Microsoft LinkedIn: An Infusion of Skype or Zune?
June 15, 2020
Skype mostly worked. Then the interface became more like Bob’s. The JEDI knight of updates tries to be on the cutting edge of technology. Despite early attempts at video interactions, Microsoft has managed to remain a few paces off the lead. TechRepublic shares the late party invitation addressed to Microsoft’s professional social media platform: “LinkedIn Unveils New Virtual Events Feature For Communities To Stay Connected During COVID-19.”
LinkedIn’s new teleconferencing feature is Virtual Events and it allows organizations to connect in real time, so it is basically the same as Zoom. Does Microsoft want those looking for a job or consulting gigs to make the shift from Zoom or the interesting Google services? We noted:
“Rishi Jobanputra, head of product for Linkedin pages, said Virtual Events allows brands to target a specific audience and design a more personalized experience while making it easier for brands to share and archive their video content so users can easily find it. This not only extends the shelf life of the event but also allows organizations to target industries with content that may have may have been missed.”
LinkedIn is also integrating the Pages, LinkedIn Live, and Events so they will seamlessly fit together.
Several big companies have already successfully used Virtual Events, when in-person events were forced to cancel. But some virtual conferences, meetings, and hook ups have not delivered. Human interaction remains popular among many people; for example, those without sufficient bandwidth, a computing device, or an interest in the virtual world of experience.
Worth monitoring? Perhaps the events will be on Twitch or Microsoft’s Mixer? Wait! Isn’t Mixer a virtual meeting operation too?
Okay, Zune that and out.
Whitney Grace, June 15, 2020
DarkCyber for June 9, 2020, Is Now Available: AI and Music Composition
June 9, 2020
The DarkCyber for June 9, 2020, presents a critical look at music generated by artificial intelligence. The focus is the award-winning song in the Eurovision AI 2020 competition. The interview discusses the characteristics of AI-generated music, its impact on music directors, how professional musicians deal with machine-created music, and the implications of non-numan music. The program is a criticism of the state-of-the-art for smart software. Instead of focusing on often over-hyped start ups and large companies making increasingly exaggerated claims, the Australian song and the two musicians make clear that AI is a work in progress. You can view the video at https://vimeo.com/427227666.
Kenny Toth, June 9, 2020
Astronaut: Fly Blind into the Video Universe
June 4, 2020
Like unwatched videos? Have a short attention span? We have a suggestion.
Astronaut.io. The service is an intriguing, if potentially bewildering, time killer. The site asks users to imagine they are astronauts, peering on people’s fleeting moments through the window. Then, against a view of Earth from space, they stream random, obscure YouTube videos in 10-second bites until one’s serendipity meter is full. In Wired’s piece, “Watch a Surprisingly Touching Stream of Unwatched YouTube Videos,” writer Liz Stinson explains:
“Scenes from a high school weight lifting competition might follow a birthday party in Texas that follows a man in Russia repairing his motorbike. You never know what to expect, yet the videos share something in common. Andrew Wong and James Thompson created an algorithm that seeks videos fitting specific criteria: uploaded within the past week, with generic file names (IMG, MOV WMV) as titles, and zero views. The result is a fascinating glimpse at the mundane, perplexing, and oftentimes sweet events of everyday life. … One video seamlessly follows another with no buffering. Wong coded three players into the website, allowing two videos to buffer as the third played. This creates a smooth vignette effect where you glean just a bit of context about each clip. Videos last no more than 10 seconds and often change just as you begin to care (a button at the bottom of the page lets you linger on a video). That can be frustrating, but ephemerality was key.”
Wong compares the effect to glimpsing images out a train window just long enough to pique one’s curiosity. Stinson observes that most makers of these untitled, little-viewed videos probably never expected anyone but their nearest and dearest to see them. She writes:
“The tension between the uneasiness of this benign voyeurism and the sensation of feeling connected to a stranger is what makes Astronaut.io so wonderful.”
Perhaps. It can certainly capture the attention. Check it out, and see if the poetic effect is for you.
Cynthia Murrell, June 4, 2020
Facial Recognition: A Partial List
June 3, 2020
DarkCyber noted “From RealPlayer to Toshiba, Tech Companies Cash in on the Facial Recognition Gold Rush.” The write up provides two interesting things and one idea which is like a truck tire retread.
First, the write up points out that facial recognition or FR is a “gold rush.” That’s a comparison which eluded the DarkCyber research team. There’s no land. No seller of heavy duty pants. No beautiful scenery. No wading in cold water. No hydro mining. Come to think of it, FR is not like a gold rush.
Second, the write up provides a partial list of outfits engaged in facial recognition. The word partial is important. There are some notable omissions, but 45 is an impressive number. That’s the point. Just 45?
