IntelTrax Summary: November 9 to November 15
November 19, 2012
This week, the IntelTrax advanced intelligence blog published some important information regarding the state of big data and its impact on some of the world’s most up and coming industries.
“The Ethics of Big Data” examines the possible ethical quandries that develop from big data analysis. However, despite the potential ethical challenges that face the industry in the end the pros, outweigh the cons.
The article states:
“Yet it cuts both ways: Consumers also can take advantage of the democratizing effects of big data. In fact, there’s an app for that: RateDriverenables users to quickly determine the appropriate rate they should expect to pay for attorney’s fees in 51 U.S. markets.
Big data holds promise to improve the legal profession and the quality of service that we deliver to clients, says Carolyn Elefant, a Washington, D.C., attorney and technology evangelist. “Significantly, big data would inject a strong dose of transparency into lawyer marketing and assist consumers in hiring lawyers. How so? Because big data can be used to show the likelihood of winning a case and the true cost.”
An article that shows the way that big data is transforming the healthcare industry is, “Big Data is the New Anti-Virus.” However, it looks at it from the angle of computer health and how to better detect viruses.
The article states:
“With Seculert Sense, customers can now upload log files using a Secure FTPS tunnel, or upstream logs through Syslog directly from a secure web gateway or web proxy devices, or log aggregation solution for real-time detection and forensics investigation. Built on Amazon Elastic MapReduce, Seculert Sense launches a “big data analysis cloud” that rapidly analyzes an organization’s vast amount of log data, going back months or even years and comparing it against the thousands of unique malware samples collected by Seculert. Over time, Seculert Sense continues to digest huge amounts of data in order to identify persistent attacks that are going undetected by next generation IPs, Anti-Bot and Secure Web Gateways.”
Big data analytics is not only taking off in America, it is becoming a world-wide phenomenon. “Asian Analytics on the Verge of a Boom” describes the potential for big data analytics success in Asia.
According to the article,
“Two different consumer analytics platforms from Singapore Management University (SMU) and StarHub respectively aim to provide insights into consumer behavior, so companies can develop and tailor initiatives that will be more relevant to and better received by customers.
Rajesh Balan, director of LiveLabs Urban Lifestyle Innovation Platform at SMU, said the platform will enable organizations to utilize real-time insights, helping their campaigns go to market and assess the outcome faster. On the consumer end, it will turn what most users perceive as intrusive spam messages on their phones into something useful.”
It does not matter what country you live in or what industry you work in. Big Data analytics technology is becoming too important to overlook. Digital Reasoning has been using automated understanding of big data for nearly a decade.
Jasmine Ashton, November 19, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Some Oracle Secrets Revealed
November 16, 2012
We’ve found a resource for Oracle users at the Independent Oracle UCM Knowledge Center: “Secrets of the Full Text Search.” This clearly written and illustrated article explores the details of Oracle Content Server’s full text indexing. This might be one to peruse now, then tuck away for future reference. Writer Dmitri Khanine explains:
“Spend 15 min to understand exactly how Content Server’ Full Text search is working!
“This article takes you behind the scenes and shows you exactly how the full text indexing works in Oracle Content Server. If you ever tried to troubleshoot your search, indexer, batch loader or a performance issue – without a full understanding of how the things really work under the hood – I don’t have to tell you how much time this article can really save you. So without any further due – here it comes.”
And with that, Khanine dives into the technical details, walk-through style. Once you have your full text search enabled and options configured, he takes you through creating and working with a PDF.
I will share the one point Khanine saw fit to emphasize with a paragraph full of italics—since only the latest revision of any document is stored in the IdcColx tables, full text searches are only done on the latest released revision. See the article for more such technical tidbits.
Cynthia Murrell, November 16, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Keep It Separated
November 14, 2012
Respect data decentralization. That is the key to “The Challenge of Defensible Deletion of Distributed Legacy Data,” according to the eDiscovery Law & Tech Blog at X1 Discovery.
