The Dark Web and Surface Web Connection
January 11, 2017
IBM is doing its part to educate about the Dark Web. IBM Big Data and Analytics Hub shared a podcast episode entitled, Should we shut down the Dark Web?, which addresses the types of illegal activities on the Dark Web, explains challenges for law enforcement and discusses the difficulty in identifying Dark Web actors. Senior product manager of cyber analysis with IBM i2 Safer Planet, Bob Stasio, hosts the podcast. We found what one of the guests, Tyler Carbone, had to say quite interesting,
The parts of the internet we’re particularly interested in is where stolen information is posted and traded. What’s interesting is that that’s happening not through Tor…For what we’re interested in, a lot of stolen information is posted (traded and sold) on lite web sites — you can access them in Internet Explorer or Chrome. They’re just hosted in countries that aren’t particularly listed. One of the most well-known carding marketplaces…is hosted on a .cm….That’s not hidden within Tor at all. The problem is that individuals are logging in in an anonymous way so we can’t follow up with the individuals.
The line between the Surface Web and the Dark Web may be blurring or blurred. Ultimately, the internet is rooted in connection, so it’s hard to imagine clear separation between actors and activities being relegated to one or the other. We recommend giving this podcast a listen to ruminate on questions such as whether the Dark Web could and should be shut down.
Megan Feil, January 11, 2017
IBM and Its Five Year Vision: Nothing Like Vision Instead of Revenue
January 9, 2017
I read “IBM’s 5 Year Vision Focuses on New Technology for Visualizing the World.” The author is a Kevin Murnane who is the author of Nutrition for Cyclists: Eating and Drinking Before, During and After the Ride. Seems like excellent preparation for the low fat approach to IBM technology, doesn’t it?
The write up in the capitalist tool Forbes Magazine recycles information from “IBM 5 in 5. Five Innovations That Will Help Change Our Lives within Five Years: The Invisible Made Visible.” Now that’s a title designed for Web search engines.
The IBM write up identifies these technologies as life changers:
- Artificial intelligence like IBM Watson
- Superhero vision via “hyperimaging”
- Macroscopes
- Medical labs on a chip
- Smart sensors.
What I found interesting was this comment from the nutritionist:
People would be wise to listen when IBM talks about future technology. Their past achievements include the invention of floppy discs and hard drives, the relational database and SQL, Fortran, DRAM, the virtual machine, the ATM machine, magnetic stripe cards and the Universal Bar Code. Their employees have won five Nobel Prizes, six Turing Awards, ten National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science. IBM has a long history of looking forward, thinking big and accomplishing what they set out to do. If their future is like their past, IBM’s 5 in 5 will be more than pie in the sky.
Unfortunately the Nobel Prizes, the Turing Awards, the National Medals for Technology and the five National Medals of Science are not translating to top line revenue growth and juicy profits for stakeholders. IBM’s vision does not include expanding aggressively the i2-type technology at a time when IBM Federal Systems might be in for a a bit of Gotham shock.
Give me that old fashioned revenue growth, please. I am not sure that macroscopes and superhero vision can change how I see the company’s last fifteen quarterly reports. One does not get fit on a low calorie revenue diet, does one?
Stephen E Arnold, January 9, 2017
Now Watson Wants to Be a Judge
December 27, 2016
IBM has deployed Watson in many fields, including the culinary arts, sports, and medicine. The big data supercomputer can be used in any field or industry that creates a lot of data. Watson, in turn, will digest the data, and depending on the algorithms spit out results. Now IBM wants Watson to take on the daunting task of judging, says The Drum in “Can Watson Pick A Cannes Lion Winner? IBM’s Cognitive System Tries Its Arm At Judging Awards.”
According to the article, judging is a cognitive process and requires special algorithms, not the mention the bias of certain judges. In other words, it should be right up Watson’s alley (perhaps the results will be less subjective as well). The Drum decided to put Watson to the ultimate creative test and fed Watson thousands of previous Cannes films. Then Watson predicted who would win the Cannes Film Festival in the Outdoor category this year.
This could change the way contests are judged:
The Drum’s magazine editor Thomas O’Neill added: “This is an experiment that could massively disrupt the awards industry. We have the potential here of AI being able to identify an award winning ad from a loser before you’ve even bothered splashing out on the entry fee. We’re looking forward to seeing whether it proves as accurate in reality as it did in training.
