Alleged Police Raid on Google Korea
August 12, 2010
The BBC’s “Google Offices Raided by Korean Police” won’t make much difference to Verizon and probably not much difference to the search engine optimization gangs. However, if the story is true, a Google legal eagle will have some work in lovely South Korea.
The reason for the alleged raid is Google’s alleged WiFi sniffing for the not-do-alleged StreetView service. The math club crowd probably thinks that Korean authorities were acting irrationally. That’s okay. Points of view and differences of opinion cause people to see actions in different ways.
Here’s a snippet from the BBC story that I noted:
A police statement said they suspected Google has been collecting and storing data on “unspecified internet users from wi-fi networks”…. “[We] have been investigating Google Korea on suspicion of unauthorized collection and storage of data on unspecified Internet users from Wi-Fi networks,” the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) said in a statement. Korean media reported that 19 KNPA agents raided the office, seizing hard drives and related documents. Authorities said they plan to summon Google officials for investigation once analysis on the confiscated items is complete.
The way the Korean authorities acted reminded me of Norwegian police tactics in October 2008 when the Fast Search & Transfer offices experienced what I recall was an “action”, maybe a “raid.” (Another similarity Google shares with Microsoft wonder I?)
For Google to keep those revenues flowing, one wonders if lighting up the sensors of various law enforcement and governmental professionals is a revenue plus or minus. For sure, there may be some added friction for the Googlers in countries where authorities conduct raids. Sending 19 officers is either a typographical error or an indication that the Korean authorities were not in the mood for a Google foosball game, more like rugby.
Stephen E Arnold, August 12, 2010
More Google Negativity
August 11, 2010
In a “free market” as it operates in the US, money is the object. Along with money comes other benefits; that is, the Vanderbilt effect. Corny had some rough edges, including a track record of fist fights, lousy grammar, and putting one of his relatives in a special care facility.
So what’s the big surprise that the non-iPhone Verizon and the non-iTunes Google are figuring out how to get money. The poobahs and the former English majors who analyze technology use fancy words to describe basic American business activity.
What interests me is that the glossy, unsullied Google is now described as a “carrier humping, net neutrality surrender monkey” and discussed with words like “sold out.”
Wow. These folks need to “hie thee to a nunnery” or take a class in medieval wisdom literature. This is the US of A, land of MBAs, quarterly reports, and winner-take-all products like those Mr. Jobs cranks out at healthy margins I might add.
Google is suddenly garnering bad boy headlines because it is trying to deliver to its stakeholders. The object of a public company is to increase value to stakeholders. This means taking money from a third party and putting that money in one’s pocket.
I would have preferred to read about:
- Google’s acquisition logic, which seems to me to be very similar to Yahoo’s pre-Bartz method
- Google’s new social network service
- Google’s increasingly robust security methods for the Google enterprise products and services. (I do recall hearing that Google’s security was pretty good before the new security push.)
Nope. None of this.
The negativity is surprising and unwarranted. The Math Club and the chip off the pre-Judge Green AT&T are doing what is required to thrive in today’s business climate.
From what I have heard and learned in my research, there is more to come. Much, much more.
Stephen E Arnold, August 11, 2010
Freebie, although it goes against the American capitalist method.
Google WiFi Issue Has Legs
August 5, 2010
The cars used to gather the Street View pictures may be gathering some of your private Wi-Fi network information, and a majority of Americans are concerned. In ‘Google Wi-Fi Scandal Concerns Most Americans,’ Webpronews.com recently reported that in a poll from Consumer Watchdog, 74 percent of Americans view Google favorably, but 65 percent say the Wi-Fi scandal is one of the things that “worries them most” or a “great deal” while another 20 percent saying it “raises some concern” when considering online issues. Google is cooperating with the National Security Agency without saying what information is being shared, and that’s causing an uproar from consumer groups who are eying voter ballot initiatives if Congress and state houses don’t act, says Consumer Watchdog advocate John M. Simpson.
