Patents March On Despite Pandemic
January 27, 2021
Even during a pandemic, inventors shall invent. What is uncertain is how many of those ideas will eventually make it to fruition. GeekWire reports, “U.S. Patent Rankings: Amazon Moved Up List as Effects from Pandemic on Innovation Still Unknown.” The article points to IFI Claims Patent Services’ annual list of the top 50 patent recipients in the U.S. IFI pulls its data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Writer Taylor Soper summarizes:
“Despite a global pandemic, U.S. patent grants were down less than 1% year-over-year, and patent applications were up nearly 5%. But the effects of the health crisis on innovation progress may not be known for another 18 months due to the long patenting process, according to Mike Baycroft, CEO of IFI CLAIMS Patent Services.”
The article also cites Microsoft’s Peter Lee, who notes the lack of in-person collaboration during 2020 could affect the pace of innovation. IFI reports a few of the fastest-growing technologies appear to be computer systems based on biological models, machine learning, quantum computing, autonomous navigation, and 3D printing. Soper continues,
“IBM continues to dominate U.S. patent rankings; Microsoft is holding steady in the top 10; and Amazon is making a move up the list. IBM had the most patent grants in 2020 with 9,130, followed by Samsung Electronics, Canon, Microsoft, and Intel. Apple ranked No. 8, while Amazon moved up four spots to No. 11, even though its 2020 grants dropped 8% from the previous year. Google came in at No. 17 and Facebook was No. 38. Some of Amazon’s eye-catching patent grants last year included a launch system for snapping payloads into the air; drones that pull skiers and surfers; and robots that drop off bunches of items on delivery routes.”
Eye-catching indeed. Amazon famously searches in every direction for its next big buck. We wonder: Is there a direct correlation between number of patents and financial return, or is an increase in patent activity during a time of social stress an indicator of commitment to staking out knowledge claims? And what about that USPTO patent search system? A gem I tell you.
Cynthia Murrell, January 27, 2021
Humble Brag or Majestic Wisdom: The Waymo Method of Dealing with Pesky Tesla
January 27, 2021
John Krafcik (a Googler) is the head of Waymo. That’s a name which means one get “way more” than from any other outfit. Get it? Cool?
“Waymo CEO Dismisses Tesla Self Driving Plan: This Is Not How It Works” contains some interesting and allegedly true factoids. I found this passage thought provoking:
Waymo CEO John Krafcik dismissed Tesla as a Waymo competitor and argued that Tesla’s current strategy was unlikely to ever produce a fully self-driving system. “For us, Tesla is not a competitor at all,” Krafcik said. “We manufacture a completely autonomous driving system. Tesla is an automaker that is developing a really good driver assistance system.”
Furthermore, the Google Waymo entity “rejected Tesla’ strategy years ago.” The GOOG approach? This is a characterization:
They [the Waymo experts who deliver way more] focused on building a self-driving taxi service that would never have customers in the driver’s seat…
Both approaches are interesting, but perhaps a more pragmatic approach would be to design roads that reduce the need to create really smart software. Leave a special road, and the humanoid takes over driving chores. One Highway 101, kick back and let Tesla and Waymo deliver way more than some drivers expect.
Way more than stock lift, and Google’s need to declare quantum supremacy and its greatness again an again. But, on the other hand, it’s just a down-home, mom-and-pop operation with a love for advertising and self promotion.
Stephen E Arnold, January 27, 2021
IBM: Watson, What Is Going On?
January 27, 2021
I want to keep this brief. IBM is a company anchored in the past, and its management is demonstrating that agility, pivoting, buzzwords, and sci-fi technology are not working in the money department. “International Business Machines : IBM Shares Are an Anomaly in a Hot Tech Sector” like hearing Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” in a karaoke bar in Osaka.
