Microsoft Tweaks Bing Thing
June 26, 2018
Microsoft, do you know that many non-Internet savvy people use Bing? Perhaps that is too much of a generalization, but experience will tell you that Google does deliver better results. It seems, however, that Microsoft has made a decent Bing upgrade, says the eWeek article, “Microsoft Uses Intel FPGAs For Smarter Bing Searches.”
Google has a feature where you type in a search term and it will spit out a small, informative blurb about it. Bing is “copying” that idea, so Microsoft added Intel field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) to make the search engine smarter. This endeavor is based on the deep learning acceleration platform Project Brainwave. The FPGAs allow Bing to gather information from multiple sources and spit out an information tidbit:
“‘Intel’s FPGA chips allows Bing to quickly read and analyze billions of documents across the entire web and provide the best answer to your question in less than a fraction of a second,’ wrote Microsoft representatives in a blog post. ‘Intel’s FPGA devices not only provide Bing the real-time performance needed to keep our search fast for our users, but also the agility to continuously and quickly innovate using more and more advanced technology to bring you additional intelligent answers and better search results.’”
Bing is also using the new FPGAs to translate jargon, working on a how-to answer feature, and upgrading image search with an object detection tool. eBay and Pinterest may be exploring similar functionality.
Whitney Grace, June 26, 2018
Google, Insubordination, and Policies
June 10, 2018
Are we reading this right? It almost seems as if this campaign is very directly urging certain workers to be insubordinate; Recode reports, “Google Employees Are Being Targeted With This Ad Urging Them To Consider Their Role In Making Search Rankings More Fair.” The group behind the social-media ads is called Focus on the User, and is spearheaded, significantly, buy Yelp and TripAdvisor. The video, promoted on social media, very specifically targets Google employees and their own personal ethics on the matter of fairness in search rankings. Reporter Shirin Ghaffary writes:
“The video claims that Google gives ‘preferential treatment to some of its own content’ such as local listings. (Thus the interest from Yelp and TripAdvisor.) The argument: Instead of Google showing the most relevant results, the company sidesteps its own algorithm to show you only ‘what Google wants you see’ — which is often Google’s own content. It’s an issue that Yelp has taken up publicly with the search giant for years; it recently filed a complaint with the EU’s antitrust watchdog. Google, though, is still Google: Massive, profitable and growing. Google has publicly denied similar claims. But the video calls for Google employees to ‘share this message and discuss it with your colleagues’ — and to bring it up at all-hands meetings.”
This is an interesting approach; we wonder if it will work. Ghaffary points to recent employee protest and even resignations in the face of Google’s military-related endeavors, so perhaps this appeal to the underlings will make some difference.
We also found interesting two developments for the online ad giant.
First, the company issued policies that seem to assure anyone interested about Google and the military. “In Wake of Project Maven Backlash, Google Unveils New AI Policies,” I learned:
In a blog post, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company won’t stop working with the military entirely: It will still potentially work with the armed forces on areas including cybersecurity, recruitment and training, veterans’ healthcare and search and rescue. Google is widely seen as a potential contender for a massive contract to move Defense Department systems to cloud servers.
So we are or we aren’t?
The second item is that Google does quite a bit of government work. The details appear in “The Ties between Silicon Valley and the Military Run Deep.” For a “real” journalism outfit, I found the omission of Google’s team up with In-Q-Tel to help fund Recorded Future interesting.
Net net: What’s true? What’s a policy? What’s government work?
Answer: Money, influence, and a way to capture business which will block competitors like Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, and many others from extending their technology in agencies struggling to tap into simpler, more effective technologies.
The problem is that no one wants to just be up front about the revenue potential, the competitive stakes on the table, and the influence certain projects deliver.
Ever wonder who designed the US Navy? Worth checking out to understand how contracts and projects can cascade through the decades and pose competitive barriers for many other firms.
Yep, some companies listen to their employees and then move forward. Like an aircraft carrier. Do you have the answer to the Navy question in hand?
Cynthia Murrell, June 10, 2018
Forbes Does a Semi Rah Rah for Amazon Rekognition
June 9, 2018
I ran through some of our findings about Amazon’s policeware capabilities. Most of the individuals who heard my lectures were surprised that an eCommerce vendor offered high value tools, products, and services directly useful for law enforcement and intelligence professionals.
Why the surprise?
I think there are a number of reasons. But based on conversations with those in my lectures, two categories of comments and questions capture the reaction to the US government documents I reviewed.
First, Europeans do not think about Amazon as anything other than a vendor of products and a service which allows relatively low cost backend services like storage.
Second, the idea that a generalist online eCommerce site and a consumerized cloud service could provide industrial strength tools to investigators, security, and intelligence professionals was a idea not previously considered.
