HPE: The Acquisition Champ Makes a Move
May 17, 2019
I read “HP Enterprise Nears Deal to Buy Supercomputer Pioneer Cray.” The article reports the allegedly accurate rumor that the former owner of Autonomy is poised to snap up another outfit. The idea is that by purchasing a fast growing, high potential company, HPE will increase its revenues.
I noted this statement:
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. has agreed to buy U.S. supercomputer maker Cray Inc. in a deal valued at about $1.4 billion as the firm works to become more competitive in high-end computing.
The market for high end computing is changing. Cray, founded in 1972, has bounced from owner to owner in the last 47 years. Yep, almost a half century. In the world of computers, that strikes me as a long, long time.
Years ago I worked with a Cray engineer. I recall one comment about her former employer:
It was fun. We mostly solved problems the Cray way.
What was the Cray way? Usually sophisticated, quite original, and very expensive to manufacture.
How much of that tradition persists after 47 years?
HPE’s financial results. There may be some useful comparative data on Top500.org. Cray held down the number 5 spot in November 2018. IBM an China offer solutions which are a bit more zippy. But for tens of millions of dollars, the stakes are high when competing with a country and IBM.
What about Amazon, Google, and Microsoft? These outfits have systems which are not “super”. The companies do generate some hefty revenues.
Stephen E Arnold, May 17, 2019
Smart Software: Not a US Sandbox
May 9, 2019
In case you were wondering how AI is progressing in other parts of the world, TechRadar tells us, “Report Revealed at Ai Everything Summit in Dubai Shows Middle East On Pace with Global Counterparts.” Writer Naushad K. Cherrayil discusses a survey that was revealed at the recent summit:
“Middle East companies are on pace with their global counterparts when it comes to the adoption of artificial intelligence but have some distinct differences, such as how management views AI and their trust in the technology, industry experts said. According to a survey conducted by Forbes Insights, about 62 percent of the executives believe that AI is emerging rapidly in their industry and executives in the region look to AI as just one part of digital transformation, and slightly more than half see themselves as being only at the start of executing that plan.”
Elaborating on how Middle East companies tend to view AI differently, Cherrayil writes:
“The top three reasons Middle East executives are implementing AI are to improve efficiency, enhance customer acquisition, and improve the customer experience, while globally, companies appear less concerned about using AI with customers and find that the most important business value is improved produce and services innovation.”
Researchers at International Data Corporation expect AI investment in the region to grow between 25% and 30% a year. They note at least a quarter of that comes from the UAE, which aims to dominate the market by 2031. Companies in the Middle East consider AI a key to success, but they apparently have a shortage of appropriate experts. Funding, on the other hand, seems to be less of an issue.
Cynthia Murrell, May 9, 2019
Animatronics: The Impact of Digital
May 6, 2019
DarkCyber noted these statements from “Gold Coast Animatronic Marvels Up for Auction, Rendered Redundant by CGI.” The found of Creature Workshop, John Cox, made these observations:
- CGI had reached the point of photo realism.
- Today with some of the effects we are seeing it is very hard to tell what is real and what is computer-generated
- 3D animation and visual effects are now able to create realistic characters, realistic environments, realistic vehicles all created within the computer.
There was one statement which suggests that human actors may be replaced as well.
We are even seeing in some of the big movies now they are de-aging actors, or totally replacing them with a CGI character, so you have to wonder where it will end.
It is a short step from de-aging to replacing. Now about the accuracy of videos. What’s real and what’s fake? Good questions, particularly if asked by a legal eagle when video footage is evidence assumed to be “real” and there are gaps between an event and “finding” relevant video data.
Stephen E Arnold, May 5, 2019
Background Music: Working Well
May 2, 2019
Crank up the death metal. Chill.
Classical music composed by Bach, Beethoven, Strauss, and, especially, Mozart is supposed to stimulate the creative and cognitive centers of the brain. Supposedly listening to this music while studying or working also facilitates better retention of information and skills. That information has been slung around schools and daycare centers for decades, but according to Neuro Science News it is false: “How Listening To Music ‘Significantly Impairs’ Creativity.”
Swedish and British psychologists, respectively from the University of Gävle and University of Central Lancashire conducted tests on how music impacts people’s performance when they worked on creative verbal insight problems. Contrary to the popular belief, the psychologists discovered that background music “significantly impaired,” but performed well with regular library background noise. The experiment was described as follows with the following conditions:
“For example, a participant was shown three words (e.g., dress, dial, flower), with the requirement being to find a single associated word (in this case “sun”) that can be combined to make a common word or phrase (i.e., sundress, sundial and sunflower). The researchers used three experiments involving verbal tasks in either a quiet environment or while exposed to:
Background music with foreign (unfamiliar) lyrics
Instrumental music without lyrics
Music with familiar lyrics”
When exposed to music, the participants’ struggled, but did much better when they had regular quiet or library background noises. The regular quiet or library background noises were not disruptive, because it created a steady state environment that is not disruptive. It does not matter what type of music people listen to during creative activities, because apparently it is inhibits ideal function.
