Recorded Future in the Spotlight: An Interview with Christopher Ahlberg
April 5, 2011
It is big news when In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the US intelligence community, funds a company. It is really big news when Google funds a company. But when both of these tech-savvy organizations fund a company, Beyond Search has to take notice.
After some floundering around, ArnoldIT was able to secure a one-on-one interview with the founder of Recorded Future. The company is one of the next-generation cloud-centric analytics firms. What sets the company apart technically is, of course, the magnetism that pulled In-Q-Tel and Google to the Boston-based firm.
Mr. Ahlberg, one of the founders of Spotfire which was acquired by the hyper-smart TIBCO organization, has turned his attention to Web content and predictions. Using sophisticated numerical recipes, Recorded Future can make observations about trends. This is not fortune telling, but mathematics talking.
In my interview with Mr. Ahlberg, he said:
We set out to organize unstructured information at very large scale by events and time. A query might return a link to a document that says something like “Hu Jintao will tomorrow land in Paris for talks with Sarkozy” or “Apple will next week hold a product launch event in San Francisco”). We wanted to take this information and make insights available through a stunning user experiences and application programming interfaces. Our idea was that an API would allow others to tap into the richness and potential of Internet content in a new way.
When I probed for an example, he told me:
What we do is to tag information very, very carefully. For example, we add metatags that make explicit when we locate an item of data. We tag when that datum was published. We tag when we analyzed that datum. We also tag when we find it, when it was published, when we analyzed it, and what actual time point (past, present, future) to which the datum refers. The time precision is quite important. Time makes it possible for end users and modelers to deal with this important attribute. At this stage in our technology’s capabilities, we’re not trying to claim that we can beat someone like Reuters or Bloomberg at delivering a piece of news the fastest. But if you’re interested in monitoring, for example, the co-incidence of an insider trade with a product recall we can probably beat most at that.
To read the full text of the interview with Mr. Ahlberg click here. The interview is part of the Search Wizards Speak collection of first person narratives about search and content processing. Available without charge on the ArnoldIT.com Web site, the more than 50 interviews comprise the largest repository of first hand explanations of “findability” available.
If you want your search or content processing company featured in this interview series, write seaky2000 at yahoo dot com.
Stephen E Arnold, April 5, 2011
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People and Big Data: Analytics for Mr and Ms Couch Potato
March 24, 2011
I have to admit that the idea of big data and the “people” was a concatenation new to me. I just read “Data Science Tookit Brings Big Data Analysis to the People.” Let’s look at this snippet:
Data Science Toolkit offers OCR functionality to convert PDFs or scanned image files to text files, filter geographic locations from news articles and other types of unstructured data or find political district and neighborhood information for any given location. Data Science Toolkit is available as a web service online, but it can also be downloaded and run on an Amazon EC2 or VM virtual machine.
I live in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky. The “people” in this metropolis of a couple of thousand people consists of folks who use the Internet to look at pictures, send email, and maybe check out some online information about the local basketball scene. The sophisticated data consumers mostly work in my office. I know from my good morning chats at the local filling station cum junk food outlet that I am skewing the demographics with my generalization about Internet usage. Close enough for horse shoes as my grandfather used to say.
I think the idea of “big data” is interesting. We publish a curated blog called Inteltrax that covers some of the interesting companies in the data fusion market. But if you think interest in a $1.0 million enterprise search system appeals to a narrow readership, data fusion has the same magnetism. There are not any “people.” There are college graduates with mathematical expertise and an compelling need to process information. Here in Harrod’s Creek, the “people” are more likely to check email and then fire up the flat screen to watch hoops.
Maybe the observation about “people” is a variant of Potomac Fever; that is, those exposed to the craziness of power and money in Washington, DC, think that “everyone” has the same visceral reaction to political push ups. I once heard a person who worked in a think tank describe the firm’s discussions about client engagements as “drinking our own Kool-Aid.” Tastes great, but the Kool-Aid is not enjoyed with the same lip smacking elsewhere. When was the last time you guzzled pumpkin or red bean Kool-Aid?
My view:
- A useful service such as the one described in the write up looks a heck of a lot more magnetic than it may be. That’s the unsupported assertion about “people” when the reality is that a tiny percentage of savvy folks will get with the big data program as a Web service.
- The notion that “people” can manipulate big data and find a pot of gold at the end of the analytics rainbow is charming, but essentially incorrect. There are quiet a few considerations to evaluate in the big data game. A shortcut can save time but also put the rental car in the ditch.
- Big data are the norm in many online operations. What is helpful to me is to explain that a tiny percentage of those with big data know what to do to squeeze nuggets from the log files.
Quite a story for me: I thought it was one of those PR, promo, search engine optimization type write ups. I then realized it was a Kool-Aid break after a lunch break in Silicon Valley where there is no Internet bubble. Absolutely not.
