IBM Pushing Watson Through Video Marketing: A Good Thing?
April 23, 2012
Watson, IBM’s supercomputer, triggered media furor when it defeated two of the world’s best Jeopardy players in the much-publicized “Man vs. Machine” challenge early last year. Now, the same supercomputer system is being pitched by the company as a valuable healthcare resource that would help diagnose medical conditions and recommend treatments.
Wall Street Technology Association’s abstract of the webcast “Rebroadcast IBM Watson and Medical Records Text Analytics” reports the following:
With IBM Content Analytics and its healthcare-specific solution called Medical Records Text Analytics, the Natural Language Processing technologies used in Watson are available to unleash the content traditionally locked in doctor’s notes, clinical records, journal articles, desk references, drug uses / interactions, and many other medical content sources.
This move by IBM to embrace videos to promote its products and services is effective, but will only work on video-oriented IT procurement managers who don’t have the time and patience to read through pages upon pages of product manuals. The problem with videos is that they are not the real thing. Similar to the three-part Jeopardy episode that shows a machine trumping the best human players, video marketing relies heavily on post-production. Expertly done post-production will easily allow you to forge and optimize the ambiance, background, music, and other elements.
While we know that Watson is from the technology mogul IBM and uses proven search technologies like Lucene, SPARQL, and Indri, it needs more than a winning streak in a popular game show and videos with testimonials merely from healthcare industry professionals to prove its worth in providing solutions for businesses belonging to different industries.
Tell me, IBM. How else can you convince us to purchase your costly POWER7 servers and adapt Watson if there are other proven and inexpensive natural language processing solutions out in the market?
Lauren Llamanzares, April 23, 2011
Sponsored by Polyspot
Ooyala Personalizes Video Advertising
April 18, 2012
As online video viewing continues to gain popularity, advertising tailored to users is an important factor for content producers.
Video technology company Ooyala helps brands personalize videos and profit from sharing content. An article from VatorNews, “Ooyala Launches Personalized Video Discovery Platform,” shares more about the product which aims to keep viewers glued longer by monitoring viewer habits based on length of videos viewed and content viewed. Ooyala’s product would suggest follow-up content of a similar length and related content. The article states:
“In pre-release, with select customers, Ooyala found that the tailored content was already driving a four-fold increase in consumer engagement, meaning longer viewing periods, more videos completed and ultimately improved monetization.
I sat down with Bismarck Lepe, Ooyala’s co-founder and president of products, the other day and he explained to me that as more people shift the time they are watching video content to online methods, people are going to gravitate to the services that have the best elements of television with the personalized aspects of on-demand viewing.”
This sort of tailoring makes for happy customers, discovering content that is enjoyable to them, and happy creators, seeing more revenue dollars in return. Video is a vital part of bringing consumers to sites, and an effective system like this is crucial in improving the streaming experience.
Andrea Hayden, April 18, 2012
Boxfish Brings Search to TV
April 16, 2012
Technology Review recently reported on a new startup that helps users search for words and phrases from TV in the article “Searching the Small Screen.”
According to the article, as of late March, California based Boxfish opened a beta version of its site to the public, allowing users to search through words and phrases that have been seen on television over the past month. The site also allows users to see topics that are trending and set up alerts for specific terms.
Boxfish is currently indexing TV dialogue from the US, UK and Ireland and they plan to add Australia and Canada soon.
The article states:
“The site is simple to use. If you search for, say, “cookie,” you’ll receive a list of results posted in chronological order along with a bit of the transcript in which the word appeared. On the right side of the screen you can see how many times it has been used recently, on how many channels, and also the words most commonly used in the same context. Click on a search result and you’ll see a big chunk of the transcript with bold text indicating the section that includes the search term.”
Since the product is so new, Boxfish still has a few kinks to work out. However, this could be a cool new way for TV watchers to keep up with anything from politics and current events to the latest celebrity gossip.