The aspect of the write the DarkCyber team ignored is this “from the MBA classroom” observation:
Despite hundreds of vendors currently selling facial recognition technology across the United States, there is no single government body registering the technology’s rollout, nor is there a public-facing list of such companies working with law enforcement. To document which companies are selling such technology today, the best resource the public has is a governmental agency called the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Governments are doing a wonderful job it seems. Perhaps the European Union should step forward? What about Brazil? China? Russia? The United Nations? With Covid threats apparently declining, maybe the World Health Organization? Yep, governments.
Then, after wanting a central listing of FR vendors, this passage snagged one of my researcher’s attention:
NIST is a government organization responsible for setting scientific measurement standards and testing novel technology. As a public service, NIST also provides a rolling analysis of facial recognition algorithms, which evaluates the accuracy and speed of a vendor’s algorithms. Recently, that analysis has also included aspects of facial recognition field like algorithmic bias based on race, age, and sex. NIST has previously found evidence of bias in a majority of algorithms studied.
Yep, NIST. The group has done an outstanding job for enterprise search. Plus the bias in algorithms has been documented and run through the math grinding wheel for many years. Put in snaps of bad actors and the FR system does indeed learn to match one digital watermark with a similar digital watermark. Run kindergarten snaps through the system and FR matches are essentially useless. Bias? Sure enough.
Consider these ideas:
- An organization, maybe Medium, should build a database of FR companies
- An organization, maybe Medium, should test each of the FR systems using available datasets or better yet building a training set
- An organization, maybe Medium, should set up a separate public policy blog to track government organizations which are not doing the job to Medium’s standards.
There is an interest in facial recognition because there is a need to figure out who is who. There are some civil disturbances underway in a certain high profile country. FR systems may not be perfect, but they may offer a useful tool to some. On the other hand, why not abandon modern tools until they are perfect.
We live in an era of good enough, and that’s what is available.
Stephen E Arnold, June 3, 2020
DarkCyber for May 26, 2020 Now Available
May 26, 2020
DarkCyber for May 26, 2020, is an online video program focusing on cyber crime, intelligence, and lesser known Internet services. This week’s stories include NSO Group in the PR spotlight, Covid 19 phishing, Germany limits intel services scope of action, a source for bad actor hackers, ETSI.org as a job hunter’s game preserve, and four new drones for surveillance and kinetic action. (Kinetic means explosive munitions.)
The program is a production of Stephen E Arnold and the DarkCyber research team.
In addition to our news programs, we have begun adding special videos. You can view the most recent interview segments with a CIA professional is DarkCyber Exclusive: Litigation Likely for Short Selling.
More special video features are in the works. Remember. DarkCyber contains no demeaning “begging for dollars” pleas, no content marketing, and no subscription fees. As a result, DarkCyber videos and blog posts deliver information that may be difficult to locate and analysis that can cause consternation.
This week’s program is at https://vimeo.com/422426350.
Kenny Toth, May 26, 2020
DarkCyber Exclusive: Steele Aims for the Hearts of Wall Street Short Sellers
May 23, 2020
We posted a follow up interview with Robert David Steele, a former CIA professional. This video expands on the allegations of wide spread, systemic fraud. Steele explains why a government task force is needed. He describes the scope of the audit, involving six financial giants and a back office operation. If you are interested in learning about alleged skyscraper-sized financial misbehavior, you can view the video on Vimeo at this link.
Stephen E Arnold, May 23, 2020
Zooming: Uber Lets Off Some Passengers
May 13, 2020
DarkCyber does not know if this story is spot on, but it is interesting. The estimable UK tabloid the Daily Mail (yes, the one with the videos one cannot turn off without five or six clicks) published “Today will be Your Last Working Day with Uber.” Other firms allegedly have used Zoom videoconferencing to inform the surplus humanoids that they can find their future elsewhere. (DarkCyber loves that phrase “Find your future elsewhere, don’t you, gentle reader?)
According to the estimable news service:
At least 3,500 Uber employees learned that they were being laid off in a three minute Zoom call last week.
The online version of the story includes the allegedly “real” video of an Uber person (still employed at the time) bid farewell to the Übermenschen.
The person nuking these individuals has a fascinating title; to wit:
Head of Uber’s customer service at Uber’s Phoenix Center of Excellence.
Zoom is in the news, but in this instance, it is not the insights of the video conferencing firm’s security advisor. The use of Zoom by a go go Silicon Valley firm makes the headline. DarkCyber wants to add that the Daily Mail’s headline is very Googley.
Stephen E Arnold, May 13, 2020
Zoom: The Google Response Includes Me Too and a Multi Warhead Strategy
May 12, 2020
Zoom became an overnight sensation. Now Google and Microsoft are waking up to the buzz the company is generating. Where there is buzz, there is money to be made.
Google is notable for having numerous products and services. It has a reputation of abandoning projects when Googlers lose their enthusiasm for a product or service that will not advance their career.
“Google Meet vs Google Hangouts vs Google Duo: What’s the Difference?” asks a good question. The article does make clear that Google offers three services. Presumably Zoom will find itself surrounded and either sell out or just be squashed by the increased competitive pressure.
