Google UX: Some Interfaces Are Little Bafflers
March 13, 2018
I read “What Google Is Learning about User Experience.” I am delighted that a giant company is “learning.”
I noted this statement:
Josh Lewandowski, lead UX researcher at YouTube, said he asks himself two questions each day he comes into work:
- “What are the desires, needs, and problems our users have that we should be anticipating?”
- “Once we know what those are, what’s the best way to solve for them?
Interesting. From my vantage point in Harrod’s Creek, Google’s user interfaces have some pock marks. There are confusing functions; for example, upload a video to YouTube. There are boxes in which one can describe the video. None of the boxes provides a maximum word count. Careless or indifference? I don’t know.
On my Android phone Google Play insists that I turn on certain features. I don’t want these features. The controls for Android OS no longer allow me to turn off updates to apps I never use. I cannot disable the annoying and distracting message about Google Play having a problem. Careless, indifference, or a larger plan to remove user controls.
In Google’s Gmail, I find it fascinating that I have to click to see my email, not just the default listing. Even better is that there are no controls to make it easy to delete junk. Even the hapless BlackBerry I had years ago, make it easy to clean up an email in box. BlackBerry!
For more words and promises, be sure to read the complete article. Do it on your mobile phone for the full experience.
Stephen E Arnold, March 12, 2018
Google Accused of Censorship
March 13, 2018
Google, Facebook, and other social media and news outlets are concerned with fake news. They have taken preliminary measures to curb false, but Live Mint says, “Google Is Filtering News For The Wrong Reason.” Google, like other news outlets and social media platforms, is a business. While it delivers products and services, its entire goal is to turn a profit. Anything that affects the bottom line, such as false information, is deemed inappropriate.
Google deemed the Russian government-owned news Web sites RT and Sputnik as false information generators, so the search engine giant has reworked its ranking algorithm. The new ranking algorithm pushes RT and Sputnik way down in news searches. Live Mint explained that this made RT and Sputnik victims, but Google does not want to ban these Web sites. Instead, Google has other ideas:
Schmidt’s words are a riff on an April post by Google vice president of engineering Ben Gomes, who teased changes to how Google searches for news. New instructions targeted “deceptive web pages” that look like news but seek to “manipulate users” with conspiracy theories, hoaxes, and inaccurate information. ‘We’ve adjusted our signals to help surface more authoritative pages and demote low-quality content,’ Gomes wrote.
The author makes a poignant argument about why it is bad for businesses to alter their services, such as a news aggregator, to avoid bad press and increase regulation on them. He also argues that false information Web sites are harmful, but it is not Google’s responsibility to censor them.
It is a good point, but when people take everything printed on the Internet as fact someone has to take the moral argument to promote the truth.
Whitney Grace, March 13, 2018
DarkCyber for March 13, 2018, Now Available
March 13, 2018
The March 13, 2018 DarkCyber video news program, produced by Stephen E Arnold, is now available. DarkCyber covers the Dark Web and lesser known Internet services.
The program is available at www.arnoldit.com/wordpress and on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/259403592.
The March 13 program explores the high-profile National Crime Agency arrest and sentencing of Matthew Falder. Mr. Falder, a faculty member at the University of Birmingham, was engaged in child pornography, blackmail, and related offenses. In the aftermath of the case, the difficulty of shutting down the Dark Web became evident to some in the United Kingdom.
Stephen E Arnold said, “The UK’s National Crime Agency has demonstrated its capabilities in data analysis of Dark Web metadata and its traditional investigative expertise. The identification, prosecution, and incarceration of an individual responsible for abuse of dozens of young people illustrates the effectiveness of the NCA’s blending of advanced technology and cyber expertise.”
DarkCyber takes a look at the information about the Defense Intelligence Agency’s National Media Exploitation Center. DarkCyber reveals that the capabilities of NMEC and other government agencies are significant and are extensible with the user of tools and methods developed by commercial firms like Cellebrite, now owned by a Japanese company.
The regulation of digital currency is gaining momentum in the US and elsewhere. Coinbase, a digital currency facilitator, has agreed to comply with a request from the US Internal Revenue Service. The IRS will receive the digital currency transaction histories of more than 10,000 Coinbase users. The door remains open for the IRS to gain access to additional transaction data. With this IRS activity, the deanonymization of digital currency transactions is underway.
DarkCyber reveals that TLS (transport layer security) certificates caught the attention of Recorded Future’s analysts. Dark Web sites are selling hijacked TLS certificates. DarkCyber provides the names of Surface Web vendors which sell legitimate certificates for about $5, a fraction of what Dark Web vendors charge.
