independently developed procedures to counteract the failures of averaging. We review such knowledge aggregation procedures and interpret the methods in the light of a statistical decision theory framework to explain when their application is justified. Our analysis indicates that in the ideal case, there should be a matching between the aggregation procedure and the nature of the knowledge distribution, correlations, and associated error costs.
Understanding how data can be corrupted is half the battle of figuring out how to correct the problem. This is one of the complications related to artificial intelligence and machine learning. One example is trying to build sentiment analysis engines. These require huge data terabytes and the Internet provides an endless supply, but the usual result is that the sentiment analysis engines end up racist, misogynist, and all around trolls. It might lead to giggles but does not very accurate results.
Whitney Grace, January 17, 2018
Facebook Experiment Harming Democracy
January 16, 2018
Facebook seems to be the last place on the Web to negatively affect democratic governments, but according to The Guardian it will in, “‘Downright Orwellian’: Journalists Decry Facebook Experiment’s Impact On Democracy.” Facebook is being compared to Big Brother in a news feed experiment that removed professional media stories from six countries. Let the article break it down for you:
The experiment, which began 19 October and is still ongoing, involves limiting the core element of Facebook’s social network to only personal posts and paid adverts.
So-called public posts, such as those from media organisation Facebook pages, are being moved to a separate “explore” feed timeline. As a result, media organisations in the six countries containing 1% of the world’s population – Sri Lanka, Guatemala, Bolivia, Cambodia, Serbia and Slovakia – have had one of their most important publishing platforms removed overnight.
In other weeks, “Eek!” These countries have very volatile governments and any threat to their news outlets is very bad if free speech is going to live. Also the news outlets in these countries do not have the budgets to pay for Facebook’s post boosting fees. Facebook was used as a free service to spread the news, but it fell more than 50% in many of the countries where this experiment was tested.
Even if Facebook were to stop the experiment some of the media outlets would not recover. It is curious why Facebook did not test the news feed experiment in another country. Oh wait, we know why. It did not want to deal with the backlash from western countries and the countless people who whine on the Internet. In the smaller countries, there is less culpability, but more home front damage. Nice job Facebook!
Whitney Grace, January 16, 2018
What Is Wrong with Web Search? Question Answered
January 15, 2018
I read “How People Search: Classifying & Understanding User Intent.” The article is an extract I believe from a new book oriented to those interested in search engine optimization. I will confess. I am not a fan of search engine optimization.
The write up is important, however. The author makes clear why today’s search returns off point, irrelevant, and ad-related content more often than not.
Quick example: I was running a query for information about a company founded in Madrid, Spain. The company has an unusual name consisting of a single digit and two letters. I assumed that the company name would be unique; otherwise, why would a firm choose a sequence of letters and a number which generated false hits. I also theorized that the company’s location in Madrid, Spain, would narrow the result set.
I ran the query on Bing, Google, and Yandex. None of these systems returned the information I wanted. Bing pointed to some biographies in LinkedIn, Google expanded the query to intelligence quotient or IQ, and Yandex just didn’t have much of anything. I don’t fool with metasearch engines; these just send queries to Web indexes with which they are in cahoots.
What to do?
The solution was not easy.
First, I set up a Spain proxy so I could run my query in Spanish against Google’s index for Spain. One can no longer point to a country’s Google search system. A bit of effort is, therefore, required. Who would want to search outside the United States. Stupid, no?
Second, I turned to my directory of specialist search engines. The one which delivered useful results was iseek.com. I know you probably use this system everyday, gentle reader.
As a result, I was able to obtain the information I needed.
The reason I had to go to such lengths was that the information revealed in the SEO oriented article makes clear that search means delivering what most people want.
You want Minnesota Vikings? Well, you are going to get sports. Forget an easy path to those brave warriors who made life miserable to my relatives in the UK.
Here are some highlights from the article which help explain why advertising and appealing to what the author of Democracy in America pointed out as a path toward mediocrity:
- Engineers look at data and shape the system to match the numbers
- Quality is conformance to what sells ads and keeps most users happy
- Disambiguation is resolved by looking at what numbers suggest is the “correct” or “intended” meaning
- You really want to buy something; therefore, pizza is a slam dunk when running a query from a mobile device
- Voice search means “I want information”.
If these observations ring your chimes, you are one of the helpful people who have contributed to the death of relevance, the increasing difficulty of locating on points research, and using tools to obtain specific, on point, highly relevant information. Good job.
Stephen E Arnold, January 15, 2018
One of Big Datas Giants Accused of Big Time Fraud
January 15, 2018
Palantir, one of the biggest names in big data has been praised for its innovative solutions since it began 2004. However, it has been getting attention for all the wrong reasons lately, as we saw in a recent Deal Street Asia story, “Palantir Holder Says Company Sabotaged Stock Sale to Chinese.”
One of Palantir Technologies Inc.’s early investors accused the data-mining startup of sabotaging his attempt to sell his $60 million stakes to a Chinese company so directors and executives could enrich themselves by selling their stock instead.
