Saudi Arabia: No China for Google
February 5, 2018
I read “Alphabet Set to Power Major Saudi Arabia Tech Expansion.” Google has not been able to get US scale traction in China. Perhaps it was due to a business misstep or the “viewpoint from the Middle Kingdom.”
If the information in ITPortal’s article is accurate, Google wants to be a very good partner for Saudi Arabia via Aramco.
I learned:
Alphabet is planning a major expansion in Saudi Arabia that could see the region emerge as the next significant technology centre.
Innovation is alive and well in the Middle East.
Alphabet, the parent of Google, will:
see Alphabet assist Aramco in building data centers across Saudi Arabia, although it’s not know exactly what function these facilities would aid just yet.
United Arab Emirates also has an innovation push underway.
Will Alphabet Google be able to nurture its new relationship? Worth watching because suggestions for changes a company should make offered by Googlers may have interesting consequences.
St4ephen E Arnold, February 5, 2018
Google Translate Gets a Needs Improvement on Its Translation System
February 5, 2018
I read “The Shallowness of Google.” The critique is not from a trendy start up in Silicon Valley or an academic who flopped in a Google interview. The analysis is by Douglas Hofstadter. if the name does not ring a bell, this is the fellow who wrote Gödel, Escher, Bach, a quite fun read.
The main point of the write up is that Google’s implementation of its artificial intelligence and machine learning technology for Google Translate is bad.
Google wants to be perceived as the alpha dog in smart software. Do you want to take this canine’s kibble? Google can bite even thought it may not get the whole “idea” and “understanding” behind a reprimand.
Mr. Hofstadter writes:
Having ever more “big data” won’t bring you any closer to understanding, since understanding involves having ideas, and lack of ideas is the root of all the problems for machine translation today. So I would venture that bigger databases—even vastly bigger ones—won’t turn the trick.
The idea is that “understanding” is not baked into Google Translate. In addition to providing examples of screwing up translations from French, German, and Chinese, Google Translate does not look up information in Google Search. Mr. Hofstadter does.
He points out:
Google Translate can’t understand web pages, although it can translate them in the twinkling of an eye.
He correctly observes:
As long as the text in language B is somewhat comprehensible, many people feel perfectly satisfied with the end product. If they can “get the basic idea” of a passage in a language they don’t know, they’re happy.
Mr. Hofstadter touches upon two issues, which another informed critic might convert to a write up in the Atlantic:
- Google is simply delivering “good enough” services. The object is advertising, not outputting on point products and services for a tiny fraction of its user base
- Google’s hype about its smart software is only slightly less off-the-wall than the marketing of IBM Watson. The drum beat for smart software is necessary to attract young programmers who might otherwise defect to Amazon or other Google competitors and to further the illusion that Google’s technology is magical, maybe otherworldly and definitely the alpha dog in the machine learning Iditarod.
The write up is worth reading. However, I would not run it through Google Translate if you prefer to ingest the article in one of Google Translate’s supported languages.
And for a person going through the Google interview process, it is not a plus to suggest that Google’s technology might be little more than a C or possible an F. Rah rah is a better choice.
That’s why we love Google Translate here in Harrod’s Creek, but we have switched to Free Translations.org since Google implemented a word limit.
Stephen E Arnold, February 5, 2018
Data Governance is the Hot Term in Tech Now
February 5, 2018
Data governance is a headache many tech companies have to juggle with. With all the advances in big data and search, how can we possibly make sense of this rush of information? Thankfully, there are new data governance advances that aim to help. We learned more from a recent Top Quadrant story, “How Does SHACL Support Data Governance.”
According to the story:
“SHACL (SHAPES Constraint Language) is a powerful, recently released W3C standard for data modeling, ontology design, data validation, inferencing and data transformation. In this post, we explore some important ways in which SHACL can be used to support capabilities needed for data governance.
Below, each business capability or value relevant to data governance is introduced with a brief description, followed by an explanation of how the capability is supported by SHACL, accompanied by a few specific examples from the use of SHACL in TopBraid Enterprise Data Governance.
So, governance is a great way for IT and business to communicate better and wade through the data. Others are starting to take notice and SHACL is not just the only solution. In fact, there are a wealth of options available, you just have to know where to look. Regardless, your business is going to have to take governance seriously and it’s better to start sooner than later.
Patrick Roland, February 5, 2018
OpenText Wants to Be the Big Dog in Cyber Security
February 4, 2018
My wife and I rescued a French bull dog. We also have a boxer, which is three times the size of the rescued canine. The rescued canine thinks he is a bull mastiff. We believe that the French bull dog has a perception problem.
Here’s a quote from “OpenText Enfuse 2018 To Showcase The Future of Cybersecurity and Digital Investigations”:
OpenText’s industry leading digital investigation, forensic security and data risk management solutions are defining the future of cybersecurity, digital investigations and e-Discovery, and serve to extend the security capabilities of OpenText’s leading information management platform.”
I noticed this statement at the bottom of the “real” news story:
Certain statements in this press release may contain words considered forward-looking statements or information under applicable securities laws.
I think our French bull dog might say something like this when he tries to impose his will on Max, our large, strong, aggressive boxer.
In the cyber marketplace, will IBM i2 roll over and play dead? Will Palantir Technologies whimper and scamper back to Philz Coffee? Will the UAE vendor DarkMatter get into the pizza business? Will the Google and In-Q-Tel funded Recorded Future decide that real estate development is where the action is?
Forward looking? Yeah, no kidding.