According to the Verge (a publication which combines wit with Harvard Business Review advice), “Google unifies all of its messaging and communication apps into a single team.” The new Zoom killing initiative will be guided by Javier Soltero, the person who developed the mobile email app Acompli. Soltero worked at Microsoft and is credited as making Outlook what it is today. (What happened to Messrs. Bhatia and Smith, the creators of Hotmail who had some influence on the fine Outlook system?)
From our redoubt in rural Kentucky, does Google need three services to deal with Zoom? Zoom is not a newcomer. The company was set up in 2011. In that period of time, Google had its own array of video meeting services, chat apps, and messaging services. Frankly, I cannot differentiate among Google’s offerings. Maybe sometime in the future enlightenment will arrive.
In terms of financial commitments, will Google consolidate its messaging products and services in order to reduce costs? Will Google innovate so that children of Google engineers will abandon their use of Zoom? Will Google gain organic traction in the video meeting space? Will Google stick with video meetings or abandon them as it did the Toronto smart city play? Will a user know to use Chrome to make group calls in Google Duo? (Even the question can make one’s head spin.)
These are questions which are difficult to answer. Google’s sudden focus on video meetings supports three observations:
- Google failed to develop a video meeting service with the organic popularity of Zoom
- Google’s response is a classic knee jerk reaction
- Google needed to hire a person to try and bring order to the Google entropy generating approach to product and service innovation.
Should Zoom be worried? Yes.
Will Microsoft step up its efforts to deal with Zoom and put speed bumps in front of Google’s information highway? Will Amazon become more active in video services?
Yes.
What’s this mean for Zoom? DarkCyber thinks that life for Zoom will become more challenging.
What’s this mean for Google? Whatever the company does, the actions may fan the flames of regulatory probes into the company’s practices.
Microsoft will thrash, and probably execute another Skype play? Skype, you remember, the dropped ball.
And Amazon? The Bezos bulldozer will grind into the space crushing those not agile enough to climb aboard or avoid getting mashed into the dirt.
And Zoom? I will think fondly of the company, its inept customer support, its icon litter, and its zero privacy approach to video services.
Google’s and Microsoft’s approach to innovation and competition are at least semi-amusing. Zoom, however, may not get much of a chuckle out of the stepped up competitive pressure.
Stephen E Arnold, May 12, 2020
Microsoft: Documentation Craziness for Teams Meetings
May 12, 2020
Zoom has gained popularity because it is comparatively easy to use. WebEx does the Java thing. FreeConference.com relies on IBM for a peculiar experience. Google does the confusing array of overlapping services thing.
But Microsoft? Microsoft is in its own reality.
Take a look at “Meetings and conferencing in Microsoft Teams.” The acronym TL/DNR applies to this masterpiece of documentation. You know you are in for a long day when the statement appears telling you:
You can now use Advisor for Teams (preview) to help you roll out Microsoft Teams. Advisor for Teams (preview) walks you through your Teams rollout, including meetings and conferencing.
Note the link. Well, there are dozens of links in the write up. In fact, the text of the document is a vehicle for providing links to long documents with more links.
There’s a plain text reference to a “contoso.com,” which is a verified domain. What happens if you plug contoso.com into a browser? This page renders:
That was a surprise: Content unrelated to video meetings.
Remarkable documentation. No wonder Microsoft Certified Partners love this stuff.
Plus the most important item of information is tucked into the documentation; to wit:
To get the best experience on Teams, your organization must have deployed Exchange Online and SharePoint Online, and you must have a verified domain for O365…
Zoom is not perfect, but it is somewhat less forbidding than the Microsoft service.
Stephen E Arnold, May 12, 2020
TechRepublic: Unintentionally Amusing Non Playing Videos about Videos
May 10, 2020
DarkCyber noted “How to Hold Video Meetings Like a Pro.” We clicked the link to learn what this interesting publication offered for those struggling with the video work from home activity. Here’s what we saw, and we left the page rendering for 10 minutes:
Yep, a video that would not play. But take heart, gentle reader. The write-up includes a link to an audio version of the podcast about video meetings. That worked even though the guest’s audio was subdued. And, if the rich media from the article leaves you with some disappointment thoughts, just read the article itself. It contains some amazing observations; for example:
- There’s a part of the brain that knows when you’re alone in the cave, when you’re a cave person in the dark that there’s someone in the room with you.
- Now, I didn’t pay retail for it. I bought it on Craigslist.
- I believe very strongly in nesting. This isn’t performative. [Interesting word]
- It’s also worth pointing out that I’m looking at a mirror image of myself as you are as well. That’s because people hate looking at themselves as they are seen.
For more insights and maybe the video if you are lucky, this interview is the cat’s pajamas with Lego toys in the background.
Video interviews probably should include video which actually renders. The spinning green thing is interesting for a short time, then it’s boring… just like… video like a pro? Amusing.
Stephen E Arnold, May 10, 2020
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