Jasmine Ashton, April 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Video Search: An Open Opportunity for GreenButton
April 9, 2012
New Zealand is known for its beautiful countryside and all the popular movies filmed there, sheep, and Dot Com. Business Insider reports there is another item to add to the island nation’s “list of reasons to be famous,” “Tiny New Zealand Company Brings Cool Microsoft Video Tech to the World.” The small startup GreenButton used search technology from Microsoft Research and created InCus, a service that transcribes audio and video files to make them searchable. It is aimed at corporation enterprises to make their digital media libraries searchable. We learned:
“InCus is based on Microsoft’s Audio Video Indexing Service (MAVIS), which was previously only being tested by a few government agencies. That makes this the first commercially available use of MAVIS, GreenButton CEO Scott Huston told Business Insider. Naturally, inCus is running on Windows Azure.”
GreenButton also sells an Amazon-like cloud and other cloud applications—they specialize in 3-D rendering apps. Other companies like Cisco and Autonomy have similar services for video and audio, but GreenButton’s InCus is the only one for the cloud. GreenButton has a corner in the market now, but it won’t be too long before a bigger company develops their own video indexing service. Things are heating in this part of the cloud market.
Whitney Grace, April 9, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Geospatial Intelligence: Autonomy and SharePoint
March 16, 2012
I must admit I don’t associate Hewlett Packard Autonomy with Microsoft. I know I should. Autonomy technology has been adding functionality to Microsoft SharePoint for years. I was reminded of Autonomy’s ability to “play well with others” when I read “Information Discovery Improves Search Capability for the Largest Database of Geospatial Intelligence.” If you are not involved in intelligence activities, you may not know what “geospatial intelligence” embraces. If you don’t know, I am not going to explain it to you.
The write up makes three points.
First, the use case described in the document performs what I call data fusion. For the azure chip crowd and the self appointed search experts, you can probably figure out that Autonomy technology is facilitating the integration of images, data, and other information. Without Autonomy, the merged outputs would not be possible.
Second, the use case makes clear that search is an essential component of information discovery. Everyone wants the outputs to tell the user what she or he needs to know. Won’t work. So outputs lead to search and search leads to more outputs. The use case explains that text and source data have to be “augmented”; specifically, entity extraction, categorization, geo-tagging, and reverse geo-tagging.
Third, the system handles open source and secure content in compliance with a Department of Defense metadata specification. If you like codes, here’s the one you need: DDMS 2.0.
Net net: Autonomy has some interesting capabilities for outfits who use Microsoft SharePoint.
Stephen E Arnold, March 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Why Read? Images Are Stronger
March 14, 2012
I came across an article about the value of Facebook profile pictures as opposed to text, and was amazed by the new research that shows that words simply do not matter; it is all about image.
“With the Right Photo, Your Facebook Text Profile Hardly Matters,” covers a couple of studies by Brandon Van Der Heide and two other Ohio State graduate students. The studies look into how people make impressions of others on social networking sites, and it seems that is primarily done through photos.
Apparently, people already have certain expectations of the photos they view on social networking. We expect people to highlight successes and social activities. The study went on to show that if a photo fits what someone expects to see, then the rest of the profile doesn’t have much impact on the viewer. If it doesn’t fit what they expect, that is when people will decide to look closer at what you wrote. The article continues:
Van Der Heide [lead author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University] said he believes the results apply beyond Facebook to dating websites and other social networking sites. It should also apply to other traits beyond extraversion and introversion, such as social desirability and even political orientation. It all depends on what is shown in the photographs, and what clues viewers can glean from them.
According to the research, when people use text or photos alone to build an impression, text will typically have a greater influence. As more businesses head to social networking to build strategic relationships and strengthen customer bases, this is something that should be kept in mind. Be sure to highlight exactly what you want the customer to take away at first glance, because that may be the only glance you get.
Andrea Hayden, March 14, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Browse with Vintage Ad Browser
March 9, 2012
Sometimes search is not going to deliver the nostalgia payload.
