Google: Image Search Accuracy
February 16, 2018
Google image search is a hot topic. I wanted to test the functionality of the system because Google killed the “view image” option. Google really wants to be best friends with copyright holders. I took this image of myself:
I loaded it into the Google image “search by image” function. Yep, that’s the little camera graphic for those of my gentle readers who do not understand Google’s wonderful iconography.
Here’s what Google delivered as “similar” and “matching” images.
Notice anything interesting?
I am flattered that Google thinks I look like the female singer Mpume.
With precise image matching like this, Google may want to cease development of its system. What do you think about the thumbnail images. Yep, just like me. Oh, did I mention I am Caucasian? But if Google sees me differently, I go with Google. The company’s “algorithms” are the dope.
By the way, if you want the “old” image search function, try this link.
Stephen E Arnold, February 16, 2018
Visual Search Enters Its Next Phase
February 16, 2018
About a year ago, some of the biggest names in search declared that visual search was the next big horizon in the industry and that they were pouring great gobs of money into this world. If you are like us, visual search is not exactly part of your everyday life yet. But, that doesn’t mean it isn’t evolving, as we discovered in a fascinating Digital Trends story, “Not Happy With Pinterest Search Results? Refine it With Text and Photo Queries.”
According to the story:
“Pinterest announced the addition of text searches that work within the visual search tool, allowing users to give Pinterest Lens a bit more direction on the intent of the search. According to Pinterest, users make an average of 600 million searches every month.”
That’s a serious trend and an uptick from past numbers we have seen. However, all these advances still don’t seem to be creeping into our daily life…yet. As reported by IT Pro Portal, retailers are seriously starting to adopt visual search technology. This directly stems from the rise of shopping via cell phone, as opposed to laptops. And, as we all know, phones are custom made for visual search thanks to their cameras. The technology sounds like it is there, our interest is there as shoppers, and we think the storm is on the horizon where visual search overtakes the retail market soon.
Patrick Roland, February 16, 2018
Facebook and Twitter: Battle Platforms
February 16, 2018
Social media is, according to an analysis by Lt. Col Jarred Prier (USAF), is a component of information warfare. “Commanding the Trend: Social Media As Information Warfare” explains how various actions can function as a lever for action and ideas. Highly recommended. The analysis suggests that social media is more than a way to find a companion and keep up with the kids.
Stephen E Arnold, February 16, 2018
Dark Web Marketplaces Under Assault
February 16, 2018
It seems to be getting more difficult to operate on the Dark Web. We learn of a couple complications from the DarkWebNews post, “Popular Darknet Markets Back Online After DDoS Attacks.” A string of DDoS attacks has been keeping Dark Web marketplaces on the defense, with several suffering severe outages. We’re told the attacks have been especially hard on the comparatively long-lived and popular Dream Market, in operation since 2013. Citing a recent report from Europol, The Internet Organized Crime Threat Assessment, writer Richard explains:
[These attacks] are implemented with ease on many of the darknet markets, even when such sites have put in place restrictive measures to protect them against DDoS attacks. However, with the recent cases, there seems to be a general increase in the longevity and severity of these attacks. After the collapse of several reputable sites such as Hansa and AlphaBay, there has been a general cloud of fear in the darknet market community, which is now apparently visible on various forums including Reddit. What’s more, the recent increase in DDoS attacks has not done any good to the darknet market industry, with numerous regular users now seeking to find other alternative options. Many of these users have now turned to visiting dedicated vendor shops with others even making use of peer-to-peer possibilities, both of which eradicate the likelihood of a central failure. Nonetheless, even with the future looking uncertain for some darknet markets like Dream, the crisis seems to have opened a way for the emergence of new alternative markets with the likes of OpenBazaar taking full advantage.
OpenBazaar, by the way, is a peer-to-peer proposition. On top of those accessibility issues, the recent Bitcoin craze has complicated Dark Web users’ lives. By its nature, cryptocurrency is susceptible to congestion as more and more users attempt to complete transactions. However, the rise of several alternative “coins” (or “altcoins”) may provide some relief for the Dark Web shopper. What to do about those DDoS attacks, though, is another matter.