Kenny Toth, March 13, 2018
Search History: Flipping That Digital Stone May Reveal Interesting Things
March 12, 2018
In a turn that is just about the most human thing we’ve ever heard, just as the world is on the cusp of an AI revolution, many are starting to look backward toward simpler times. We got a sideways glance at our fear of change from a PC Magazine story, “Download Your Entire Google Search History.”
The story is primarily about why on Earth anyone would want to see everything they have ever searched for. But it also touches on our desire for nostalgia in this lightning quick era:
“Users can now download their entire saved search history “to see a list of the terms you’ve searched for,” the company said. “This gives you access to your data when and where you want… For safety’s sake, don’t download past searches on a public computer—at the library, an Internet cafe, or even a friend’s house. Save the curiosity for home.”
A search history provides a useful pool of information about the user of Google search. Among the items of data which may be available are:
Time behavior signals; that is, when a person did searches and what the topics looked for in those time periods
Topic analysis; that is, what subjects did the searcher seek and how frequently were those topics queried
Link analysis; that is, what other sites were searched when a particular site was queries.
Other useful pieces of information can be extracted from a search history. When an analyst reviews the search history of the computers used by a group of people such as those individuals working on our studies of CyberOSINT, it is possible to develop a reasonable “snapshot” or “picture” of the topics we are investigating and the particular companies who products we are researching.
If you have not probed your search history, you might find that flipping over that digital rock may reveal some interesting insights.
Patrick Roland, March 12, 2018
Twitter: A Brief Guide
March 12, 2018
Twitter continues to be of interest to some of the professionals with whom the addled goose speaks. The ease with which social media can be manipulated is becoming better understood. (Note: Few ask why the algorithms used by some social media outfits are vulnerable, but that’s a question which will follow as understanding increases.)
Social media is constantly changing and just as soon as you are familiar with one search technique it is replaced with another. Twitter is not the most popular social media platform, but it continues to hold its own against Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
In some ways, Twitter is very much like other communication platforms. An “official handbook” has to be assembled by a persistent reader of blog posts, books on Amazon, and information presented in the comments to Hacker News or Reddit, however.
Now a content centric company like Espirian has drafted its own guides that share the in’s and out’s of social media, especially the best ways to search the social Web sites. Espirian wrote the, “Twitter Search: Advance Guide 2018” to help bloggers and other content curators become Twitter search experts.
Here is a short description of the guide:
“Whether you’re researching blog ideas, looking for work or just trying to find out what’s going on near you, the advanced features of Twitter search will help you find the content you need.
We noted that one useful way to to search Twitter is to access the Tweetdeck. The Tweetdeck, an app which allows its users to have a bird’s eye view of their Twitter accounts, their own tweets, others’ tweets, and their news feed. Another way to search Twitter is to access the advanced search option.
For some researchers the difficulty of performing advanced searches is frustrating. Twitter has resisted adding some metadata to its users’ accounts. Despite its quirks, Twitter can be useful for analysts, marketers, and some researchers.
Whitney Grace, March 12, 2018
Facebook Fails Discrimination Test
March 12, 2018
While racism and discrimination still plague society, the average person does not participate in it. The Internet exacerbates hatred to the point that people believe it is more powerful today than it was in the past. Social media Web sites do their best to prevent these topics from spreading by using sentiment analytics. Sentiment analytics are still in their infancy and, on more than one occasion, have proven to work against their intended purpose. TechCrunch shares that, “Facebook’s Ad System Shown Failing To Enforce Its Own Anti-Discriminatory Policy” is a recent example.
Facebook demands to be allowed to regulate themselves when it comes to abuse of their services, such as ads. Despite the claims that Facebook can self-regulate itself, current events have proven the contrary. The article points to Facebook’s claim that it disabled its ethnic affinity ad targeting for employment, housing, and credit. ProPublica ran a test case by creating fake rental housing ads. What did they discover? Facebook continues to discriminate:
However instead of the platform blocking the potentially discriminatory ad buys, ProPublica reports that all its ads were approved by Facebook “within minutes” — including an ad that sought to exclude potential renters “interested in Islam, Sunni Islam and Shia Islam”. It says that ad took the longest to approve of all its buys (22 minutes) — but that all the rest were approved within three minutes.
It also successfully bought ads that it judged Facebook’s system should at least flag for self-certification because they were seeking to exclude other members of protected categories. But the platform just accepted housing ads blocked from being shown to categories including ‘soccer moms’, people interested in American sign language, gay men and people interested in wheelchair ramps.
