Google and Microsoft: Are Your Wizards Really Innovating Again?
March 23, 2022
I scanned my headlines this morning and noted two different companies which have revealed their latest innovations. These are big outfits, and one expects each company to come up with big plays. Little plays won’t move the revenue needle, and money is important to these estimable enterprises.
What’s Google’s most recent innovation? I think it is ad supported video streaming of 4,000 old TV shows and about 1,500 old movies. “YouTube Makes Thousands of TV Show Episodes Available to Stream for Free” reports:
For the first time, YouTube is letting users in the US stream thousands of free, ad-supported TV shows like Hell’s Kitchen, Heartland and Unsolved Mysteries, it announced. That will put it into competition with OTA (over-the-air) TV and streaming services with ad tiers including Peacock, the Roku Channel, Tubi and others.
To me, Google’s “play” is a me too, not a “first time.”
What’s Microsoft’s most recent Eureka! moment? “Microsoft Looks Poised to Dominate the Quantum Computing Industry” states:
Microsoft Azure recently announced that its quantum computing research teams had invented “a new kind of qubit” based on elusive, never-before-demonstrated properties of physics. According to the Redmond company, this will allow it to build scalable quantum computers capable of solving the hardest problems facing humanity.
Hopefully Microsoft’s quantum efforts have not pulled resources from the company’s security initiatives.
For me, the Google announcement is another step in a long, somewhat confused video journey. The channeling of Peacock and Roku is interesting. Instead of confronting TikTok, Google wants to take on incumbents recycling old content. YouTube’s new content initiatives did not achieve orbital velocity in my opinion. There’s content on YouTube, but it is non directed. TikTok takes a different approach. Old TV shows are not a response to a competitive challenge.
The Microsoft quantum play is another attempt to demonstrate that Microsoft has something really big up its sleeve. Years ago, Microsoft was into search and contact lenses that worked like Google Glass. Now the future is quantum computing, and it is like general artificial intelligence going to be the next big thing after Teams I suppose.
Stepping back, these two “innovations” illustrate the me-too approach to generating excitement, appeasing stakeholders, and capturing mindshare. Am I quivering with excitement yet? Nope. Marketing and PR are bummers for me.
Stephen E Arnold, March 23, 2022
Google: Admitting What It Does Now That People Believe Google Is the Holy Grail of Information
March 21, 2022
About 25 years. That’s how long it took Google to admit that it divides the world into bluebirds, canaries, sparrows, and dead ducks. Are we talking about our feathered friends? Nope. We are dividing the publicly accessible Web sites into four categories. Note: These are my research team’s classifications:
Bluebirds — Web sites indexed in sort of almost real time. Example: whitehouse.gov and sites which pull big ad sales
Canaries — Web sites that are popular but indexed in a more relaxed manner. Example: Sites which pull ad money but not at the brand level
Sparrows — Web sites that people look at but pull less lucrative ads. Example: Your site, probably?
Dead ducks — Sites banned, down checked for “quality”, or sites which use Google’s banned words. Example: You will have to use non Google search systems to locate these resources. Example: Drug ads which generate money and kick up unwanted scrutiny from some busy bodies.
“Google Says ‘Discovered – Currently Not Indexed’ Status Can Last Forever” explains:
‘Discovered – Currently not indexed’ in the Google Search Console Index Coverage report can potentially last forever, as the search engine doesn’t index every page.
The article adds:
Google doesn’t make any guarantees to crawl and index every webpage. Even though Google is one of the biggest companies in the world, it has finite resources when it comes to computing power.
Monopoly power? Now that Google dominates search it can decide what can be found for billions of people.
This is a great thing for the Google. For others, perhaps not quite the benefit the clueless user expects?
If something cannot be found in the Google Web search index, that something does not exist for lots of people. After 25 years and information control, the Google spills the beans about dead ducks.
Stephen E Arnold, March 21, 2022
The Google: More Personnel Excitement? Of Course!
March 19, 2022
Google has quite a few bright employees. In my experience, the current crop is delivering stubbier ears of corn than the 2002 digital farmers produced. But that’s just my opinion, of course. “Google Is Accused in Lawsuit of Systemic Bias Against Black Employees” reports:
Google maintains a “racially biased corporate culture” that favors white men, where Black people comprise only 4.4% of employees and about 3% of leadership and its technology workforce.
After the employee push back and the spectacular Dr. Timnit Gebru matter, Google has demonstrated that it at age 20 may have the equivalent of corporate Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome. The confusion and shaking of Googzilla’s left foreleg may be signals, important signals.
The plaintiff is The plaintiff, April Curley. The write up adds:
Curley said Google hired her in 2014 to design an outreach program to historically Black colleges. She said her hiring proved to be a “marketing ploy,” as supervisors began denigrating her work, stereotyping her as an “angry” Black woman and passing her over for promotions. Curley said Google fired her in September 2020 after she and her colleagues began working on a list of desired reforms.
