Software Market Begs for Integration Issue Relief

July 2, 2015

A recent report proves what many users already know: integrating an existing CMS with new and emerging software solutions is difficult. As quickly as software emerges and changes, users are finding that hulking overgrown CMS solutions are lagging behind in terms of agility. SharePoint is no stranger to this criticism. Business Solutions offers more details in their article, “ISVs: Study Shows Microsoft SharePoint Is Open To Disruption.”

A report from Software Advice surveyed employees that use content management systems (CMS) on a daily basis and found 48 percent had considerable problems integrating their CMS with their other software solutions. The findings mirror a recent AIIM report that found only 11 percent of companies experienced successful Microsoft SharePoint implementation . . . The results of this report indicate that the CMS market is ripe for disruption if a software vendor could solve the integration issues typically associated with SharePoint.”

No doubt, Microsoft understands the concerns and perceived threats, and will attempt to solve some of the issue with the upcoming release of SharePoint Server 2016. However, the fact remains that SharePoint is a big ship to turn, and change will not be dramatic or happen overnight. In the meantime, stay on top of the latest news for tips, tricks, and third-party solutions that may ease some of the pain. Look to Stephen E. Arnold and his SharePoint feed on ArnoldIT.com in order to stay in touch without a huge investment in time.

Emily Rae Aldridge, July 2, 2015

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph

Meatbags Prevent Google’s Self-Driving Car

July 2, 2015

Driving is a privilege not a right…for humans and Google wants it for its self-driving carsGoogle, however, is still in the test phasing for its self-driving cars and announced that they would publish results of the study on a monthly basis.  They first report recently came out and it says that Google cars were in twelve accidents when they were on real roads.  The Register takes a snarky, informative approach to self-driving cars in “Google: Our Self-Driving Cars Would Be Tip-Top If You Meatheads Didn’t Crash Into Them.”

Google has twenty-three Lexus SUVs that have driven 1,011,338 miles with the self-driving software and 796, 250 miles with a human behind the wheel.  Many of the cars have taken to the real road, but nine are still restricted to the private track.

Google blames all twelve of the accidents on human error, not the software, and it is due to either the human driver in the autonomous car or the driver in the other car.  The Google cars, being rear-ended from driving too slow, caused seven accidents.  One accident was due to the Google car braking trying to avoid a collision and two more were when non-Google cars failed to obey traffic signs.  The worst accident caused when a Google car was driving at 63 mph and was sideswiped by a car changing lanes.  No one was hurt.  The last two accidents were the fault of Google’s employees: both accidents resulted in Google cars rear-ending the cars in front of them.

Google is quick to point out the software’s positive aspects:

“The report also highlighted some of the smarter aspects of the cars’ software. Google cars can identify emergency vehicles, for example, and automatically give way in a fashion many fleshy drivers are irritatingly unwilling to do.  The other example given was Google cars dealing with cyclists who didn’t obey the rules of the road. One cyclist veered in front of the car at night, and the software was clever enough to stop immediately to avoid a crash.”

Google will have its cars drive ten thousand miles a week on the software.  A recent luxury car ad campaign was critical of the self-driving car, saying people want the luxury of driving themselves with all the benefits of said luxury car.  It will be the TV vs. radio battle again, but the one thing holding back the self-driving car will be human error.  Stupid, stupid humans.

Whitney Grace, July 2, 2015

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph

ClearStory Is On the Move

July 1, 2015

The article on Virtual-Strategy Magazine titled ClearStory Data Appoints Dr. Timothy Howes as Chief Technology Offiver; Fromer Vice President of Yahoo, CTO of HP Software, Opsware, and Netscape discusses Howe’s reputation as an innovative thinker who helped invent LDAP. His company Rockmelt Inc. was acquired by Yahoo and he also co-founded Loudcloud, which is now known as Opsware, with the founders of VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, who are current backers of ClearStory Data. Needless to say, obtaining his services is quite a coup for ClearStory. Howe discusses his excitement to join the team in the article,

“There’s a major technology shift happening in the data market right now as businesses want to see and explore more data faster. ClearStory is at the forefront of delivering the next-generation data analysis platform that brings Spark-powered, fast-cycle analysis to the front lines of business in a beautiful, innovative user experience that companies are in dire need of today,” said Howes. “The ClearStory architectural choices made early on, coupled with the focus on an elegant, collaborative user model is impressive.”

The article also mentions that Ali Tore, formerly of Model N, has been named the new Chief Product Officer. Soumitro Tagore of the startup Clari will become the VP of Engineering and Development Operations. ClearStory Data is intent on the acceleration of the movement of data for businesses. Their Intelligent Data Harmonization platform allows data from different sources to be quickly and insightfully explored.