Here’s an interesting service for finding print advertisements: tap into the Vintage Ad Browser and step back in time. The site presents, by category, “100,000+ vintage advertisements to explore”, going back nearly to the turn of last century. The site’s About page explains:
“Vintage Ad Browser was created in 2009/2010 and released in 2010, by Philipp Lenssen from Germany, currently living in China. This site aims to collect vintage ads from a variety of sources, including comic books, CD-Roms, websites, APIs, your submissions, book, magazine & comic book scans, and more. At the moment, this site contains 123,311 ads. Vintage Ad Browser has a sister site called Cover Browser, started in 2006 – please have a look.”
Interesting project. We find that here search gives way to browsing, just like in 1993. Reminisce with ads for everything from Airlines to Xmas.
The geek in me thinks the Cover Browser site is pretty nifty, too. It is a collection of cover art, mostly from comics but from books and other sources as well. You may recall Mr. Lenssen. He developed Google Blogoscoped, an interesting news service.
Cynthia Murrell, March 9, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google: More Like Apple?
March 4, 2012
You may know about “more like this.” Well, we think Google has a twist on this search feature. We call it “more like Apple.”
Bloomberg Businessweek recently reported on a new move that Google is planning in hopes of beating out Apple once and for all in the article “Google’s Real Estate Plans Hint It Wants to Own Your Living Room.”
The article argues that while Google has had incredible success in getting other companies to utilize its Android software, the search giant will never be able to out compete Apple until it starts making its own hardware as well. This is where Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola comes into play.
The article states:
“Though patents were one reason for the purchase, increasingly there are signs that Google will use Motorola to create a more integrated, Apple-esque approach. According to documents unearthed by the San Jose Mercury News, the company is building huge hardware-testing labs, including pricey anechoic chambers for testing the performance of antennae on mobile devices.”
This is definitely a risky move for an already very successful company. The real question is, is Google capable of being Apple? Heck, is Google even capable of preventing encroachment by Amazon, Microsoft, and Yandex?
Jasmine Ashton, March 4, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Qumu Partners with Nexidia on Speech Search
February 24, 2012
The ability to search for spoken words in media files is getting a boost, as revealed in Business Wire’s “Qumu Integrates Nexidia Dialogue Search Into Video Control Center.” Qumu sees speech as the most underutilized (though most useful) search perimeter and aims to change that with their software. Their Video Control Center allows for the capture, management, and distribution of video content. The write up reveals what Nexidia brings to the table:
Nexidia’s patented Dialogue Search now gives employees a richer, more precise way to find and view valuable content by pinpointing where any word or phrase is spoken in their company’s webcasts, training videos and employee-generated content. Nexidia’s patented technology searches across an organization’s different media silos and geographies simultaneously, and supports multiple languages.
So, in this way, voice-to-text becomes an add-in. Companies who have long been in this space like Autonomy and Exalead may find that upstarts will snag some juicy accounts.
Qumu bills itself as the leader in the young video platform market, having won some of the largest Global 1000 companies as clients. Nexidia has spent years developing its phonetic search technologies, opening up audio and video sources to search functionality.
Cynthia Murrell, February 24, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Oxymoron Department: Cloud Storage Appliance
February 23, 2012
This piece is not directly about search, but we think this is an interesting development which may spur more cloud-centric search solutions. Wired Cloudline reports, “Red Hat Appliance Smooths Storage on Amazon Cloud.” The application, Virtual Storage Appliance for Amazon Web Services, is intended to support cloud service providers besides Amazon sometime in the future.
The new appliance is POSIX compliant, which means data need not be modified before using it with the application. The write up informs us:
Terri McClure, an analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, said in a statement, ‘Organizations are increasingly looking for cloud storage that delivers the flexibility and cost savings of the cloud without having to overhaul their entire application and storage infrastructure. This newest offering by Red Hat enables organizations to seamlessly easily extend their datacenter storage to the cloud while still receiving the performance and availability desired.’
Headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, Red Hat is a premiere provider of the Linux operating system and other open source solutions. It prides itself on being “the bridge between the communities that create open source software and the enterprise customers who use it.”
Now a virtual appliance in the cloud. How does that differ from any other cloud function? Beats me.
Cynthia Murrell, February 23, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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