Toronto Questions Google and Its Smart City
July 26, 2019
We heard a rumor that Google wanted a piece of the tax money to push forward with its Toronto Smart City project. That may have been a rumor. Nevertheless, the project continues and is attracting attention.
Sidewalk Labs, a division of Alphabet (Google’s parent company), is eager to get into the smart-city business, beginning with Toronto. Perhaps too eager, some say, relegating important privacy considerations to afterthoughts. IT Business Canada reports, “Sidewalk Labs Decision to Offload Tough Decisions on Privacy to Third Party is Wrong, Says Its Former Consultant.” Now we know why Ann Cavoukian is their former consultant—she left the advisory role when Sidewalk Labs refused to follow her advice. Reporter Alex Coop writes:
“After over two years of controversy, Sidewalk Labs finally presented a 1,500-page draft master smart city plan for a government-owned stretch of Toronto’s eastern waterfront, but critics immediately pointed out how it doesn’t include an independent group overseeing all digital innovations or strict guidelines that force proposed projects to de-identify personally identifiable data when collected. Alphabet Inc.’s subsidiary has gotten an earful in recent months about privacy concerns surrounding the proposed facelift to the waterfront property. … Sidewalk Labs is proposing a non-profit data trust, but those details, the company said in the NIDP, will be determined based on input from government, the community, and researchers.”
After Sidewalk made the plan public, Cavoukian spoke out, insisting the company take more responsibility for privacy protections. We learn:
“Cavoukian resigned from her advisory role with Sidewalk Labs last October amid rising concerns that the organization wasn’t going to force companies to de-identify collected personal information at the source. This process is used to prevent a person’s identity from being connected with information gathered by the smart city’s chattering devices. Sidewalk Labs encourages this philosophy throughout the MIDP and said it will push the yet-to-be created data trust to abide by it as well. But Cavoukian said this actually leaves the door open, even if it’s a tiny bit, for incoming companies to potentially sidestep the rules.”
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is also concerned, and urged government officials to hit the brakes in an open letter. Currently, Toronto has placed more than 11,000 digital devices, like Wi-Fi access points, cellular nodes, environmental sensors, and traffic cams, around the city. Of course, the idea is to make life easier for the city residents, but we all know what they say about good intentions.
Did Google select the wrong city for its project? Would Scarberia been a wiser choice?
Cynthia Murrell, July 26, 2019
Intel: Chips Like a Brain
July 18, 2019
We noted “Intel Unveils Neuromorphic Computing System That Mimics the Human Brain.” The main idea is that Intel is a chip leader. Forget the security issues with some Intel processors. Forget the fabrication challenges. Forget the supply problem for certain Intel silicon.
Think “neuromophic computing.”
According to the marketing centric write up:
Intel said the Loihi chips can process information up to 1,000 times faster and 10,000 times more efficiently than traditional central processing units for specialized applications such as sparse coding, graph search and constraint-satisfaction problems.
Buzz, buzz, buzz. That’s the sound of marketing jargon zipping around.
How about this statement, offered without any charts, graphs, or benchmarks?
With the Loihi chip we’ve been able to demonstrate 109 times lower power consumption running a real-time deep learning benchmark compared to a graphics processing unit, and five times lower power consumption compared to specialized IoT inference hardware,” said Chris Eliasmith, co-chief executive officer of Applied Brain Research Inc., which is one of Intel’s research partners. “Even better, as we scale the network up by 50-times, Loihi maintains real-time performance results and uses only 30% more power, whereas the IoT hardware uses 500% more power and is no longer in real-time.”
Excited? What about the security, fab, and supply chain facets of getting neuromorphic disrupting other vendors eager to support the artificial intelligence revolution? Not in the Silicon Angle write up.
How quickly will an enterprise search vendor embrace “neuromorphic”? Proably more quickly than Intel can deliver seven nanometer nodes.
Stephen E Arnold, July 18, 2019
GSA Inspector General Finds Something Obvious
July 3, 2019
I read “GSA IG: Federal Acquisition Service Ineffective in Administering Enterprise IT Modernization Contract.” Startling. Amazing. Shocking.