I would really like to see this applied to the Academy Awards that are often criticized for their lack of diversity and consisting of older, white men. It would be great to see if Watson would yield different results that what the Academy actually selects.
Whitney Grace, December 27, 2016
Lucidworks Sees Watson as a Savior
December 21, 2016
Lucidworks (really?). A vision has appeared to the senior managers of Lucidworks, an open source search outfit which has ingested $53 million and sucked in another $6 million in debt financing in June 2016. Yep, that Lucidworks. The “really” which the name invokes is an association I form when someone tells me that commercializing open source search is going to knock off the pesky Elastic of Elasticsearch fame while returning a juicy payoff to the folks who coughed up the funds to keep the company founded in 2007 chugging along. Yep, Lucid works. Sort of, maybe.
I read “Lucidworks Integrates IBM Watson into Fusion Enterprise Discovery Platform.” The write up explains that Lucidworks is “tapping into” the IBM Watson developer cloud. The write up explains that Lucidworks has:
an application framework that helps developers to create enterprise discovery applications so companies can understand their data and take action on insights.
Ah, so many buzzwords. Search has become applications. “Action on insights” puts some metaphorical meat on the bones of Solr, the marrow of Lucidworks. Really?
With Watson in the company’s back pocket, Lucidworks will deliver. I learned:
Customers can rely on Fusion to develop and deploy powerful discovery apps quickly thanks to its advanced cognitive computing features and machine learning from Watson. Fusion applies Watson’s machine learning capabilities to an organization’s unique and proprietary mix of structured and unstructured data so each app gets smarter over time by learning to deliver better answers to users with each query. Fusion also integrates several Watson services such as Retrieve and Rank, Speech to Text, Natural Language Classifier, and AlchemyLanguage to bolster the platform’s performance by making it easier to interact naturally with the platform and improving the relevance of query results for enterprise users.
But wait. Doesn’t Watson perform these functions already. And if Watson comes up a bit short in one area, isn’t IBM-infused Yippy ready to take up the slack?
That question is not addressed in the write up. It seems that the difference between Watson, its current collection of partners, and affiliated entities like Yippy are vast. The write up tells me:
customers looking for hosted, pre-tuned machine learning and natural language processing capabilities can point and click their way to building sophisticated applications without the need for additional resources. By bringing Watson’s cognitive computing technology to the world of enterprise data apps, these discovery apps made with Fusion are helping professionals understand the mountain of data they work with in context to take action.
This sounds like quite a bit of integration work. Lucidworks. Really?
Stephen E Arnold, December 21, 2016
More Watson Cheerleading from a Former IBMer
December 20, 2016
I love content marketing. It seems so fresh, insightful, and substantive. Consider a write up about IBM Watson by a former IBMer turned consultant. I wonder, “Is Frank Palermo working for IBM Watson now as a rental?” I know that when you read “IBM Watson Points the Way to Our Cognitive Business Future”, you will realize how darned wonderful IBM Watson is. I believe that Watson is ahead of its time. On the other hand, perhaps Watson lags Google DeepMind by a teeny tiny bit.
In the write up, which strikes me as a touchstone of intellectual and journalistic integrity, I learned:
In the five years since Jeopardy, Watson has become pervasive in the world around us.
Yes, pervasive. Just like Android or Amazon. Well, almost.
I learned:
IBM has invested more than $15 billion in Watson. IBM is betting its 105-year-old future on Watson.
Okay, that’s quite a bit of money. In order for IBM to recover that money, Big Blue will have to crank out the $15 billion, plus interest, plus the ongoing costs of staff, infrastructure, consultants, PR professionals, etc. That works out to IBM’s need to have Watson deliver something on the order of 2.5 the $15 billion in the next year or two to get within sniffing distance of a pile of break even cash before stakeholders lose patience. How close is IBM to having a $6 or $7 billion dollar per year revenue stream from Watson? I don’t have any idea, and IBM does not offer a fully loaded Watson cost and revenue breakdown in its remarkable financial reports.