Blogger John Patzakis submits that, for large enterprises with data subject to governance requirements, centralization can make it hard to create a defensible retention schedule. Most archiving systems require that bits of data be pulled from their cozy homes on group and departmental silos and dumped into a central system before any retention and management process can even begin. He writes:
“Forcing centralization on these many pockets of productivity is highly disruptive and rarely effective due to scalability, network bandwidth and other logistical challenges. So what this leaves is the reality that for any information remediation process to be effective, it must be executed within these departmentalized information silos.”
Not surprisingly, Patzakis recommends one of X1’s own products, X1 Rapid Discovery, to do just that. The company has produced an hour-long webinar outlining their method. According to the article:
“X1 Rapid Discovery represents game-changing technology to effectuate the remediation of distributed legacy data due to its ability to install on demand virtually anywhere in the enterprise, including remote data silos, its light footprint web browser access, and intuitive interface. X1 Rapid Discovery enables for effective assessment, reporting, categorization and migration and remediation of distributed information assets by accessing, searching and managing the subject data in place without the need for migration to the appliance or a central repository.”
Sounds good. It may well be that X1 Rapid Discovery is the best solution for this process, or maybe not. Either way, the webinar could be worth a gander.X1 Discovery makes e-discovery tools and enterprise search solutions for IT and legal professionals. Founded by Idealab, the company is located in Pasadena, CA.
Cynthia Murrell, November 14, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
IBM Does Big Data With Vivisimo
November 13, 2012
Computer World recently reported on IBM’s release of a number of new add ons and services designed to expand data sets more quickly, in the article, “IBM Refreshes Analysis Offerings.”
According to the article, these releases are aimed to help enterprises address their big data challenges. Unlike some other companies. IBM’s goal is to consolidate all information management systems into a single architecture in order to share data across systems.
When explaining other additions, the article states:
“IBM’s in-house Hadoop distribution, called IBM InfoSphere BigInsights, has been augmented with new capabilities as well. IBM has generated new report templates, ones that can conduct sentiment analysis on data from social networks, such as Facebook or Twitter.
BigInsights now includes the federated search capability from the Vivisimo search engine, which IBM acquired in April. Using the Vivisimo interface, now called InfoSphere Data Explorer, users can execute a single search across multiple data repositories, including both structured and unstructured data.”
It is nice to see that IBM is hopping on the big data bandwagon. But whatever happened to Watson?
Jasmine Ashton, November 13, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Inxight Moving to EC Wise
November 13, 2012
If true, this is an interesting development. The site Dvd to Ipad Converter Reviews announces the acquisition of data-management-developer resource Inxight Software by enterprise software company EC Wise in “BO M & Inxight Software.” The headline’s a little confusing; whither “business objects” in text mining we wonder?
The brief write up states:
“EC Wise said the company plans to Inxight’s unstructured information that companies added to the EC Wise business intelligence products to help customers take full advantage of all the data to make the right decisions. . . . EC Wise said, Inxight’s text analytics, federated search and visualization applications, will become part of EC Wise XI platform.”
Unfortunately, we have zero information about the value of this deal, which is expected to be completed in July.
The piece also gives us this observation:
“The acquisition reflects the consolidation trend in the software industry. Last Tuesday, the German software company AG said the United States have been given approval to $ 546,000,000 of its acquisition of webMethods.(AG is a building SOA-based software vendor), last week, Microsoft also announced that six billion U.S. dollars acquisition of online advertising company aQuantive.Earlier this month, Oracle acquired the company to 495 million Agile Software Corporation.”
EC Wise U.S. is based in San Rafael, California, while EC Wise Sichuan makes its home in Chengdu, China. The company focuses on business intelligence, big data, business process optimization/ automation, and, interestingly, gaming and entertainment.
Inxight Software‘s impressive customer roster includes Morgan Stanley and Yahoo. It emerged in 1997 from the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. The company has changed hands a couple of times already, having been bought by Business Objects in 2007, which was in turn absorbed by SAP in 2008. Let’s hope the company finds a happy home at EC Wise.
Cynthia Murrell, November 13, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
TEMIS on Project ROBUST
November 12, 2012
Europe’s ROBUST project seeks to help online business communities with several issues, including large-scale data management and analysis. Now, TEMIS’ Tagline says the project has received positive feedback from scientists and potential clients in “Project ROBUST: Combining Scientific Excellence and Industry Relevance in EU Research Project.” TEMIS is developing infrastructure it says will bring the benefits of ROBUST’s findings to the rest of the world.