Brett Quinn, August 5, 2010
Freebie
New Microsoft Focus
August 2, 2010
The lingo is now Job One. In 2008 it was enterprise search. (And how is that working out?) Then I learned that the real focus has been cloud computing since 1995. The other day there were eight focus points. Today I read “Ballmer: Microsoft-Powered Tablets Are ‘Job One Urgency’.” I know Microsoft is a big outfit and can handle lots of different tasks at the same time. I am, however, surprised that the target changes so quickly. The areas on which Microsoft is attending at the * same * time are big dudes, people. For me, this was the killer passage in the write up referenced Microsoft’s forthcoming iPad killer:
“They’ll be shipping as soon as they are ready,” Ballmer said, offering few details on the products, which he said will come from partners, not Microsoft itself. “It is job one urgency. No one is sleeping at the switch.”
Like the Kin?
Stephen E Arnold, August 1, 2010
Freebie
Quote to Note: Google about Android and Content
July 29, 2010
Here’s a quote to note. Today is July 29, 2010, and I don’t want this puppy to slip away. The story “Eric Schmidt on Google’s Next Tricks” is about Google’s dependence on advertising revenue. There is nothing wrong with billions of dollars. The problem is that Apple’s revenues are more diversified and Apple is moving into advertising. Google is jumping into hardware but in a Platonic manner. Google gives away Android and allows other companies to build hardware. Apple on the other hand gets its hands dirty with deals, hardware, software, and online services. So in terms of tricks, the Apple orchard has more diversity than Google’s patch.
Now here’s the quote to note:
“If we have a billion people using Android, you think we can’t make money from that?”
That’s a good question. The proof will be like Apple’s bushel basket full of revenue, earnings, and valuation. Google’s good, but a monoculture may be more vulnerable than diverse revenue streams that are up and flowing, not glimpsed in the mirror reflecting the horizon. Plato was not into money. Investors are the kinds of folks who say, “Show me the money.” Very un-Platonic in this goose’s opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, July 29, 2010
Freebie from the goose
Tech Giants Trade Punishing Verbal Hooks
July 19, 2010
The addled goose and the goslings enjoy watching humanoids who make lots of money tussle. It is even more enjoyable when the squabble involves technical giants. Here’s the latest Silicon Valley death match. In the aptly titled Larry Page Calls Steve Jobs a ‘Little Bit’ of a Liar, the acrimony is more frightening than Muhammad Ali’s remarks in the run up news conference for the Thrilla in Manila dust up with Smokin’ Joe Frazier. Personally I think Mr. Page and Mr. Jobs are more intimidating to an addled goose. (One of Mr. Ali’s relatives works with the addled goose, and I think she would be terrified of these tech titans’ blows too.)
Image source: http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/sportatorium/DWTS%20-%20AliFrazier.jpg
Mr. Page, a math black belt, says that he doesn’t believe the tech terminator’s assertion that Google created the Android after the iPhone became a success of the iPhone. In fact the math black belt suggests Mr. Jobs is engaging in an activity that is a ‘little bit like rewriting history.’ I had a teacher who later became an Illinois Congressman. Dr. Phil Crane asserted that Joseph Stalin did the same thing with certain textbooks as part of much-needed revisionism.
And those Illinois elected officials. Paragons.
According to the aforementioned Gizmodo.com article, one could see the Android as somewhat similar to the iPhone. Coincidence? The addled goose is frightened and cannot think clearly. The whole thing has an air of
Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.
Fascinating.
Stephen E Arnold, July 19, 2010
Freebie
Google Metaweb Deal Points to Possible Engineering Issue
July 19, 2010
Years ago, I wrote a BearStearns’ white paper “Google’s Semantic Web: the Radical Change Coming to Search and the Profound Implications to Yahoo & Microsoft,” May 16, 2007, about the work of Epinions’ founder, Dr. Ramanathan Guha. Dr. Guha bounced from big outfit to big outfit, landing at Google after a stint at IBM Almaden. My BearStearns’ report focused on an interesting series of patent applications filed in February 2007. The five patent applications were published on the same day. These are now popping out of the ever efficient USPTO as granted patents.
A close reading of the Guha February 2007 patent applications and other Google technical papers make clear that Google had a keen interest in semantic methods. The company’s acquisition of Transformics at about the same time as Dr. Guha’s jump to the Google was another out-of-spectrum signal for most Google watchers.
With Dr. Guha’s Programmable Search Engine inventions and Dr. Alon Halevy’s dataspace methods, Google seemed poised to take over the floundering semantic Web movement. I recall seeing Google classification methods applied in a recipe demo, a headache demo, and a real estate demo. Some of these demos made use of entities; for example, “skin cancer” and “chicken soup”.