I learned that the president of IBM who wants to assist President Elect Trump apparently said at the WOW conference (oh, wow, WOW, is World of Watson):
IBM president and CEO Ginni Rometty opened her World of Watson keynote proclaiming that, “in five years, there is no doubt in my mind that cognitive computing will impact every decision. Bringing cognitive capabilities to digital business will change the way we work and help solve the world’s biggest problems.”
Perhaps. But I think the focus will be on IBM Federal Systems and its ability to retain its government work. IBM, like several other big time technology outfits, is involved with many projects; for example, the DCGS Army search and discovery system. Mr. Trump may make some changes to that program, which might add some urgency to the Watson making money thing.
I learned:
Everywhere you turn, Watson is now impacting and — in many cases — transforming businesses. Hundreds of millions of people are now impacted by Watson. By the end of next year, it will hit 1 billion people. Watson is interacting with 200 million consumers in shopping, insurance, banking services, education and let’s not forget: the weather.
What’s “everywhere” is IBM Watson PR. I am not sure it has had much, if any, impact here in Harrod’s Creek. IBM had an operation in Lexington, but that went south and now the new owners are from a foreign land. IBM used to make hardware, but that too has gone away. Now IBM generates wordage about IBM Watson.
I remember Jeopardy. I wonder if IBMers know much about post production and the scandal that tarnished TV game shows. That’s a $64,000 question, isn’t it.
Now the author of this piece is described as a person who:
brings more than 22 years of experience in technology leadership across a wide variety of technical products and platforms. Frank has a wealth of experience in leading global teams in large scale, transformational application and product development programs.
I liked the fact that the bio did not mention this factoid:
Frank worked at IBM in the Advanced Workstations Division, and took part in the PowerPC consortium with IBM, Motorola and Apple. He was also involved in the design of PowerPC family of microprocessors as well as architecting and developing a massive distributed client/server design automation and simulation system involving thousand of high-end clustered servers. Frank received several patents for his work in the area of microprocessor design and distributed client/server computing.
Objectivity? Nope, just the stuff that dreams are made of. I cannot wait until my content management system is powered by Watson. That will be a dream, a treat, a great day, and highly useful.
Stephen E Arnold, December 20, 2016
GE Now Manufactures Artificial Intelligence
December 9, 2016
GE (General Electric) makes appliances, such as ovens, ranges, microwaves, washers, dryers, and refrigerators. Once you get them out of the appliance market, their expertise appears to end. Fast Company tells us that GE wants to branch out into new markets and the story is in, “GE Wants To Be The Next Artificial Intelligence Powerhouse .”
GE is a multi-billion dollar company and they have the resources to invest in the burgeoning artificial intelligence market. They plan to employ two new acquisitions and bring machine learning to the markets they already dominate. GE first used machine learning in 2015 with Predix Cloud, which recorded industrial machinery sensor patterns. It was, however, more of a custom design for GE than one with a universal application.
GE purchased Bit Stew Systems, a company similar to the Predix Cloud except that collected industrial data, and Wise.io, a company that used astronomy-based technology to streamline customer support systems. Predix already has a string of customers and has seen much growth:
Though young, Predix is growing fast, with 270 partner companies using the platform, according to GE, which expects revenue on software and services to grow over 25% this year, to more than $7 billion. Ruh calls Predix a “significant part” of that extra money. And he’s ready to brag, taking a jab at IBM Watson for being a “general-purpose” machine-learning provider without the deep knowledge of the industries it serves. “We have domain algorithms, on machine learning, that’ll know what a power plant is and all the depth of that, that a general-purpose machine learning will never really understand,” he says.
GE is tackling issues in healthcare and energy issues with Predix. GE is proving it can do more than make a device that can heat up a waffle. The company can affect the energy, metal, plastic, and computer system used to heat the waffle. It is exactly like how mason jars created tools that will be used in space.
Whitney Grace, December 9, 2016
IBM Thinks Big on Data Unification
December 7, 2016
So far, the big data phenomenon has underwhelmed. We have developed several good ways to collect, store, and analyze data. However, those several ways have resulted in separate, individually developed systems that do not play well together. IBM hopes to fix that, we learn from “IBM Announces a Universal Platform for Data Science” at Forbes. They call the project the Data Science Experience. Writer Greg Satell explains:
Consider a typical retail enterprise, which has separate operations for purchasing, point-of-sale, inventory, marketing and other functions. All of these are continually generating and storing data as they interact with the real world in real time. Ideally, these systems would be tightly integrated, so that data generated in one area could influence decisions in another.