Does this sound familiar? It seems as if Market Screener is recycling boilerplate:
The simple answer for IBM’s stock performance? It hasn’t delivered the growth expected of technology companies. Although IBM snapped a 22-quarter streak of falling sales in January 2018, briefly reviving some investors’ hopes for a successful turnaround, it has largely failed to post strong results since then, trailing behind rivals like Amazon and Microsoft in the cloud computing business.
Is it fair to compare IBM with Amazon, Google, or any other digital dervish? No. A more apt comparison should be drawn with other companies anchored in adding machines and mainframes.
If we ask Watson, what do we get?
Answer: A link to a news item about Watson winning jeopardy. Interesting but not what the stakeholders need.
Stephen E Arnold, January 27, 2021
Financial Guru: Cryptocurrency Observation of Note
January 27, 2021
Years ago I ran across an orthogonal financial thinker named Nouriel Roubini, a consultant, financial type, and professor at New York University. He wrote an essay called the “Great Crypto Heist.” The essay is behind a paywall dutifully constructed by the estimable Financial News of London wizards. With digital currency in the news, I spotted a passage in the essay I found interesting. Herewith is the snippet:
It is high time that US and other law-enforcement agencies stepped in.So far, regulators have been asleep at the wheel as the crypto cancerhas metastasized. According to one study, 80% of “initial coinofferings” in 2017 were scams. At a minimum, Hayes and all theothers overseeing similar rackets from offshore safe havens should beinvestigated, before millions more retail investors get scammed intofinancial ruin. Even US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin –no fan of financial regulation – agrees that cryptocurrencies mustnot be allowed to “become the equivalent of secret numberedaccounts”, which have long been the preserve of terrorists,gangsters, and other criminals.
Are regulators asleep at the switch?
Stephen E Arnold, January 27, 2021
Online Immortality: Suddenly Death Makes Digital Headlines
January 26, 2021
I was surprised. Yes, I was. I read three news stories within a few minutes of their appearing in my newsfeed.
The first — “AI Resurrects Legendary Spanish Singer to Hawk Beer” — explains that Lola Flores appeared in a commercial. No big deal except that Lola Flores died a quarter century ago. The article reports:
The company recreated her voice, face, and features using hours of audiovisual material, more than 5,000 photos, and a painstaking composition and post-production process, according to El País.
Some people found the recreation or deep fake quite sporty. Of course, smart software was used, but the implications for those dead are interesting to ponder. Thumb typers, activate your mobiles!
The second was “Microsoft Patent Details Tech That Could Turn Dead People into AI Chatbots.” The write up explains:
The patent, titled “Creating a conversational chatbot of a specific chatbot of a specific person,” details a system that would access images, voice data, social media posts, electronic messages and the like to “create or modify a special index in the theme of the specific person’s personality.” In some cases, images and video could be used to create a 3D model of the person for extra realism.
Use cases range from a smart chatbot which reminds a 20 year old remote worker for a high tech company to pick up his / her clothes to a digital companion to provide support and solace when life delivers a surprise; for example, “You know you should have taken that other job. No what, smarty pants?” If you want to read the system and method behind this innovative idea hinted at by sci-fi writers, the number is US010853717. Is that my mother saying, “Stephen, tidy your desk. You know what they say about loose papers on desk or did you forget? Like you forget the garbage.”
The third write up was “Backed by Vint Cerf, Emortal Wants to Protect Your Digital Legacy from Bit-Rot.” None of that grieving family member learning via email that Facebook will not permit access to the beloved one’s account. The write up explains:
The company will use Google architecture to preserve digital memories — photographs, documents, correspondence, videos, interviews and more – indefinitely into the future. The idea is that this will ensure that as operating systems, devices and tech evolves, your entire digital legacy will remain safe, secure and accessible — to only those you choose.
The possibility are endless; for instance, targeted advertising for digital mementos, eBay listings for vehicles just like the one the loved one used to drive, and facial recognition matches from social media sites so the loved ones can locate a suitable doppelgänger.
Mashing up these services with virtual reality might provide additional opportunities for monetization. Just as one can insert Bernie Sanders into any Google Street View location, these digital constructs can enhance real time constructs. For information about the Bernie app, navigate to Engadget.