Chelsea Kerwin, July 1, 2014

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph

Microsoft Puts the Cloud First with SharePoint Server 2016

June 30, 2015

Discussion of the cloud seems to push users into two camps: for and against. While hybrid is probably truly the way of the future, folks are still currently either of the “love it” or “hate it” variety. Redmond Magazine has provided good ongoing coverage of the upcoming SharePoint Server 2016 release, and their article, “Microsoft Taking a ‘Cloud First’ Approach with SharePoint 2016,” gives more details about what can be expected.

The article says:

“SharePoint Server 2016 will be a very cloud-inspired product when commercially released next year . . . Microsoft’s cloud services have been looming in the background of prior SharePoint Server releases . . . Office 365 cloud services have played a role since SharePoint Server 2013, and they will do so going forward with SharePoint Server 2016.”

One of the main promotional points of the new release is a promised “unified experience” for SharePoint users. While cloud skeptics still have reason to be cautious, the promised improvements may win them over. To stay up-to-date with the latest news regarding SharePoint, stayed tuned in to ArnoldIT.com and the dedicated SharePoint feed. Stephen E. Arnold is a longtime leader in search and his expertise comes in handy when trying to stay current without spending a lot of time doing independent research.

Emily Rae Aldridge, June 30, 2015

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph

 

Webinar from BrightFunnel Ties Marketing to Revenue

June 30, 2015

The webinar on BrightFunnel Blog titled Campaign Attribution: Start Measuring True Marketing Impact (How-To Video) adds value to marketing efforts. BrightFunnel defines itself as platform for marketing analytics that works to join marketing more closely to revenue. The webinar is focused on the attribution application. The video poses three major questions that the application can answer about how pipeline and revenue are affected by marketing channels and specific campaigns, as well as how to gain better insight on the customer. The article overviews the webinar,

“Marketers care. We care a lot about what happens to all those leads we generate for sales. It can be hard to get a complete view of marketing impact when you’re limited to trusting that the right contacts, if any, are being added to opportunities! In this recording from our recent webinar, see how BrightFunnel solves key attribution problems by providing seamless visibility into multi-touch campaign attribution so you can accurately measure the impact you have on pipeline and revenue.”

BrightFunnel believes in an intuitive approach, claiming that three to four weeks has been plenty of time for their users to get set up and get to work with their product. They host a series of webinars that allows interested parties to ask direct questions and be answered live.

Chelsea Kerwin, June 30, 2014

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph

 

Attivio ReachesTop 100 Status

June 29, 2015

The Data Dexterity Company announced the brand new Database Trends and Applications (DBTA) 100 and according to Yahoo Finance, Attivio is now on the list: “Attivio Named By Database Trends Applications To Its Prestigious Top 100 List.”

“We are pleased to be recognized by Database Trends and Applications as one of the most important firms in the data space; it further validates the type of feedback that our customers provide on a daily basis,” said Stephen Baker, CEO of Attivio. “As firms continue to be more reliant on maximizing their data to drive business-critical insights, we expect to play a critical role in driving this type of business innovation.”

Attivio joins the ranks of other companies that have made huge innovations in the data industry; they include EMC, Amazon, IBM, and more.  Attivio is an industry leader in enterprise systems with its intelligence search platform.  Attivio’s search platform enables users to make immediate insights with data visibility.  Attivio has a well-known client use that encompasses such names as National Instruments, Nexen, GE, UBS, and Qualcomm.  The company believes that there are many innovations to be made from all types, not just the type that is easily found in a database.  Attivio uses its search platform to uncover insights in unstructured data that would otherwise be missed by other enterprise search platforms.

We have been following Attivio for many years and by having its name added to DBTA 100 proves it can perform well and deliver useful results.  Enterprise search continues to be an important factor for enterprise systems, though people are often forgetting that today.  Attivio’s addition to the DBTA 100 stresses that not everyone has forgotten.

Whitney Grace, June 29, 2015

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph

Oracle Data Integrator Extension

June 29, 2015

The article titled Oracle Launches ODI in April with the Aim to Revolutionize Big Data on Market Realist makes it clear that Oracle sees big money in NoSQL. Oracle Data Integrator, or ODI, enables developers and analysts to simplify their lives and training. It cancels the requirement for their learning multiple programming languages and allows them to use Hadoop and the like without much coding expertise. The article states,

“According to a report from PCWorld, Jeff Pollock, Oracle vice president of product management, said, “The Oracle Data Integrator for Big Data makes a non-Hadoop developer instantly productive on Hadoop…” Databases like Hadoop and Spark are targeted towards programmers who have the coding knowledge expertise required to manipulate these databases with knowledge of the coding needed to manage them. On the other hand, analysts usually use software for data analytics.”