The reality, unfortunately, is that things rarely work together so seamlessly. Each of these systems stores information differently, which makes it very difficult to get full value from data. To understand how, for example, a marketing campaign is affecting traffic on the web site and in the stores, you often need to pull it out of separate systems and load it into excel sheets.
That, essentially, has been what’s been holding data science back. We have the tools to analyze mountains of data and derive amazing insights in real time. New advanced cognitive systems, like Watson, can then take that data, learn from it and help guide our actions. But for all that to work, the information has to be accessible.”
The article acknowledges that progress that has been made in this area, citing the open-source Hadoop and its OS, Spark, for their ability to tap into clusters of data around the world and analyze that data as a single set. Incompatible systems, however, still vex many organizations.
The article closes with an interesting observation—that many business people’s mindsets are stuck in the past. Planning far ahead is considered prudent, as is taking ample time to make any big decision. Technology has moved past that, though, and now such caution can render the basis for any decision obsolete as soon as it is made. As Satell puts it, we need “a more Bayesian approach to strategy, where we don’t expect to predict things and be right, but rather allow data streams to help us become less wrong over time.” Can the humans adapt to this way of thinking? It is reassuring to have a plan; I suspect only the most adaptable among us will feel comfortable flying by the seat of our pants.
Cynthia Murrell, December 7, 2016
IBM Watson and Its QAMs
November 27, 2016
“What’s a QAM?” some may ask. The answer is revealed in “What Can Modern Watson Do?” The answer is a question answering machine.” The idea is that one talks to a computing device and the device provides high value, on point output. One can also type the question, but mobile phones are not designed for query formulation. Phones are designed to do Facebook, Twitter, and app-based functions.
The write up is interesting because it reveals that Watson is not a game show winner or the reason to spend a week in Las Vegas at the World of Watson conference. Nope. I learned:
IBM’s Watson as it exists today is as close as we’ve come to a single integrated platform for AI. It contains all the capabilities for image and video, natural language speech and text input and output, and the most comprehensive knowledge recovery module yet combined together.
Consider the gap between IBM Watson and its many competitors. Watson must be making life very difficult for the companies offering smart software systems. One feels sorry for Amazon, Facebook, Google, and other outfits who are not in Watson’s league.
The write up explains that Watson does image and video processing, text and speech processing, and knowledge retrieval.
What caught my attention was the notion of QAMs. I learned that knowledge retrieval (which to me means search) is complex. IBM has not been able to get the media excited about search as about Watson’s other capabilities. Is this a failing of IBM marketing, the system, or the media. Perhaps IBM’s CEO should tweet late at night to amp up the interest in search and retrieval?
The write up points out that Watson combines natural language processing, hypothesis generation and evaluation, and evidence based learning with [a] image processing, [b] text and speech processing, and [c] knowledge retrieval. When these capabilities are placed in one single system, the future is here or maybe just around the corner.
The write up invokes Dave Schubmehl, a person who tried to sell reports containing my information on Amazon for $3,500 a whack for eight pages without my permission. I wonder if Watson assisted him in making this decision? Here’s a passage mentioning this maven which I highlighted in yellow:
David Schubmehl, an analyst at IDC compares IBMs new playbook in AI with Microsoft’s Windows in personal computing and Google’s Android OS in mobile. “IBM is trying to do the same thing with Watson,” he said, “open up a platform, make it available for others, and democratize the technology.”
There you go. IBM Watson is the equivalent of Windows and Google Android. Yep, that works except the analogy is undermined by reality. Watson is not either of these “products.” Watson is a collection of open source code, acquired technology like Vivisimo’s, and home brew code. Keep in mind that IBM Almaden invented some of the guts of Google and did zero with the technology. Clever, right?
The write up identifies these Watson “products for end users.” Yep, “end users” just like me.
- Watson Virtual Agent. Yes, automated customer service
- Watson Explorer. Learn about your customers and their reaction to automated Watson customer service.
- Watson Analytics. A free version is available.
- Watson Knowledge Studio. Do end users code?