Google’s legal eagles will attempt to explain this away, probably proving that Ms. Curley is not a high school science club type.
But what about Dr. Gebru? Yeah, that may be an anomaly because …. Gentle reader, you fill in the reason.
Stephen E Arnold, March 19, 2022
Google Cloud: A Marketing Challenge
March 15, 2022
I read a report which I think is assembled by a human or two working with smart software. What’s interesting is the observation about Google Cloud expressed in “Google-cloud Is About to Get More Expensive.” [Note: Links to content on Dailyhunt often result in 404s. There’s not much I can do about this run-and-gun news source, folks.]
I noted this passage:
At present, Google – and Google Cloud particularly – suffers from the perception that it will close down services randomly, despite the fact that its users rely upon them. Now, add to that the insight that it will arbitrarily raise its costs and its sales team will probably need to work overtime to satisfy the aggressive development objectives the company has surely set for itself.
There’s been some additional chatter about Google modifying the cloud storage deals for certain academic institutions.
Is this a PR challenge or clever management of the users who make the Google system hum like a well fed Googzilla?
Stephen E Arnold, March 15, 2022
Google and Mandiant: Will Google Be Able to Handle a People Business?
March 11, 2022
Talk about Google’s purchasing Mandiant is a hot topic. I want to comment about Protocol’s article “Google Wants to Be the Full-Service Security Cloud.” The write up is one of several mentioning an important fact:
The company currently has 2,200 employees, including 600 consultants and 300 intelligence analysts who respond to security breaches.
Mandiant, therefore, has about half of its employees performing consultant type work. Not long ago, Google benefited from the sale of Recorded Future, a company which was in the cyber security business AND had a capability that Google had not previously possessed. What was Recorded Future’s magic ingredient? My answer is, “Ability to index by time.” There were other Recorded Future capabilities. In-Q-Tel found the company interesting as well.
Now the Google is embracing the consultative business in which Mandiant has done well. How will the Google management method apply to the individuals who make up about half the Mandiant work force?
If the past is an indication, Google does okay when the staff are like Google’s previous and current management. Google does less well when the professionals are less like those high school science club members who climbed the ladder at the Google.
To sum up: This deal is going to be interesting to watch. Microsoft is likely to be keen on following the tie up. Mandiant is, as you may recall, the outfit which blew the whistle on the SolarWinds’ misstep. Microsoft was snagged in the subsequent forensic analyses. Plus, the cyber security industry is enjoying some favorable winds. The issue, however, is that as threats become breaches, the flaws of the present approach to cyber security become more obvious. Online advertising, cloud computing, and cyber security — a delightful concoction or a volatile mix?
Stephen E Arnold, March 11, 2022
Google Shown to Rewrite Over Half of those Carefully Crafted Title Tags
March 11, 2022
Apparently Google is taking liberties with one of search engine optimizations’ favorite tools. SEO software vendor Zyppy shares its own recent research in the blog post, “Study Shows Google Rewriting 61% of Title Tags.” Writer Cyrus Shepard tells us:
“Like most Google ranking signals, titles play only a small part in the overall algorithm. But because they are typically the first things users see in Google results, titles can have a large impact on click-through rates and the number of visits your site ultimately receives. Traditionally, Google used title tags to generate the page title in its search results. Over the years, it wasn’t uncommon to see Google make small changes to the title—typically because of length or relevancy—but these changes were mostly minor. More recently, Google became much more aggressive with title rewriting, incorporating additional HTML tags and generally rewriting far more titles than previously. Many site owners find that the titles they carefully craft almost all get rewritten. Fortunately, here at Zyppy, we have a large database of titles thanks to our title tag analysis tool. Armed with this data, we set out to determine how often Google rewrites titles and the scenarios which trigger this behavior.”
They study checked out 80,959 title tags across 2370 websites and found Google had rewritten 61.6% of them. Shepard notes the findings generally concur with those of two previous studies. He explores factors that affect whether Google is likely to meddle with one’s title: character length, brackets vs. parentheses, and title separators. Curious readers can navigate to the write-up for those details. What is an SEO tagger to do? The write-up recommends matching one’s title to the H1 (main heading) tag—the researchers found doing so dramatically reduced the chance of a Googley rewrite. Naturally, the post concludes by recommending and linking to Zyppy’s own title optimization tool. So helpful because it makes ad matching so much “better.”
Cynthia Murrell, March 11, 2022
See. See! Google Does Good
March 10, 2022
I love art history majors who work in PR and marketing. Some of the ideas are delightful. A good example appears in the “real news” publication Verge. “DeepMind’s New AI Model Helps Decipher, Date, and Locate Ancient Inscriptions” explains:
an AI model created by Alphabet-subsidiary DeepMind … helps not only restore text that is missing from ancient Greek inscriptions but offers suggestions for when the text was written (within a 30-year period) and its possible geographic origins.