The article also relates some of Oracle’s claims about itself, including that it holds a larger revenue than IBM, Microsoft, SAP AG, and Teradata combined. Those are also Oracle’s four major competitors. With the release of ODI, Oracle intends to filter data arriving from a myriad of different places. Clustering data into groups related by their format or framework is part of this process. The end result is a more streamlined version without assumptions about the level of coding knowledge held by an analyst.

Chelsea Kerwin, June 29, 2014

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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Matchlight Lights Up Stolen Data

June 26, 2015

It is a common gimmick on crime shows for the computer expert to be able to locate information, often stolen data, by using a few clever hacking tricks.  In reality it is not that easy and quick to find stolen data, but eWeek posted an article about a new intelligence platform that might be able to do the trick: “Terbium Labs Launches Matchlight Data Intelligence Platform.”  Terbium Labs’ Matchlight is able to recover stolen data as soon as it is released on the Dark Web.

How it works is simply remarkable.  Matchlight attaches digital fingerprints to a company’s files, down to the smallest byte.  Data recovered on the Dark Web can then be matched to the Terbium Labs’s database.  Matchlight is available under a SaaS model.  Another option they have for clients is a one-way fingerprinting feature that keeps a company’s data private from Terbium Labs.  They would only have access to the digital fingerprints in order to track the data.  Matchlight can also be integrated into already existing SharePoint or other document management systems.  The entire approach to Matchlight is taking a protective stance towards data, rather than a defensive.

“We see the market shifting toward a risk management approach to information security,” [Danny Rogers, CEO and co-founder of Terbium} said. “Previously, information security was focused on IT and defensive technologies. These days, the most innovative companies are no longer asking if a data breach is going to happen, but when. In fact, the most innovative companies are asking what has already happened that they might not know about. This is where Matchlight provides a unique solution.”

Across the board, data breaches are becoming common and Matchlight offers an automated way to proactively protect data.  While the digital fingerprinting helps track down stolen data, does Terbium Labs have a way to prevent it from being stolen at all?

Whitney Grace, June 26, 2015

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph

Digital Reasoning a Self-Described Cognitive Computing Company

June 26, 2015

The article titled Spy Tools Come to the Cloud on Enterprise Tech shows how Amazon’s work with analytics companies on behalf of the government have realized platforms like “GovCloud”, with increased security. The presumed reason for such platforms being the gathering of intelligence and threat analysis on the big data scale. The article explains,

“The Digital Reasoning cognitive computing tool is designed to generate “knowledge graphs of connected objects” gleaned from structured and unstructured data. These “nodes” (profiles of persons or things of interest) and “edges” (the relationships between them) are graphed, “and then being able to take this and put it into time and space,” explained Bill DiPietro, vice president of product management at Digital Reasoning. The partners noted that the elastic computing capability… is allowing customers to bring together much larger datasets.”

For former CIA staff officer DiPietro it logically follows that bigger questions can be answered by the data with tools like the AWS GovCloud and subsequent Hadoop ecosystems. He cites the ability to quickly spotlight and identify someone on a watch list out of the haystack of people as the challenge set to overcome. They call it “cluster on demand,” the process that allows them to manage and bring together data.

Chelsea Kerwin, June 26,  2015

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph

Why Are Ads Hiding Themselves

June 25, 2015

The main point of an advertisement is to get your attention and persuade you to buy a good or service.  So why would ads be hiding themselves in a public venue?  Gizmodo reports that in Russia certain ads are hiding from law enforcement in the article: “This Ad For Banned Food In Russia Itself From The Cops.”  Russian authorities have banned imported food from the United States and European Union.   Don Giulio Salumeria is a Russian food store that makes its income by selling imported Italian food, but in light of the recent ban the store has had to come up with some creative advertising:

“Websites are already able to serve up ads customized for whoever happens to be viewing a page. Now an ad agency in Russia is taking that idea one step further with an outdoor billboard that’s able to automatically hide when it spots the police coming.”

Using a camera equipped with facial recognition software programmed to recognized symbols and logos on officers’ uniforms, the billboard switches ads from Don Giulio Salumeria to another ad advertising a doll store.  While the ad does change when it “sees “ the police coming, they still have enough time to see it.  The article argues that the billboard’s idea is more interesting than anything.  It then points out how advertising will become more personally targeted in the future, such as a billboard recognizing a sports logo and advertising an event related to your favorite team or being able to recognize your car on a weekly commute, then recommending a vacation.   While Web sites are already able to do this by tracking cookies on your browser, it is another thing to being tracked in the real world by targeted ads.

Whitney Grace, June 25, 2015

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph

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