Marc Abramowitz, a 63-year-old lawyer and investor, contends that when Palantir executives got wind of his offer to sell his stock to Chinese private equity firm CDH Investments Fund Management Co., they sunk the deal by offering to sell their shares to CDH instead, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in Delaware. Palantir’s campaign to spoil Abramowitz’s sale demonstrates the Silicon Valley company’s “willingness to intentionally interfere with shareholder transactions in an effort…’
It may be tough to prove this in court, however. Palantir is famous for its secrecy, though that may become a thing of the past when they go public. Either way, this is an interesting look at the cutthroat world of big data and the potential things people do to stay on top.
Patrick Roland, January 15, 2018
Cyber Weapons Becoming Big Bucks
January 15, 2018
Cyberwarfare, meet capitalism. Here’s a twist we didn’t see coming. According to sources, digital weaponry and the defenses needed to fight them are now one of the hottest markets in the world. Just take a look at a recent SAT PR News story, “Cyber Weapon Market is Expected to Reach a Valuation of US $521.87 billion by the End of 2021.”
According to the story:
Governments, intelligence agencies, and other organizations have spiked their investment to identify zero-day exploits and use them against enemy networks when necessary. With an aim of capitalizing on the prevalent trend, several traditional arms manufacturing companies are expanding their businesses in the cyber security segment. This will in turn fuel the development of cyber weapons.
The market is also expected to gain from the increasing demand for security across critical infrastructure and utilities.
This should come as no surprise. Just as government contractors have cashed in on creating physical weaponry, the digital world is finally going to have its Raytheons. Look at this Fast Company story about how a company you’ve probably never heard of, Pegasus, is worth a billion dollars. Welcome to the new dot-com boom.
Watch our Dark Cyber video news program each week. The video is available at www.arnoldit.com/wordpress
Patrick Roland, January 15, 2018
Alphabet Google Is Allegedly Inventing the Future
January 14, 2018
I read an interesting round up of Alphabet Google’s research initiatives. The article’s title is “The Future According to Alphabet Moonshots: From Calico to X.”
The write up begins by pointing out that Alphabet Google has trimmed some of its notable explorations. I learned:
Alphabet has already started to shed some of its less successful side projects, suggesting the holding company will only tolerate so much discomfort. In the past year, it sold satellite imaging firm Terra Bella and terrifying robotics division Boston Dynamics, while shuttering down solar-powered, internet-by-drone idea Titan and modular smartphone Project Ara.
Yep, cost control exists at Alphabet Google.
The list of “inventions” for the future mentioned in the article includes:
- Calico which is part of the “solving death” thing
- CapitalG, which is another of Alphabet Google’s “invest in others” activities
- DeepMind, which is Alphabet Google’s smart software outfit
- Jigsaw, the company’s “tech accelerator.”
- Project Jacquard which is focused on weaving electronics into clothing
- Project Soli which is a sensor “that uses radar to track miniscule motions”
- Sidewalk Labs, which is Google’s smart city play
- Verily, which seems to be another component of the “solving death”, immortality initiative
- Waymo, which is the self driving auto initiative
- X, which is the home of the Loon Balloon and “early stage trials”
Several thoughts crossed my mind as I worked through this list.
- Google is largely dependent on online advertising for its revenues. After 20 years of investing and inventing, the company still remains dependent on an idea inspired by GoTo.com. You know trend lines reveal quite a bit about the past and the future. This trend line suggests that Alphabet Google is an online advertising company with little success in diversification or leapfrogging.
- Alphabet Google in into a wide spectrum of technologies. The unifying theme of these inventions, bets, or moonshots is not evident to me. The analogy is a person who has money betting on many different long odds lottery games.
- The artificial intelligence plays like DeepMind do not allow Alphabet Google to deal with malware in the Android store, filter YouTube videos for certain proscribed content for children, and cope with Google Images penchant for returning oddball search results. (Try male bikini without parental filters enabled.)
Without doing any additional research, I think that Alphabet Google is demonstrating that some Internet start up ideas do not enable additional revenue streams by throwing money at many bets. The old Bell Labs pulled off this trick but so far Google has not been able to duplicate Bell Telephone’s success in innovations that stick, then diffuse, and ultimately create new businesses.
Alphabet Google’s principal mechanism for innovation is the thousands of former Google employees who have left the company and pursued their own ideas. A good example is the Xoogler magnet Facebook.
Also, will Alphabet Google be been able to match Amazon’s revenue diversification?
Is Alphabet Google inventing the future? Yes, as long as it hires smart people who leave the company. The internal track record is interesting, but it has done little to allow the company to shake its addiction to online ad revenue.
What happens if that ad revenue softens, faces regulation in Europe and elsewhere, and erodes the online search value statement?
Has Alphabet Google’s bets created a situation in which the company must dog paddle frantically to maintain the status quo?
Stephen E Arnold, January 14, 2018
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