Cynthia Murrell, February 16, 2018
Google Does a Tim Andrews with Local News
February 15, 2018
Google is one of the country’s leading news providers, because it pulls its stories from many different news sources. While Google provides good news coverage for international and national affairs, local news stories are still better curated by the hometown news. Google is changing its approach to local news says Business Insider: “Google Is Building A Local News Services That Anyone Can Contribute To.”
Google’s new endeavor is called Bulletin and it allows citizen journalists to write, blog, vlog, and share their images straight from a mobile device without an official news outlet. Google wants to ramp up local stories within communities that traditional news outlets would miss.
Google wants to boost its own news service as a viable outlet and connect people with more local information, but the problem with the general concern is accuracy and quality. Google has already been cited for promoting fake news during the 2018 presidential election and providing an outlet for the average joe without valid research is a big issue.
The problem with the Internet is that people who normally are not given a voice have a medium to be heard. This has many extraordinary benefits, but it also has just as many problems. Fake news does need to be stopped, but is would Google Bulletin only be adding fuel to the fire?
The only thing to do is wait and see what happens:
“It’ll be interesting to see how this rolls out and fits into Google’s strategy for grabbing more eyeballs through its News and Search services. Beyond getting people to try Bulletin when they’re starting out reporting local news, it’ll have to incentivize them for sticking around once they get the hang of it and feel the need to grow an audience for themselves.”
Is Google embracing the spirit of the “old” America Online?
Whitney Grace, February 15, 2018
Google: Innovation and the European Hassle
February 15, 2018
Google is allegedly an innovator. Forget the GoTo.com, Overture, and Yahoo ad “emulation” hassle. Forget Loon balloons in Puerto Rico. Forget solving death.
Google has a way to deal with its “chat” efflorescence. Navigate to “A Google R&D Team Wants to Bring Smart Reply to All Your Chat Apps.” Okay, a meta play. What’s interesting to us in Harrod’s Creek is that engineering free time for innovation, acquihires for innovation, and Google X are not sufficiently productive in the gee whiz department.
The write up states:
The Area 120 project will offer its suggested replies right in the notifications from these chat apps. But to be clear, Reply does not offer a standalone app of its own – it’s just a way for people to respond to incoming messages.
Is an auto responder the big hit? Nope. We just flat out did not know about Area 120. Like Area 51, we assume the innovation team is off the radar.
We hypothesize that the deployment of a meta service in order to “roll up” some functionality may catch the attention of regulators in Europe. Keep in mind this is our nagging concern.
Google may have some of the deepest pockets in the world, but that might not be enough if they cannot adapt to the “new” Europe. The EU is pushing back against the search giant for unfair practices and the battle is coming to a head. One thing seems clear, Google is going to have to bend or suffer impossible sounding debts. We learned more from a recent Irish Examiner story, “Google Under Pressure to Avoid Further EU Fines.”
According to the story:
“Rivals say the search company’s offer to auction advertising space doesn’t work because Google wins most of the spots. “The US company has so far said it is giving competitors the same opportunity to show shopping ads from retailers that its own Google Shopping service gets. “Failing to comply with an EU competition order can cost up to 5% of global daily revenue.”
According to the article’s math, that’s a whopping €9.6m a day. We are sure Google doesn’t have it in the budget to incur such a hit. Google’s best solution may be to conform, but that’s not likely to be innovation as Google seems to define the word.
Stephen E Arnold, February 15, 2018
How Yahoo Made Google into a Titan
February 15, 2018
Is it possible that yesterday’s search engine giant actually gave today’s kingpin the job on a silver platter? That’s the way one former exec makes it sound when describing how Yahoo fell from grace and crashed incredibly hard. This story and more were detailed in a recent Inquisitr story, “Former Yahoo Employee: Yahoo’s Idiocy Is Hard to Exaggerate.”