Stephen E Arnold, March 25, 2011
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Microsoft Sends Google a Relay Valentine
February 20, 2011
Navigate to the Microsoft Web page “Why Microsoft”. The story that caught my attention was “Dear Google.” The guts of the valentine is the full text of a letter from an outfit in Paducah, Kentucky. The point of the post is to provide a case example of a Google customer’s experience with Google enterprise applications. According to the letter, the Google cloud service had some issues. The writer of the letter said:
I tried contacting you several times but each one was unsuccessful. Oh, the unrequited love! I can’t stay in a relationship if I can’t get through to you – my business needs are important too. I’ve done everything I could. We spent 18 months trying to make it work. You said you were free but in the end, the time and frustration I experienced made me see how costly you truly are. I just can’t keep pretending anymore.
Heart felt? Nasty? I don’t know. The customer support complaint is one I have heard before. The other problems? No clue. Interesting though. Kentucky. Who would have thought?
Stephen E Arnold, February 20, 2011
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Microsoft Has a Fan at Forbes
February 15, 2011
Our initial reaction to this write up was, public relations coup. The Wall Street Journal runs similar fluff on its online services as well. But the Forbes’ love fest with Microsoft warrants documenting.
Forbes’ “Why Microsoft Will Win the Small Business Cloud War” finds no fault with Redmond. The article lauds the company’s steady addition of key applications to the cloud, though products we’re used to, such as Word, Excel, and Outlook, aren’t scheduled to be there until later this year. Reasonable cost is another plus. Say Forbes, the real advantage Microsoft holds over its cloud competitors, however, lies in brand familiarity:
“[Microsoft’s] products are used and liked by millions of small business people around the world. We don’t want to change. We don’t want to learn new products to do the same things we’re already doing. We just want to do things quicker and better. As long as Microsoft makes it easy for us to adapt to the cloud we’ll go along with them.”
Fair enough. However, one key component was left out of this analysis: search was not mentioned. We want to know- how effectively will we be able to find what we’re looking for in Microsoft’s cloud? We wonder, “Will Forbes’ staff will be able to answer that question too?”
Cynthia Murrell February 15, 2011
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Microsoft Israel and the Cloud
February 11, 2011
Stories in The Globes are often wonderful, but they do go dead. Navigate to “Microsoft Israel to Recruit 100 for R&D”. The Globes reports that “Microsoft Israel president Moshe Lichtman is pumping up its work in cloud computing. The story said:
“The Microsoft Israel R&D center has 600 R&D employees. “Cloud computing is at the center of our vision. About 70% of the center’s development activity is focused on cloud computing,” Lichtman said. “This year, we will complete development of the first versions of 11 products, which will be launched on the global market.”
The Israeli branch also created a free security product that has seen millions of downloads and dominates a portion of the global free products market. The company has also developed technologies for Bing Mobile. Another star product is a feature that enables check-in via Facebook, Foursquare, and Messenger. Users can also receive messages when they’re nearing specific location, similar to a GPS. Like Google, Microsoft is expanding its footprint in Israel.
Whitney Grace, February 14, 2011
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Reading the Cloud
February 10, 2011
At the recent New England Database Summit held at MIT, a popular topic was the cloud revolution, and pundits efforts to paint a bright color on its grayish lining.
One speaker in particular, UMass Senior Researcher Emmanuel Cecchet, introduced a “system focused on dynamic provisioning of database resources in the cloud.” Named for the now noteworthy sheep, Dolly is database platform-agnostic and uses virtualization-based replication for efficiently spawning database replicas. The research, a joint venture between Cecchet, a colleague and two graduate students, identifies flaws in the way current databases engage cloud services. The group claims their creation will correct those issues; for example, by improving efficiency in the name of metered pricing.
Another area of interest in the cloud conversation covered at the conference was the increasing strain cloud computation places on databases. James Starkey, whose solution is an SQL based relational database to share the workload among varied clouds, is a former MySQL designer and founder of NimbusDB. Some interesting choices for new terms are tossed out there, all of which can be found in the linked presentation.
While versions from both presenters have been prepared for release, no date has been set, leaving the industry and users alike to speculate on the success of these endeavors. We’ve got the hype, now we just need the technology to back it up. Amazon is taking Oracle to the cloud. Salesforce is moving with Database.com. There is progress. Let’s hope that database Dolly is more robust than cloned Dolly.
Stephen E Arnold, February 10, 2011
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Synthesys Platform Beta Available
February 7, 2011
Digital Reasoning alerted us last week that a new beta program for the Synthesys Platform is available. Digital Reasoning has emerged as one of “the leader in complex, large scale unstructured data analytics.” The Synthesys platform is one of the “leaders in complex, large scale unstructured data analytics.” We have interviewed the founder of Digital Reasoning in our Search Wizards Speak series. These interviews are available on ArnoldIT.com’s Search Wizards Speak series here and here. Digital Reasoning is one of the leaders in making next-generation analytics available via the cloud, on premises, and hybrid methods.
© Digital Reasoning, 2011
This platform version of Digital Reasoning’s software will provide beta users immediate API-level access to the firm’s analytics software and access to tools that will be added through the beta program.