Stephen E Arnold, February 4, 2018
Whois: A Frustrating Search Experience
February 3, 2018
It’s a complicated moment to be starting any business, especially if you have a domain finding WHOIS site. These tools for tracking down owners of web sites might be under fire, but that hasn’t stopped Zeit from trying. We discovered this startup at its website, under the title: “Domains Search for Web: Instant, Serverless, And Global.”
According to the site:
“We also knew we wanted the user’s search to feel instant and effortless. As the user types, we want to start dispatching queries to get the data from our services as soon as possible, and similarly render them as soon as they become available to the user. With this in mind, we would have to embrace asynchrony at every level of the stack.”
We love Zeit’s user-friendly approach. We just worry how long a business like this can stay afloat. This stems from the recent news that WHOIS sites are under threat of going dark. The General Data Protection Regulation could drastically change or shutter this niche online industry. We are certain that where regulation closes a door, innovators open a window, but we’d be sweating a little if we started a WHOIS site today.
Patrick Roland, February 3, 2018
Digital Currencies: Now You Have It, Now You Do Not
February 2, 2018
We noted an interesting assertion in “Cryptocurrency ICOs: It’s Impossible to Police What You Can’t See.” The passage points attention to the ease with which initial coin offerings and tokens can be converted into “scams.” We noted:
ICOs have paved the way for so-called “exit scams,” in which fake companies launch an ICO and make off with investor proceeds. BitConnect is one of the latest companies which wound up its exchange operations, crashing the price of its BitConnect Coin (BCC) in the process. Investors were promised converted funds in BCC, but as their original investment had to be made in ETH, they have suffered countless losses as BCC’s value crashed and burned, leading many to believe the whole system was a scam — and one, unfortunately, which has cost its investors millions of dollars.
We loved this quote, attributed to Arianne King, managing partner and Solicitor Advocate of Al Bawardi Critchlow:
“It’s hard to police what you can’t even see.”
The Beyond Search DarkCyber research team would like to point out that modest strides have been made in deanonymizing some activities related to digital currencies.
The write up pointed out:
Investor cryptocurrency funds can be whisked away to multiple wallets and potentially “washed” through Dark Web services to become extremely difficult to track, and without cold, hard currency in a scammer’s bank account, little can be done.
Online is an interesting “environment,” fostering fake news, teen anxiety, and good old fashioned fraud.
Stephen E Arnold, February 2, 2018
An Upside to Fake Data
February 2, 2018
We never know if “data” are made up or actual factual. Nevertheless, we read “How Fake Data Can Help the Pentagon Track Rogue Weapons.” The main idea from our point of view is predictive analytics which can adapt to that which has not yet happened. We circled this statement from the company with the contract to make “fake” data useful under a US government contract:
IvySys Founder and Chief Executive Officer James DeBardelaben compared the process to repeatedly finding a needle in a haystack, but making both the needle and haystack look different every time. Using real-world data, agencies can only train algorithms to spot threats that already exist, he said, but constantly evolving synthetic datasets can train tools to spot patterns that have yet to occur.
Worth monitoring IvySys at https://www.ivysys.com/.
Stephen E Arnold, February 2, 2018
Google Has Its Own Browser History
February 2, 2018
Have you ever wanted to look at your past Google searches, but did not want to go through your browser history? Google has a new feature that will allow users to see their recent searches. Search Engine Land reports that “Google Home Page Search Box Now Shows You Recent Searches By Default” and it is a super option. Super annoying, that is. Whenever you use Google search, a default dropdown appears before you even enter text into the search box.
Even former Google search executive Matt Cutts said this “new feature” is super annoying. He tried to opt out of it, but could not find the opt-out option. Search Engine Land sent Google an email to see what the scoop was. They discovered that even Google found the automatic browser history box annoying. Here is Google’s official response:
Google has confirmed with Search Engine Land that this is not the behavior they want and it was likely a bug. “We launched the ability to see past searches by clicking the search box earlier this year. However, past searches should not be appearing immediately on page load, so we are working to fix this issue,” a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land.
All right, Google! You admitted a mistake and provided a solution. Now can you do something about the fake news stories that are plaguing Google News?
Whitney Grace, February 2, 2018
More Artificial Intelligence Fright
February 1, 2018
Is artificial intelligence a bigger development than electricity or fire? Google CEO Sundar Pichai thinks so. In fact, he warns that if not harnessed correctly, AI could be more deadly than fire. We got the full scoop from a recent Newsweek story, “What’s Bigger Than Fire and Electricity? Artificial Intelligence, Says Google Boss.”
According to the story:
“Pichai went on to warn of the potential dangers associated with developing advanced AI, saying that developers need to learn to harness its benefits in the same way humanity did with fire. My point is AI is really important, but we have to be concerned about it.
Scary stuff straight out of a sci-fi novel. Or is it? Investopedia looked deeper into the future and found a mixed bag that has us more than a little concerned. They found that we can relax, because ultimately AI is controlled by electricity and as long as we have control of power we can cut off their source of energy (Warning to power companies: Don’t give your robots the keys!). However, the story continues with a closing thought that mirrors our own—that, yeah, humans are going to push this thing as far as it will go and ultimately suffer some sort of consequence.
What might be more terrifying is the impact of ad centric search results. With more than 2,000 companies in the AI game, we wonder, “What’s winning mean?”
Patrick Roland, February 1, 2018
Artificial Intelligence Logo Map
February 1, 2018
We love logo maps. We wanted to share Venture Scanner’s latest creation. The full set of “logos” allegedly consists of 2,029 icons with data about each of the forward leaning companies to which a logo is attached.
Venture Scanner sells a report. Contact the firm at www.venturescanner.com. That’s a lot of AI logos.
Stephen E Arnold, February 1, 2018
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