ROBUST, which stands for “Risk and Opportunity management of huge-scale BUSiness communiTy cooperation,” emerged as a response to the growing importance of online business communities. The onslaught of participants and posts has grown faster than the tools to manage them. Besides addressing that pressing issue, EU researchers also wondered which factors in these communities boost participation and engagement. The organization tapped experts from companies large and small, as well as some academics, to discover answers. The article tells us:
“As diverse as these challenges are, so are the solutions that start to take shape in the ROBUST project: IT Innovation progresses with an application allowing to model and monitor the various risks a community owner might be facing (experts leaving or exchanges becoming unproductive), Polecat is working on visual metaphors to provide a quick insight into the health of a community while the University of Koblenz is investigating whether and how patterns of agreement and disagreement among participants correlate with their observed participation.”
We agree that this project represents an important step forward. Now, though, we wonder: will European support catch up with companies wrapping more value-adds around basic text processing?
Cynthia Murrell, November 12, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
IBM Focuses on Big Data Analysis
November 12, 2012
In their special Big Data section, InformationWeek tells us that “IBM Accelerates Big Data Analysis.” Big Blue made a rash of big data-related announcements at their 2012 Information On Demand conference in Las Vegas. We find it interesting; IBM owns proprietary analytics companies Cognos, SPSS, and now Vivisimo. Is IBM now making a too-little-too-late play to catch up with other firms in big data analytics? Perhaps they should have asked Watson what to do.
Whatever the case, IBM is now forging ahead in this brave new realm. The article states:
“What the announcements have in common is that they’re all about parts of IBM’s Big Data Platform, which is Big Blue’s umbrella term for a diverse collection of data-management and analysis technology bridging the relational database and Hadoop worlds.”
Just what we need—another bridge between relational databases and the venerable, open-source Hadoop. Ah, well; IBM knows it doesn’t matter if you don’t do it first if you can do it better.
The first set of announcements involve IBM’s BigInsights platform, which links proprietary tools like BigSheets to a distribution of Hadoop. The new twist here is the inclusion of analytics accelerators for text and social media data. Of course. Another addition to BigInsights addition, InfoSphere Data Explorer, sounds useful. The write up explains:
“Unlike BigSheets, which lets you explore Hadoop data in a spreadsheet-like interface, InfoSphere Data Explorer can look across multiple data sources using data-federation and analysis technology from IBM’s Vivisimo acquisition. With access to Hadoop as well as data warehouses, data marts, and possibly other sources, the software can automatically find correlations in data across these platforms.”
Other big data developments from IBM include InfoSphere Streams for processing in real-time environments; the latest version of PureData System for Analytics (formerly known as the IBM Netezza appliance); the Big Data Solution For CMOs which combines PureData with IBM’s Unica Web analytics software; and, finally, a bundle of predictive analytics services called Analytic Answers, which runs inside IBM’s Smart Cloud. See the article for details on all these offerings.
Cynthia Murrell, November 12, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
IntelTrax Summary: November 2 to November 8
November 12, 2012
This week the IntelTrax advanced intelligence blog published some excellent article summaries regarding big data’s growing impact on the globalized workplace.
“Big Data Talent Pool Grows” explains how job seekers are embracing the big data analytics profession due to the fact that it welcomes new talent.
The article states:
“The just-released InformationWeek 2012 State of IT Staffing Survey reveals that 40% of those who cite big data and analytics as a top hiring priority say they’ll increase staffing in these areas by 11% or more during the next two years. At the same time, 53% of these companies say it will be hard to find big-data-savvy analytics experts. Respondents expect to try a mix of retraining of existing people, hiring of new employees and contracting of consultants and temporary employees to fill the gap.
Practitioners, vendors, and educators we spoke to for our Big Data IT Staffing report offer seven tips for finding the right talent.”
The article, “The Healthcare Analytics Trickle Down” shows how the pairing of healthcare and data analytics is starting to pay off for many companies and its starting to trickle down.