The write up explained:
The IG said that FAS failed to ensure that the Transition Ordering Assistance task order met the requirements for the EIS information technology modernization initiative, resulting in “high rates of spending with minimal transition progress.” Other findings include deficiencies in planning and management, invoicing and contractor performance assessments.
How does one address the shortcomings?
Easy.
Get in the consultants. Form a team. Work up “metrics for work completion”. Make sure these are in line “with budget concerns.” Then everyone implement “interagency agreements.”
Who knew that solving a problem would be so straightforward.
Why do these problems exist? Maybe consultants and staff struggling to deal with certain types of complex interactions.
What happens to projects underway as these recommendations are followed? Maybe more inefficiency, delays, and waste.
Camus might have dropped Sisyphus as his hero and substituted the GSA’s Inspector General?
Stephen E Arnold, July 3, 2019
Google Rivets: Strong or Brittle?
June 14, 2019
An app that helps kids learn to read sounds like a great Googley idea. And (concerns about potential advertising to or tracking of minors aside) it would be—if only it were easy to access. One frustrated father at Ausdroid reports, “Google’s New Kid-Focused Reading App Revit is Incompatible with Their Kid-Focused Family Link Accounts.” After checking out the app for himself, writer Duncan Jaffrey decided it was worthy of setting up for his daughter. He had no problems using the parent-side setup from his Google account. But when he got to the tablet’s Family Link account, things went awry. He writes:
“Surely this app – an educational app for kids – should be able to work nicely with Family Link. Well, no, it doesn’t. It appears there’s no way for me to sign into Rivet using my Google account, using its authorization process on an Android device running a kids Family Link profile, unless I happen to have a Google for Education account myself. Which I don’t.
We noted this statement:
“So, I figure it’s a reading app, it’s not that bad if I just allow complete access for this app, so I try to sign into Rivet with my daughter’s Google Family Link account … you guessed it a child’s Family Link account is not allowed to be used to sign into Rivet. Agrahhhhhhh.
The article added:
“So, what was I left with? I had to run the app not signed in, which means you’re not getting the progress and usage tracking, it also means that when your child accidentally hits the persistent LOG IN button that’s always on screen it pulls them out of the story their reading with the resulting tech-inspired outrage you’d expect from a child.”
Jaffrey does note that Rivet was created by one of Google’s labs, Area 120, which operates more or less independently. Perhaps, he grants, that is why the apps do not play well together. Whatever the reason, the author has asked Google about a work-around; there are no updates, though, as of this writing.
Cynthia Murrell, June 14, 2019
A Brief Explanation of Google Knowledge Graph
June 3, 2019
A “knowledge graph” maps series of connected items, like links or people, and Google has based its search results upon this concept for several years. Analytics India Magazine explains the technology in the write-up, “Knowledge Graphs Are the Reason Why You See Mona Lisa when You Google da Vinci.” Writer Disha Misal specifies:
“Based on the meta description, title, keywords and content, the meanings of the words that you search for is understood with the help of Knowledge Graphs. The results that follow the search is linked to the intent of the user. According to Google, this information is retrieved from many sources, including the CIA World Factbook, Wikidata, and Wikipedia. In October 2016, Google announced that the Knowledge Graph held over 70 billion facts. For instance, if you try to search the IAF pilot and Astronaut Rakesh Sharma on the internet, you will see that the Knowledge Graphs, which is a panel next to the web results, show suggestions that you might be interested in. Since he is an Indian and the user entering his name in the search box, you are probably interested in Indian astronauts so the Knowledge Graphs gives you pages like Kalpana Chawla, Sunita Williams and Ravish Malhotra.”
Of course, such conclusions require massive amounts of data to draw from, and part of Knowledge Graph is a framework for organizing and communicating that data. Misal notes the benefits of this technology go beyond search functionality—it is also being used to inform research on AI and machine learning. For more information, the article links to a video Google put out in 2012 introducing its Knowledge Graph.