See. See! Doing good. Unlocking the mysteries of the past.
The write up explains via an anigif provided by the helpful wizards at Alphabet Google DeepMind how gaps are filled and missing facts conjured by the systems and methods of the Google.
The original text [translation provided by Tibby, the French bulldog in my office responsible for linguistic wonders] noted that the corrected text says:
Stop by the Dimitra Wine Shop. You can find us on Google Maps. Check out our ad on Google Local. (Discount for Google employees.)
The marvels of the new system include:
- Use of synthetic data to fabricate missing data
- Inclusion of references to Google online advertising
- Cross messaging for Google Maps and Google Local.
See. See! Google is doing good. Art history majors working in marketing are the pros everyone can thank for making sense when there are voids.
Stephen E Arnold, March 10, 2022
Google: Defines Excellence for Android Users
March 3, 2022
I read a hoot of a story. “Data Stealing App Found in Google Play Downloaded Thousands of Times.” The idea for branded stores is consistency, compatibility, and trust. No one wants to buy an air fryer that explodes and maims an influencer. Why would one want to download a mobile app which allows a bad actor to seize data or control of one’s mobile device.
The write up reports:
A notorious Android banking trojan designed to steal user data, like passwords and text messages, has been discovered in Google Play and downloaded thousands of times. The TeaBot banking trojan, also known as Anatsa and Toddler, was first observed in May 2021 targeting European banks by stealing two-factor authentication codes sent by text message.
Yep, malware direct from the Google. Let’s rundown those qualities of a branded store:
- Consistency
- Compatibility
- Trust
Check, check, and check.
Ah, Google, are you entering a security drag race against the Softies?
Stephen E Arnold, March 3, 2022
Alphabet Google YouTube and Its Data Moats
March 1, 2022
Owning a monopoly on data or information is not a new concept. Owning secret knowledge is as old as humanity. Think about humans learning the secret of fire, gunpowder, medicine, and nuclear bombs. The concept seems more modern, because of computer technology. This technology only means there is more data to control in a monopoly. Seeking Alpha discusses data monopolies in: “Google Stock Is A Buy On Future Growth, Alphabet Data Moat.”
Alphabet a.k.a. Google started as a search engine that sold advertising space, but now the company is a leader in augmented reality, blockchain, and AI. Alphabet continues to grow and its endeavors yield more data moats for then to control:
“The reason why Alphabet has built several powerful data moats is that the company has become very proficient in identifying high value data, collecting that data, analyzing that data for insights and producing high value products based upon the insights gleaned from the data. The very first high value data that the founders of the company, Sergey Brin and Larry Page discovered was search data. Google established a first mover advantage in search data that grew into such a powerful data moat that even Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is unable to catch up to Google in search. Google still maintains 92.47 percent market share in search as of June 2021. Over time, Alphabet has discovered and built up other high value data sets with some of the most well-known products built upon those data sets being Maps, YouTube, Google Assistant and self-driving cars (Waymo).”
Alphabet continues to grow its data moat through constant research and development, especially in the realms of AI. The company will continue to expand and it could grow a data moat monopoly. If Alphabet does get a data moat the government is supposed to step in and break it up. That might not happen given the world’s current dilemma and how corporations have politicians in their back pockets.
Whitney Grace, March 1, 2022
Google: A New FPGA Standard: Seems Like a Big Move
February 24, 2022
I know from my previous work projects that semiconductor talk makes people go to sleep. Sure, there are some chip heads who salivate when considering X ray etching and the physics of nanometer scale silicon. Take it from me this quite important technical field is less thrilling than the average TikTok video.
Nevertheless, I want to call your attention to “FPGA Interchange Format to Enable Interoperable FPGA Tooling.” The title just screams big win for everyone. Remember the “Don’t be evil thing”? Ho ho ho.
Here’s the passage which snagged my attention:
Those benefits will extend to not only VPR and nextpnr, but to any other closed source tools, or new open source ones that adopt and implement the Interchange format. Having a standard Interchange format at the tooling developers’ disposal lowers the barriers to developing new open source tools in this area. As example use cases, it enables new approaches to partial dynamic reconfiguration and the exploration of different place and route algorithms. [emphasis added’’]
What’s the jargon mean?
Google aims to define the standard. Good news for everyone, right. Perhaps one should ask those who have other ideas about floating point gate array systems and methods?
Nah, let’s not. Let Googzilla graze in green pastures. A standard makes it easy for with it folks to build Googley systems and integrate certain nifty machine learning mechanisms. Deep dive? You get a free snorkel too.
Stephen E Arnold, February 24, 2022
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