Bummer. Music is bad for creativity. What are all the iGens and millennials supposed to do when they concentrate. Maybe check their mobile phones?
Whitney Grace, May 2, 2019
AI: Another Crisis!
April 25, 2019
Science, in today’s post modern world, seems to face crisis after crisis. Religious zealots, political fanboyz, and talking head news are often the triggers, but lack of funding and support are a modern cause. Machine learning is creating a new crisis in science says BBC article, “AAAS: Machine Learning ‘Causing Science Crisis.’”
According to Dr. Genevera Allen from Rice University that an increased reliance on machine learning in scientific studies has led to a crisis. She presented her research on this topic at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where she warned scientists that if they did not improve their techniques they were wasting precious time and money. More scientific studies rely on machine learning to digest and gather results from data. The data sets are huge and are also expensive.
“But, according to Dr. Allen, the answers they come up with are likely to be inaccurate or wrong because the software is identifying patterns that exist only in that data set and not the real world. ‘Often these studies are not found out to be inaccurate until there’s another real big dataset that someone applies these techniques to and says ‘oh my goodness, the results of these two studies don’t overlap’ she said. ‘There is general recognition of a reproducibility crisis in science right now. I would venture to argue that a huge part of that does come from the use of machine learning techniques in science.’”
The reproducibility crisis means that when an experiment is repeated, scientists cannot replicate the results. Being able to reproduce results is a core practice in the scientific method, a tried and true method that annoys school children but ensures accuracy. When the results cannot be reproduced, it means the first set of results are wrong. It is possible that up to 85% of biomedical research done in the world is not accurate. Is machine learning making scientists lazy? If these results are applied in the real world, it could be worse than lack of funding and possibly religious zealots…possibly.
Whitney Grace, April 25, 2019
Quantum Search: Consultants, Rev Your Engines
April 18, 2019
Search is a utility function. A number of companies have tried to make it into a platform upon which a business or a government agency’s mission rests. Nope.
In fact, for a decade I published “Beyond Search” and just got tired of repeating myself. Search works if one has a bounded domain, controlled vocabularies, consistent indexing, and technology which embraces precision and recall.
Today, not so much. People talk about search and lose their grip on the accuracy, relevance, and verifiability of the information retrieved. It’s not just wonky psycho-economic studies which cannot be replicated. Just try running the same query on two different mobile phones owned by two different people.
Against this background, please, read “How the Quantum Search Algorithm Works.” The paper contains some interesting ideas; for example:
It’s incredible that you need only examine an NN-item search space on the order of \sqrt{N}N?times in order to find what you’re looking for. And, from a practical point of view, we so often use brute search algorithms that it’s exciting we can get this quadratic speedup. It seems almost like a free lunch. Of course, quantum computers still being theoretical, it’s not quite a free lunch – more like a multi-billion dollar, multi-decade lunch!
Yes, incredible.
However, the real impact of this quantum search write up will be upon the search engine optimization crowd. How quickly will methods for undermining relevance be found.
Net net: Quantum or not, search seems destined to repeat its 50 year history in a more technically sophisticated computational environment. Consultants, abandon your tired explanations of federated search. Forget mere geo-tagging. Drill right into the heart of quantum possibilities. I am eagerly awaiting a Forrester wave report on quantum search and a Gartner magic quadrant, filled with subjective possibilities.
Stephen E Arnold, April 18, 2019
Human Trafficking: Popular and Pervasive
April 18, 2019
Sex trafficking is one of the greatest crimes in the world. Sex trafficking is one of the crimes facilitated by digital environments, but the same technology the bad actors use for their crimes is always being used to catch them. USA Today shares how the technology is used to put an end to sex trafficking in the article, “Technological Tricks Can Help End Sex Trafficking: Former IBM Vice President.”
In January 2019, the US Institute Against Human Trafficking launched the Reach Out Campaign in Tampa, Florida. The program used web scraping technology to gather phone numbers of Web sites selling sex in Tampa. It was discovered that most of the numbers linked to cell phones of people sold for sex so they could communicate and book appointments with their “clients.” Reach Out gathered over 10,000 numbers and a mass text was sent out to the numbers with information to leave the sex industry.
The Reach Out Campaign received a 13 percent response. The program needs to be launched across the country in order to assist more sex trafficking victims, who deal with complicated psychological issues. AI bots called Intercept Bots are deployed to create fake sex ads on the Internet, then when someone responds it collects the user’s information. The bot will then share that it is a lure and that the user’s information will potentially be given to law enforcement. While it is important to assist the victims, it is also helpful to address the perpetrators, generally men, and prevent them from committing the crimes in the first place:
It is important, however, that we not just focus on punishing those engaged in buying sex. Many of these men suffer from sex addictions that can be treated. This is why the Intercept Bots program also sends potential sex buyers information on where to get this help. A study in the medical journal Neuro psycho pharmacology estimates that between 3-6 percent of Americans suffer from compulsive sexual behavior. And studies estimate that the percentage of American men who have engaged in commercial sex at least once is 15 to 20 percent; compared to their peers, these men think about sex more often.