Cynthia Murrell, June 3, 2019
Books and Learning: Go Mobile, Stay Clueless
May 27, 2019
I read “The Books of College Libraries Are Turning into Wallpaper.” The main idea is that today’s students are not using libraries to locate books which are then read, thought about, and analyzed in order to:
- Learn
- Find useful facts
- Exploit serendipity
- Figure out which source or sources is relevant to a particular issue or topic.
The Atlantic states about Yale University:
There has been a 64 percent decline in the number of books checked out by undergraduates from Bass Library over the past decade.
News flash.
Once online information systems found their way into libraries in the 1980s, the shift from books to online information access was underway. How do I know? I worked at the database unit of the Courier Journal & Louisville Times. Greg Payne and Dennis Auld acquired the Abstracted Business Information product and converted it to an online research source for those interested in the major journal articles about commercial enterprises. The Courier Journal acquired the database product and marketed ABI/INFORM to university libraries with some success. Many people rowed the boat that raced to become one of the most widely accessed business information databases in the world in the period from 1980 to 1986 when other online products nibbled into ABI/INFORM’s position.
The point is that 1980 to 2019 is the period in which the shift from journals and books to online for certain types of research has been chugging along.
Net net: The decline in the use of books has been underway for more than 39 years. The consequence is less informed people who routinely tell me, “I am an expert researcher.” What these individuals lost in a cloud of unknowing do not comprehend is that someone is deciding for them what is relevant and important. You may call atrophied thinking an oddity. I call it “deep stupid.” In a well stocked library one can become deeply informed.
Stephen E Arnold, May 27, 2019
BBC Explains the End of the Open Internet After It Ended
May 18, 2019
A 3,500 word story from the BBC explains the end of the open Internet. The main idea is that the US approach of sending anything to anyone is not what China, Russia, and other countries will accept. “The Global Internet Is Disintegrating. What Comes Next?” is not news. The essay is a pinch of intelligence agency analysis (a small pinch I might add), some business school semantics, and the routine quotes from experts.
The “what comes next” is mostly ignored. The reason is that the actions taken by a number of countries over the last decade represent the construction of a series of walled gardens. Blocking access is old hat in Iran. China and Russia have stepped up their efforts with political hand waving. Russia has laws which make the US companies either roll over or shut down. How about LinkedIn in Russia?
China is doing the system administrator squeeze. The twist is that Chinese high technology companies are lending a helping hand. Last time I was in China it took only a few minutes for my mobile phone to become a less than helpful gizmo. Five years earlier it took a couple of days to achieve the near useless state.
The BBC explains:
A separate internet for some, Facebook-mediated sovereignty for others: whether the information borders are drawn up by individual countries, coalitions, or global internet platforms, one thing is clear – the open internet that its early creators dreamed of is already gone.
With the business school jargon “digital deciders” wafting through the article, the question “what comes next” is not answered. The reason is that the reality is unpalatable to many in what China and Russia think of as the West.
The actions of countries attempting to prevent unfettered flows of information are designed to protect the government and commercial sector from the difficulties that arise when using US technology without an old fashioned speed limiter. Smaller countries are not keen on having Facebook and Twitter users coordinate protests and disrupt what these countries’ governments see as “normal” processes.
The so called digital deciders have already decided. The future is in place, and what needs to be described and understood include:
- The actions of China and Russia are designed to control US influence. The future is a shift from control to more aggressive actions.
- The alignment of nation states will be a decision by those countries to sign on for either the China approach or the Russia approach. In short, new blocs are now taking shape.
- The behaviors of US high technology companies are designed to increase the power of these firms. Therefore, the companies will find themselves sued and hassled because some thinkers in China and Russia believe it is their duty to step in and reign in the actions of unregulated US firms.
The future of the Internet is, in my opinion, a battle ground. Bad things can happen in such a place even if it is digital.
Stephen E Arnold, May 18, 2019
digital deciders
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
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