Matthew Russell, vice president of engineering at Digital Reasoning said:
We are excited to introduce Synthesys Platform to the market. By allowing users to upload their data into the cloud for analysis, many more users will get the opportunity to experience next generation data analytics while exploring their own data.
Digital Reasoning Systems (www.digitalreasoning.com) solves the problem of information overload by providing the tools people need to understand relationships between entities in vast amounts of unstructured and structured data.
Digital Reasoning builds data analytic solutions based on a distinctive mathematical approach to understanding natural language. The value of Digital Reasoning is not only the ability to leverage an organization’s existing knowledge base, but also to reveal critical hidden information and relationships that may not have been apparent during manual or other automated analytic efforts. Synthesys is a registered trademark of Digital Reasoning Systems, Inc.
Digital Reasoning will be exhibiting at the upcoming Strata Conference on February 28 and March 1, 2011. For more information about Digital Reasoning, navigate to the company’s Web site at www.digitalreasoning.com.
Stephen E Arnold, February 7, 2011
Reading Clouds for the Future of Databases
February 5, 2011
At the recent New England Database Summit held at MIT, a popular topic was the always controversial Cloud and the industry attempts to color its lining.
One speaker in particular, UMass Senior Researcher Emmanuel Cecchet, introduced a “system focused on dynamic provisioning of database resources in the cloud.” Named for the now noteworthy sheep, Dolly is database platform-agnostic and uses virtualization-based replication for efficiently spawning database replicas. The research, a joint venture between Cecchet, a colleague and two graduate students, identifies flaws in the way current databases engage cloud services. The group claims their creation will correct those issues e.g. by improving efficiency in the name of metered pricing.
Another area of interest in the cloud conversation covered at the conference was the increasing strain cloud computation places on databases. James Starkey, whose solution is an SQL based relational database to share the workload among varied clouds, is a former MySQL designer and founder of NimbusDB. Some interesting choices for new terms are tossed out there, all of which can be found in the linked presentation.
While versions from both presenters have been prepared for release, no date has been set, leaving the industry and users alike to speculate on the success of these endeavors. We’ve got the hype, now we just need the technology to back it up. We also want to see more information about search and retrieval. New cloud, old problems—only modest advancement.
Sarah Rogers, February 5, 2011
Freebie
Amazon and Its Cloudy Metrics
February 4, 2011
As computing based on shared resources (with the goal of channeling high performance calculation capabilities into consumer based applications) continues to gain popularity, curiosity over long range profitability and short term pest control grows increasingly more aggressive. Since 2002 with its development of cloud based services including storage, Amazon has remained an important player.
Amazon Web Services have released figures to Data Center Knowledge showing the number of “objects” their S3 service holds more than doubled over the last year—262 billion. The same entry goes on to state the request rate has exceeded two hundred thousand per second. Comparable growth has been observed concerning the launching of virtual servers through the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).
As recently as 2009 it seemed Amazon had little interest in cultivating a partner program, content to provide the infrastructure and allow others to develop applications. However as the cloud universe expands and Amazon remains at its center, the relationships which were inevitable given the physics of the new cosmos seem to be forged with a whimper rather than a bang. While details are far from obscured, at times it seems one has a better chance of catching sight of a passing comet.
Our view is that it would be more meaningful to report revenues and profit/loss. I can take a single email and decompose it into lots of objects. Without a definition of substance, what’s an object? What’s 262 billion mean.
We would like to see more emphasis placed on search; for example, easy filtering of results for certain tags such as “best selling” or “available”. Just our narrow Harrod’s Creek view sparked by the Amazon Oracle offer. How will one count Oracle metrics: data size, queries per second, index size, fairy dust, or money? We vote for money, not obfuscation.
Sarah Rogers, February 4, 2011
Autonomy: Big Cloud Announcement
February 1, 2011
Check out “Autonomy Unveils Cloud-Based Information Management Platform for Legal Market” at PR Newswire. This offering marks an important advance in the world of cloud-based information. The article explains:
“Autonomy’s cloud-based Information Management platform leverages Autonomy’s private cloud, the world’s largest private cloud with more than 17 petabytes of data. . . . The platform allows inside counsel and outside counsel, as well as service providers to collaborate on a single set of data in the cloud, eliminating the need to proliferate multiple copies of content and information handoffs across disparate networks. This unique legal chaining capability enables rapid deployment, enhanced collaboration, on-demand scalability, tighter security, and lower total cost of ownership for all parties involved.”
See the article for specifics on the platform’s modules: Work Site, Records Manager, Universal Search, Process Automation, and Conflicts Manager.
Visit here to find out more about Autonomy. The scale and integration of this SaaS product is a huge. Not only should it become a vital tool for the legal field, but it might presage similar offerings for other industries. We expect other announcements from the legal technology square dance this week in Manhattan, roost of the legal eagles.
Cynthia Murrell February 1, 2011
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