Thee are also ad campaigns targeted at people buying sex share the consequences of getting caught buying sex.
Combating trafficking is difficult, but spreading information and using technology to catch bad actors saves victims from further abuse.
Whitney Grace, April 18, 2019
Facebook: Technical Challenges Arise
April 17, 2019
I read “Facebook Suffers Blackout Again but the Hackers Have Nothing to Do with It.” What struck me and one member of the DarkCyber team as interesting was the tiny hint of Facebook’s technical ineptitude. The word “again” and then the reminder that the service flop was not caused by “hackers” sticks the point of the reportorial spear into Facebook.
We noted this statement:
Earlier in March when Facebook was down for hours some experts had pointed towards DDoS attacks (Distributed Denial of Service) which can sometimes cripple businesses. However, Facebook denied it and said in tweet that the outage was “not related to a DDoS attack”. It had blamed the server configuration change for the outage.
A technical glitch or a distracted technical management team?
Stephen E Arnold, April 17, 2019
Silos Persist: GAO Analysis of DHS Asserts
March 23, 2019
Government reports are often filled with useful information. Some reports can be difficult to locate. A good example is GAP-19-210 “Homeland Security: Research & Development Coordination Has Improved, but Additional Actions Need to Track and Evaluate Project.” This report is online as of March 23, 2019, at this link: https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-19-210. In order to obtain a copy, right click on the link and download the PDF. Rendering of the document in a browser is not reliable.
I think this findability issue provides a good example of the information sharing issues discussed in the 59 page report.
If you are interested in the structure of DHS, the report contains several current organization charts.
The information about the technologies in use for border control is one of the first lists of this type which I have seen recently. You can find these data in Appendix I: Overview of the Science Technology Directorate’s Research and Development Projects on pages 48 and following.
This is a useful document because future procurements are hinted at.
A quick heads up. If you look for the document at www.gao.gov, the document does not appear on the public facing Web site yet. Experimenting with the different options for locating public information, one selector returned a list of DHS related reports with the most recent document dated 2014.
Stephen E Arnold, March 23, 2019
Who Is Assisting China in Its Technology Push?
March 20, 2019
I read “U.S. Firms Are Helping Build China’s Orwellian State.” The write up is interesting because it identifies companies which allegedly provide technology to the Middle Kingdom. The article also uses an interesting phrase; that is, “tech partnerships.” Please, read the original article for the names of the US companies allegedly cooperating with China.
I want to tell a story.
Several years ago, my team was asked to prepare a report for a major US university. Our task was to try and answer what I thought was a simple question when I accepted the engagement, “Why isn’t this university’s computer science program ranked in the top ten in the US?”
The answer, my team and I learned, had zero to do with faculty, courses, or the intelligence of students. The primary reason was that the university’s graduates were returning to their “home countries.” These included China, Russia, and India, among others. In one advanced course, there was no US born, US educated student.
We documented that for over a seven year period, when the undergraduate, the graduate students, and post doctoral students completed their work, they had little incentive to start up companies in proximity to the university, donate to the school’s fund raising, and provide the rah rah that happy graduates often do. To see the rah rah in action, may I suggest you visit a “get together” of graduates near Stanford or an eatery in Boston or on NCAA elimination week end in Las Vegas.
How could my client fix this problem? We were not able to offer a quick fix or even an easy fix. The university had institutionalized revenue from non US student and was, when we did the research, dependent on non US students. These students were very, very capable and they came to the US to learn, form friendships, and sharpen their business and technical “soft” skills. These, I assume, were skills put to use to reach out to firms where a “soft” contact could be easily initiated and brought to fruition.
Follow the threads and the money.
China has been a country eager to learn in and from the US. The identification of some US firms which work with China should not be a surprise.
However, I would suggest that Foreign Policy or another investigative entity consider a slightly different approach to the topic of China’s technical capabilities. Let me offer one example. Consider this question:
What Israeli companies provide technology to China and other countries which may have some antipathy to the US?
This line of inquiry might lead to some interesting items of information; for example, a major US company which meets on a regular basis with a counterpart with what I would characterize as “close links” to the Chinese government. One colloquial way to describe the situation is like a conduit. Digging in this field of inquiry, one can learn how the Israeli company “flows” US intelligence-related technology from the US and elsewhere through an intermediary so that certain surveillance systems in China can benefit directly from what looks like technology developed in Israel.
Net net: If one wants to understand how US technology moves from the US, the subject must be examined in terms of academic programs, admissions, policies, and connections as well as from the point of view of US company investments in technologies which received funding from Chinese sources routed through entities based in Israel. Looking at a couple of firms does not do the topic justice and indeed suggests a small scale operation.
Uighur monitoring is one thread to follow. But just one.
Stephen E Arnold, March 20, 2019
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