Facebook reiterated its commitment to anti-discrimination and ProPublica responds that if an outside research team was called to regulate Facebook then these ads would never have reached the Web. Maybe Facebook should follow Google’s example and higher content curators to read every single ad to prevent the bad stuff from getting through.
Whitney Grace, March 12, 2018
Short Honk: Publishers Are Financially Aware, Well, Sort Of
March 11, 2018
I assume that “Hedge Fund Alden Siphoned 100s of Millions from Newspapers in Scheme to Gamble on Other Investments, Suit Says” is accurate. If not, the write up underscores the state of “real” journalism. If the article is accurate, it underscores the state of “real” news business expertise. Interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, March 11, 2018
Short Honk: Palantir Technologies and DCGS
March 10, 2018
I don’t know if the information in “Army Taps Raytheon, Palantir for Potential $876M Ground Intell system Support Contract.” The Beyond Search and Dark Cyber teams will monitor the subject. The GovConWire stated on March 9, 2018:
Raytheon and Palantir Technologies have won spots on a potential 10-year, $876 million contract to help the U.S. Army address technology requirements for the service branch’s Distributed Common Ground System.
If on the money, this is big news. Our perception was that Palantir was not in the DCGS winner’s circle. Looks like IBM and its technology partners have to adapt.
Stephen E Arnold, March 10, 2018
Alphabet Google: The Personnel Slide Down Continues
March 9, 2018
Google is one of the top technology companies in the world and their services are employed on nearly every computer, phone, and tablet. Google is at the most innovative when it comes to developing new technology, but a former Google insider said the opposite. Steve Yegge writing for Medium explains his Google experience in his article, “Why I Left Google To Join Grab.”
Yegge loved Google and still considered it to be one of the best places in the world to work, but he left for some good reasons:
“The main reason I left Google is that they can no longer innovate. They’ve pretty much lost that ability. I believe there are several contributing factors, of which I’ll list four here. First, they’re conservative…Second, they are mired in politics, which is sort of inevitable with a large enough organization; the only real alternative is a dictatorship, which has its own downsides. Third, Google is arrogant…But fourth, last, and probably worst of all, Google has become 100% competitor-focused rather than customer focused.”
Google has reached the apex of its innovative spirit and has gone the way over all corporations and, arguably, politicians. Google has grown so big and powerful, hires the top players in the field, and controls so many products/services that it does not want to lose face, its employees have ego problems, and they serve the almighty dollar. It is a repetitious pattern that has been playing out for ages. One of the greatest examples was the British Empire. The British Empire became so big and powerful that the resources were spread too thin, the ruling parties were arrogant, the subjects suffered, and those in power never wanted it to change. It sounds like Google, does it not?
Yegge then talked about the new endeavor called Grab and stresses the importance of keeping your ear to the ground in order to make and grow a business. Google has gotten too big, but it still has a lot of powerful and it will be awhile before it falls. Another company will pick up the slack. Someone always does.
Whitney Grace, March 9, 2018
Smart Software and Keeping Track of AI
March 9, 2018
There has not been a standard to measure artificial intelligence’s progress in the technology field. AI has progressed so rapidly over the past two decades that a Stanford group decided to create their own standard called AI100 index that will be the comprehensive baseline for the state of artificial intelligence. Stanford’s Engineering magazine details the new standard in the article, “A New Artificial Intelligence Index Tracks The Emerging Field.”
Rich and Mary Horvitz established the AI100 in 2014 with the purpose of predicting AI’s effects on a 2030 urban environment. While working on their AI100 index, the pair discovered that there has been a dramatic increase in startups and improvement in AI’s to mimic human behavior. The AI100 is meant to be a measurement tool to chart progress and encourage conversation about the field’s potential. The AI100 pulls information for many sources:
“The AI Index tracks and measures at least 18 independent vectors in academia, industry, open-source software and public interest, plus technical assessments of progress toward what the authors call “human-level performance” in areas such as speech recognition, question-answering and computer vision – algorithms that can identify objects and activities in 2D images. Specific metrics in the index include evaluations of academic papers published, course enrollment, AI-related startups, job openings, search-term frequency and media mentions, among others.”
While the AI100 pulls information from scientific and technology communities, it also draws information from the Social Progress Index, Middle East peace index, and the Bangladesh empowerment index.
The AI index will be a historical document and could also help predict future trends in the AI field. As long as it is maintained, the AI index will more than likely become integral to the industry.
Whitney Grace, March 9, 2018
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