The added bonus: Search engine optimization specialists can use their methods to make sure one’s loved one pops up. Hmmm. That’s not a good phrase but it is close enough for a 2021 cornhole game.
Stephen E Arnold, January 26, 2021
CFOs and Their Digital Competencies: Ah, Ha, Forget Taxes and Demonstrating Revenue Growth
January 26, 2021
No joke. The title of this write up is serious, or as serious as mid tier consulting firms’ experts can be. “Gartner Details the Five Digital Competencies CFOs Must Wield in 2021” does not mention Excel. I assume that CFOs are pretty good at that software. After all, one cannot catch spreadsheet fever and generate charts showing exponential revenue growth without the child of the long-dead VisiCalc.
What are these digital competencies? In order to avoid allegations that I am carjacking these ideas, I shall mention three and direct you to the original article in CFO Tech. Here we go:
CFOs have to be technologically literate. That’s a noble goal. I am confident that quantum computing cooling technologies, the spectrum result from vector computations, and security technology employed by SolarWinds-type companies are directly germane to the CFO job. But it seems to be a safe generalization, particularly to thumb typing MBAs fresh from their second failed start up.
Digital learning is another gem. I wonder how many CFOs are paying for their kids’ college education which now includes sitting in a dorm or the family basement watching Zoom. How is that for value. With meet and greet conferences struggling in the time of Covid, how else will a CFO learn. Zoom, reading books by Ivy League economists, or talking with their friends in the financial sector? I go with Zoom. So digital learning. Yeah, revelation.
The final digital competency I will highlight is a wonderful consulting jargon word weirdness thing: Digital ambition. No, I don’t know what that means. That’s why one hires consultants from mid tier consulting firms.
For the other digital competencies check out the original write up. There is one which is not part of the Google management play book and one that converts a numbers person into a performer at a TED conference.
Just don’t forget to show revenue growth and cost suppression. That applies to both CFOs and mid tier consultants. Yeah, digital ambition.
Stephen E Arnold, January 26, 2021
Smart Software: Definitely More Exciting than a COBOL Accounting System
January 26, 2021
I found “A Closer Look at the AI Incident Database of Machine Learning Failures” for the jejune write up contains pointers to some useful resources: Resource which remind one that software mostly functions in ways which confound users.
The article contains an interesting statement from a smart software expert. Here’s the passage I found interesting. The “McGregor” is Sean McGregor, lead technical consultant for the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE, an individual exposed to the exceptional performance of IBM’s really smart software:
McGregor points out that the behavior of traditional software is usually well understood, but modern machine learning systems cannot be completely described or exhaustively tested. Machine learning derives its behavior from its training data, and therefore, its behavior has the capacity to change in unintended ways as the underlying data changes over time. “These factors, combined with deep learning systems capability to enter into the unstructured world we inhabit means malfunctions are more likely, more complicated, and more dangerous,” McGregor says.
No wonder Google seems to be rethinking its approach to in house, full time, Googlers who want to bring “ethics” to an engineering problem. Maybe ethics and smart software go beyond the non digital world of dudes like Immanuel Kant. I would hypothesize that Kant probably could land a job in Google’s Berlin office.
Stephen E Arnold, January 26, 2021
The Silicon Valley Way: Working 16 Hour Days in Four Hours?
January 26, 2021
Years ago I worked at a couple of outfits which expected professionals to work more than eight hours a day. At the nuclear outfit, those with an office, a helper (that used to be called a “secretary”), and ill-defined but generally complicated tasks were to arrive about 8 am and head out about six pm. At the blue chip consulting firm, most people were out of the office during “regular” working hours; that is, 9 am to 5 pm. Client visits, meetings, and travel were day work. Then after 5 pm or whenever before the next day began professionals had to write proposals, review proposals, develop time and cost estimates, go to meetings with superiors, and field odd ball phone calls (no mobiles, thumb typers. These phones had buttons, lights, and spectacular weird interfaces). During the interview process at the consulting outfit, sleek recruiters in face-to-face meetings would reference 60 hour work weeks. That was a clue, but one often had to show up early Saturday morning to perform work. The hardy would show up on Sunday afternoon to catch up.