Has Google become a one trick pony? The buy-technology trick? Can the Google pony learn the diversify and grow new revenue tricks before it’s time for the glue factory?
In 2006, signals I saw flashed green, and it sure looked as if Google could speed down the Information Highway 101 in its semantic supercar.
Is Metaweb a Turning Point for Google Technology?
What happened?
We know from the cartwheels Web wizards are turning, Google purchased computer Zen master Danny Hillis’ Metaweb business. Metaweb, known mostly to the information retrieval and semantic Web crowd, produced a giant controlled term list of people, places, and things. The Freebase knowledgebase is a next generation open source term list. You can get some useful technical details from the 2007 “On Danny Hillis, eLearning, Freebase, Metaweb, Semantic Web and Web 3.0” and from the Wikipedia Metaweb entry here.
What has been missing in the extensive commentary available to me in my Overflight service is some thinking about what went right or wrong with Google’s investments and research in closely adjacent technologies. Please, keep in mind that the addled goose is offering his observations based on his research for this three Google monographs, The Google Legacy, Google Version 2.0, and Google: the Digital Gutenberg. If you want to honk back, use the comments section of this Web log.
First, Google should be in a position to tap its existing metadata and classification systems such as the Guha context server and the Halevy dataspace method for entities. Failing these methods, Google has its user input methods like Knol and its hugely informative search query usage logs to generate a list of entities. Heck, there is even the disambiguation system to make sense of misspellings of people like Britney Spears. I heard a Googler give a talk in which the factoid about hundreds of variants of Ms. Spears’s name were “known” to the Google system and properly substituted automagically when the user goofed. The fact that Google bought Metaweb makes clear that something is still missing.
Barcode Scan Coming to iPhone
July 18, 2010
From the search without search department:
Things keep moving forward where technology is concerned and that’s most apparent when it comes to everyone clamoring over themselves and each other to be the ones to come out with something new in that technology.
So Apple needs to stay on top and that’s why they are looking at NFC-enhanced apps that will let users, among other things, scan a barcode on an item to get the product reviews or check nutritional information on a menu before you order from a restaurant.
Here’s a new approach to findability that plays right into the health consciousness and new consumer awareness.
With this new kind of barcode scanning coming to iPhone, we’ll all be able to make the best choices and keep bad firms and industries on their toes. One of the goslings recalls reading that this idea has surfaced elsewhere. The legal eagles will sleuth out this potential intellectual overlap.
Rob Starr, July 18, 2010
Freebie
Google Android, Froyo and Security
July 16, 2010
There have been reports that as many as 40,000 impatient hackers have gotten their Android updates a little early by going the hacker route. Presently, the only phone to get the proper update was the Nexus one. Google designed this one and take what you will from this bit of information, but it’s one of the worst selling phones.
So hackers with other versions decided to get theirs, according to a published report in tgdaily.com. Although the download site is no longer valid, it appears that up to 37,000 people clicked through the package.
If all this is true, these impatient android hackers getting Froyo brings up some interesting issues for Google. Privacy and security are important and Google needs to maintain their forward momentum here.
Rob Starr, July 16, 2010
Freebie
Quote to Note: Google, Android, iPhone, and Time
July 16, 2010
Quote to note: Today’s quote to note appeared in “Google: ‘We Did Not Follow Apple into Phone Market.’” The addled goose has no position on this issue. The reason has to do with the meaning of “market”. Google’s patent applications prior to 2008 include what the Colbert Report might call “phone-iness.” However, “market” can mean available to anyone able to reach the counter in an ATT or Apple store and push a pile of money toward the ever efficient clerks. Anyway here’s the quote to note:
“We had been working on Android a very long time, with the notion of producing phones that are Internet enabled and have good browsers and all that because that did not exist in the marketplace. I think that [Steve Jobs’] characterization of us entering after is not really reasonable.”
Now what’s reasonable mean? Telling a country what to do? Rewriting history the way a certain famous Georgian did? Interpreting research as being in a market? See why the goose was such a lousy student. Maybe Apple’s Board of Directors learned about phones from a certain Board member? I just thought it was a “me too” play.
Stephen E Arnold, July 16, 2010
Freebie
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