According to former employee Jeremy Ring:
“Yahoo!’s leadership just didn’t see the big dollars that were in search until it was too late…” “Yahoo, in a way, made Google the titan that it is today. “Yahoo contracted out search to Google in 2000 and waited until 2004 to develop its own search technologies. It was too late by then, Google had already become the dominant player.”
It is impossible to deny that Yahoo gave up its seat at the head of the digital table. How a company that was so ubiquitous with the start of the internet revolution has fallen so far, is a little bit comic and a little bit tragic. However, the company is trying desperately to fix it all in the third act of their story. Communications giant Verizon recently bought Yahoo. Rumor has it that Verizon is wanting to get in on the content creation front, like Google is doing with YouTube. If that is the case, Yahoo could be poised for big things. Nostalgia lovers would flip to see Yahoo back in a relevant place in society, but time will tell.
Patrick Roland, February 15, 2018
Google Retains Opt-Out Option
February 15, 2018
While the desire by most organizations to land at the top of relevant Internet search results was strong enough to spawn the entire SEO profession, some entities are not so eager for traffic. Now we learn Google will continue to let sites opt out of its search results, even though the legal requirement to do so has expired. Ubergizmo reports, “Google Will Let Websites Opt Out of Surfacing in Search Results.” Writer Adnan Farooqui writes:
Google settled an antitrust investigation by the FTC back in 2012 by promising to change its behavior in several areas. The commitments it made included removing AdWords restrictions that made it harder for advertisers to run multi-platform campaigns and giving websites the option to opt out of being displayed in search results and having their content crawled. Both commitments that Google made to the FTC back in 2012 have expired as of December 27th, 201[7]. It’s under no obligation to continue honoring them but Google has said in a letter to the FTC that it will honor them. ‘We believe that these policies provide additional flexibility for developers and websites, and we will continue them as policies after the commitments expire,’ Google confirmed in the letter.
So, fear not— if you’d prefer your site not be found by drive-by Google traffic, the search engine will continue to have your back.
Cynthia Murrell, February 15, 2018
Apple and Its Snowden Moment
February 14, 2018
I don’t pay much attention to the antics of Apple, its employees, or its helpers. I did note this story in Boy Genius Report: “We Now Know Why an Apple Employee Decided to Leak Secret iPhone Code.” My take is that the trigger was a bit of the high school science club mentality and the confusion of what is straight and true with the odd ball ethos of clever, young tech wizards.
The cat is out of the bag. Removing content from Github does not solve the problem of digital information’s easy copy feature.
How will Apple handle its Snowden moment? Will the leaker flee to a friendly computing nation state like Google or Microsoft? Will the Apple iPhone code idealist hole up in a Motel 6 at SFO until the powers that be can debrief him and move him to a safe cubicle?
I think the episode suggests that insider threats are a challenge in today’s online environment. With the report that security service providers are suffering from false positives, the reality of protecting secrets is a bit different from the fog of assumption that some have about their next generation systems. I call it the “illusion of security.”
Reality is what one makes it, right?
Stephen E Arnold, February 14, 2018
News360 Confuses a Horse with Government Agency
February 14, 2018
Short honk: News360.com is a “free” headline service. You can sign up for the summary of headlines at https://news360.com. The service makes use of smart software because human editors are too darned expensive and too slow. Some human editors may be stupid.
I noted this alert on Tuesday, February 13, 2018:
Notice that the highlight specifies the “National Security Agency.” However the headline specifies “NSA Manager of Racing Operations.” Now government agencies have many interests, but in my experience, the NSA does not spend too much time on the horse thing.
Clicking on the tile reveals this story:
Notice that the source is a publication about race horses. The NSA is correctly interpreted by the online ad provider. But the News360 insists that NSA is the US government agency, not the National Steeplechase Association.
Put the spurs in that smart software.
Stephen E Arnold, February 14, 2018
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