- Watson customized for specific industries. Yep, end users build custom apps when they are not binge watching.
- Watson health. Got cancer? Oh, don’t forget to have a doc with access to Watson.
If you are a developer, you can code even more applications. I think the end user examples say quite a bit about Watson. Watson is a collection of stuff. IBM is trying to create a business from odds and ends. I am confident that with a wizard like Dave Schubmehl, Watson will be a success because Watson is just like Windows and Android. Great mid tier consulting thinking. Just like Windows except for the revenue. Just like Android except for the market share. Hey, close enough for horseshoes.
Stephen E Arnold, November 27, 2016
All the Things Watson Could Do
November 21, 2016
One of our favorite artificial intelligence topics has made the news again: Watson. Technology Review focuses on Watson’s job descriptions and his emergence in new fields, “IBM’s Watson Is Everywhere-But What Is It?” We all know that Watson won Jeopardy and has been deployed as the ultimate business intelligence solution, but what exactly does Watson do for a company?
The truth about Watson’s Jeopardy appearance is that very little of the technology was used. In reality, Watson is an umbrella name IBM uses for an entire group of their machine learning and artificial intelligence technology. The Watson brand is employed in a variety of ways from medical disease interpretation to creating new recipes via experimentation. The technology can be used for many industries and applied to a variety of scenarios. It all depends on what the business needs resolved. There is another problem:
Beyond the marketing hype, Watson is an interesting and potentially important AI effort. That’s because, for all the excitement over the ways in which companies like Google and Facebook are harnessing AI, no one has yet worked out how AI is going to fit into many workplaces. IBM is trying to make it easier for companies to apply these techniques, and to tap into the expertise required to do so.
IBM is experiencing problems of its own, but beyond those another consideration to take is Watson’s expense. Businesses are usually eager to incorporate new technology, if the benefit is huge. However, they are reluctant for the initial payout, especially if the technology is still experimental and not standard yet. Nobody wants to be a guinea pig, but someone needs to set the pace for everyone else. So who wants to deploy Watson?
Whitney Grace, November 21, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Watson: Who Is Intu You?
November 18, 2016
I read “IBM Launches Project Intu for Embodied Cognition.” When I saw the word “Intu”, my mind began generating referents for the “intu” reference. These included:
- The 2009 film “He’s Just Not That Into You.” This is the story about a woman seeking her prince charming. The film is a comedy.
- The 2006 book “He’s Just Not That Into You: The No Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys,” which is available in a newly expanded edition. Amazon it here.
- Lil’ Mo’s “Just Not That Into You,” one of our favorite tunes in Harrod’s Creek when we have old time hoedowns. Yee haw.
But these thoughts of the arts are not directly germane to the Intu system for embodied cognition. The write up explains:
IBM launched the experimental release of its Project Intu, a new system-agnostic platform designed to enable embodied cognition. Embodied cognition is the application of artificial intelligence to form factors, such as robots, devices or other objects.
Embodied cognition is putting artificial intelligence in the physical world. Examples include robots.
The write up quotes an IBM wizard as saying:
IBM is taking cognitive technology beyond a physical technology interface like a smartphone or a robot toward an even more natural form of human and machine interaction. Project Intu allows users to build embodied systems that reason, learn and interact with humans to create a presence with the people that use them—these cognitive-enabled avatars and devices could transform industries like retail, elder care, and industrial and social robotics.
The write up includes some philosophical ideas as well; for example:
One maven suggests that Intu is “after a different sort of game.” The maven opines, “If IBM’s Project Intu succeeds, it could go a long way toward normalizing IoT [Internet of Things] use cases.” Yes, normalize, which I don’t understand to be candid.
Another IBM poobah says:
“Our philosophy at IBM is to put our technology in the hands of developers, because for every good idea we have, we know they’re thinking up thousands more.”
My view of IBM Watson is that I think I love Google DeepMind. So Watson, as Mary asks in “He’s Just Not That Into You”:
What if you meet the love of your life, but you already married somebody else, are you supposed to let them pass you by?
For some, the answer is, “Yes, Mary. Let them pass on by.” Hey, another song for me to get Intu, Pass on By by Kelly Hogan.
Stephen E Arnold, November 18, 2016
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