The article states:
“If you’re old enough to remember the Reagan administration, you remember the politically charged expression “trickle-down economics,” which referred to the theory that if you provide benefits and incentives to businesses and the wealthy, those benefits would trickle down to wage earners at lower socioeconomic levels.
In some ways, big data analytics is like trickle-down economics. Only the biggest healthcare providers with the deepest pockets can afford the kind of analytics platforms required to get useful intelligence from tens of thousands of patient records. But in theory, those benefits will trickle down to smaller providers that either don’t have the financial support or the large patient populations to do this type of data crunching on their own.”
We all knew that big data was something worth investing in, but save the world? that seems to be a little bit much. “50 Ways Big Data Can Save the World” showcases the new startup Bidgely, which aims to turn every appliance in your home into a data scientist, providing you with real time results on your energy usage.
The article states:
“Utilities worldwide are installing smart meters on homes and businesses, which means there could be as much as 50 terabytes of energy data that can emerge from a million or so homes in a year. The problem has been that there haven’t been very many ways to make good use of all this data to benefit the average consumer. But a startup called Bidgely, which raised a series A round from Khosla Ventures, says it has created algorithms that can dig into real-time smart meter energy-consumption data, can reduce consumers’ home energy use by between 4 percent to 12 percent, and can also deliver other beneficial home services to consumers.”
Whether you are looking to utilize big data to protect the environment, save lives, or boost business for your company, there are solutions available that can be very beneficial. Thanks to companies like Digital Reasoning, this technology is more affordable, accessible and customizable than ever.
Jasmine Ashton, November 12, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
More Promises For Big Data
November 9, 2012
Info World recently announced a new big data channel, covering the latest developments in big data, in the article, “Unlocking the Value of Big Data.”
According to the article, InfoWorld’s big data channel features a blog that will provide a clear sense of how the trend is taking shape through the use of case studies that highlight the practical aspects of big data.
Writer, Eric Knorr, explains InfoWorld’s journey toward discovering big data. When explaining big data, he states:
“One way of thinking about big data is that these new technologies have arrived in the nick of time. Regulatory compliance concerns have created a “save everything” culture in the enterprise, including the fastest-growing segment: log files containing security or system events and metadata capturing the behavior of visitors as they use Web applications. InfoWorld has described the collective effect of all these new sources as the data explosion, where — according to a famous 2008 IDC report — the storage requirements of enterprises are increasing at a rate of 50 percent per year.”
Big data blogs are a very important way for enterprises to navigate the many different type of data analytics solutions currently on the market. We should know, Beyond Search has been doing it for years.
Jasmine Ashton, November 09, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
A Different Kind of Debate Analysis
November 6, 2012
Expert System is weighing in on the US presidential debates, linguistics style. The company supplies highlights of its findings in “Obama vs. Romney on Language: the Three Debates.” The semantic and linguistic analysis of the three presidential debates was performed using Expert System’s Cogito semantic platform.
The study found Governor Romney to be the more wordy of the two, by 14%, while President Obama favored the action verbs “do” and “make.” The press release also highlights some topical differences:
“Among the people cited, Obama spoke most often of Osama Bin Laden, followed by Gaddafi (reflecting on his foreign policy achievements). Former U.S. presidents were also regularly mentioned, George W. Bush most frequently in general, while presidents Lincoln and Eisenhower were most often cited by Obama, with Romney recalling Roosevelt and Reagan. Behind the United States, China was the second-most mentioned nation by both candidates, with Iraq (Obama) and Iran (Romney) in third place. Libya got more attention in the last two debates, but was more often cited by Obama (ranking behind Massachusetts) than by Romney.”
Though it is interesting, I’m not sure how helpful this data is. Expert System’s Luca Scagliarini admits that the analysis is “by no means a predictor” of the race’s outcome, but asserts confidence that semantic analysis can help anyone better understand any information. I suppose that is an important tenant of faith in the data analysis business.
Business and government organizations in several fields turn to Expert System for data management, collaboration, and customer relationship management. The company is based in Modena, Italy, and has satellite offices in Europe and the US.
Cynthia Murrell, November 06, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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