Imagine my reaction when I read “Report: One Third of Tech Workers Admit to Working Only 3 to 4 Hours a Day.” I learned:
- 31% of professionals from 42 tech companies…said they’re only putting in between three and four hours a day
- 27% of tech professionals said they work five to six hours a day
- 11% reported only working one to two hours per day
- 30% said they work between seven and 10 hours per day.
The data come from an anonymous survey and the statistical procedures were not revealed. Hence, the data may be wonky.
One point is highly suggestive. The 30 percent who do more are the high performers. With the outstanding management talent at high technology companies, why aren’t these firms terminating the under performing 70 percent? (Oh, right some outfits did try the GE way. Outstanding.)
My question is, “For the 30 percent who are high performers, why are you working for a company. Become a contractor or an expert consultant. You can use that old school Type A behavior for yourself?”
Economic incentives? The thrill of super spreader events on Friday afternoon when beer is provided? Student loans to repay? Work is life?
I interpret the data another way. Technology businesses have a management challenge. Measuring code productivity, the value of a technology insight, and the honing of an algorithm require providing digital toys, truisms about pushing decisions down, and ignoring the craziness resulting from an engineer acting without oversight.
Need examples? Insider security threats, a failure to manage in a responsible manner, and a heads down effort to extract maximum revenue from customers.
In short, the work ethic quantified.
Stephen E Arnold, January 26, 2021
DarkCyber for January 26, 2021, Now Available
January 26, 2021
DarkCyber is a twice-a-month video news program. The stories cover cyber crime, lesser known Internet services, and online. The feature in the January 26, 2021, program is a conversation between Ric Manning, a former Gannett technology columnist and author, and Stephen E Arnold, author of CyberOSINT: Next Generation Information Access. Arnold and Manning talk about the online implications of deplatforming users. Manning points out that protections extended to online platforms free the managers from the constraints in which other media are enmeshed. Arnold points out that government involvement is likely to take place and have significant unforeseen consequences.
Others stories in this program are the deanonymization of digital currency users, a book of algorithms selected for their usefulness in intelligence analysis, and our mini-feature about drones. This week, learn about the flying ginsu knife.
You can view the video at www.arnoldit.com/wordpress or at this url on YouTube.
Kenny Toth, January 26, 2021
Alphabet Google Spells Union: Labor Stuff, Not AdWords for Union College, Union Pizza, or Union Bank
January 25, 2021
I wonder if the information in this Silicon Valley-type write up is accurate:
Exclusive: Google Workers across the Globe Announce International Union Alliance to Hold Alphabet Accountable. (Verified on January 25, 2021, at 1020 am US Eastern)
You can find the link to the story at this location.
The subtitle is interesting too:
Alpha Global includes workers from 10 countries, including the United States and Germany
My recollection is that Germany is “into” workers’ rights, representatives on boards of directors, and labor organizing activities.
The write up asserts:
Minority unions like AWU get their power by building worker solidarity. The structure allows AWU to include Google contractors as well as full-time employees, but it also means the union isn’t currently recognized by the National Labor Relations Board, and can’t force Google management to negotiate.
If true, Alphabet Google has additional management issues to resolve with its algorithm-centric, big data, and technology-centric systems and methods.
These have worked like a Timex watch for a number of years. You recall the ad, “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.”
The ad reference may be appropriate because Google search results for union displayed links to a college, a pizza joint, and a bank. Not much about unions like those in Germany, which are recognized. Unrecognized unions don’t buy ads with the frequency of the aforementioned college, pizza joint, and bank.
Worth monitoring. Perhaps try queries on The links were about organizing workers.
Stephen E Arnold, January 25, 2021
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