I read what might be an early attempt by the US media to try and explain one small component in Amazon’s rather large policeware system. In “We Built A Powerful Amazon Facial Recognition Tool For Under $10,” a member of the magazine’s staff allegedly “built” a facial recognition system using Amazon’s Rekognition service.
I learned:
because Rekognition is open to all, Forbes decided to try out the service. Based on photos staff consensually provided, and with footage shot across our Jersey City and London offices, we discovered it took just a few hours, some loose change and a little technical knowledge to establish a super-accurate facial recognition operation.
Based on my experience with professionals who work in the field of “real” news and journalism, the Amazon system must be easy to use. Like lawyers, many journalists are more comfortable with words that technology. There are, of course, exceptions such as the Forbes’ journalist.
In order to present a balanced viewpoint, Forbes included a cautionary chunk of information from a third party; to wit:
“This [Rekognitioin] underscores how easily a government can deploy Amazon’s face recognition to conduct mass surveillance,” ACLU technology and civil liberties attorney Matt Cagle said of Forbes’ project. “Now it’s up to Amazon. Will it stop selling dangerous technology to the government? Or will it continue compromising customer privacy and endangering communities of color, protesters and immigrants, who are already under attack in the current political climate?”
What did Amazon contribute to the write up? It appears Amazon was okay with keeping its lips zipped.
I think it may take some time for the person familiar with Amazon as a source of baby diapers to embrace Amazon as a slightly more robust provider of certain interesting technology.
Our research has revealed that Amazon has other policeware services and features sitting on a shelf in a warehouse stuffed with dog food, cosmetics, and clothing. We offer a for fee briefing about Amazon’s policeware. Write benkent2020 at yahoo dot com for details.
Stephen E Arnold, June 11, 2018
Why Is Amazon Chasing DoD Work?
June 2, 2018
Next week I will describe some of our findings from what has been our Amazon “policeware” research. On June 5, 2018, I will post a video snippet from my presentation and issue a short article in this blog.
Yesterday I had a call with a person who explained that I was in the dark about Amazon’s reasons for chasing a Department of Defense cloud services contract. The person explaining my intellectual shortcomings was articulating a viewpoint which from my research team’s point of view was at odds with reality.
I declined to engage in what I interpreted as a lure to get me to explain our principal Amazon findings.
The purpose of this short blog post is to provide a bit of color about why US government cloud contracts are catnip to the Internet lions and tigers.
The information surfaced in the story “Leaked Emails Show Google Expected Lucrative Military Drone AI Work to Grow Exponentially.” The write up states:
The [leaked Google] September emails show that Google’s business development arm expected the military drone artificial intelligence revenue to ramp up from an initial $15 million to an eventual $250 million per year.
There’s the answer revenue. Greed and desire override many other factors, particularly when the Internet lions and tigers want to find ways to pump up revenues using the government’s need for technology.
There are opportunities to propose new work. There are support contracts. There are multi-year deals. And for savvy government capture professionals other options from revolving doors to deals with insider integrators.
You can read the story which reveals the details and some of the projections for future Goggle government work. But the headline for the story sums up the factoids in the article in two words: Grow and Exponentially.
Now back to Amazon. For those who think of Amazon as a digital Wal-Mart with a back office cloud services business, the idea that the US government could see Amazon as the next big thing seems silly.
Perhaps the information I will share on June 5, 2018, will allow a different view of the wonky outfit which sells avocados at a discount and provides video entertainment to those who prefer the kick back approach to data gathering.
On the other hand, I’m wrong. Google’s technology will not find its way into DoD hardware, software, and systems. And, obviously, Amazon just sells books.
Maybe Google will bring back the “evil” catchphrase and become a management maestro? Maybe.
Stephen E Arnold, June 2, 2018
Google DoubleClick Lowers Ad Revenue
June 2, 2018
Power outages happen, so you wait for them to be fixed. In the digital age, however, when there is a power outage a day’s entire profits can be lost. ZDNet shares a story about a recent outage with Google’s ad stack: “Google’s DoubleClick Outage Should Force Marketers To Ask Some Hard Questions.”
DoubleClick went dark in March 2018 and it demonstrated how much publishers rely on Google. The search giant did not really care, though. Google simply shrugged its shoulders and said to limit tracking and change over to text ads. As a result, publishers are probably going to depend on more transparency. Here are the reasons why, according to the write up:
- DoubleClick is the dominant display ad serving platform and there aren’t other options.
- Google is a near monopoly with DoubleClick and already struggling Web publishers get punched in the head again.
- The ad stack on the Web is integrated so DoubleClick’s reliability woes are enough to make sites crawl.
- Google has rightly been focused on mobile and its core search ad business. That reality makes you wonder how much Google has invested in DoubleClick over the years.
The bug was eventually fixed, but it does not offer much of a resolution for future problems. DoubleClick advertises itself as a reliable company that runs on Google Cloud, but it was not reliable in March. Google can takes its sweet time to fix the bug, but what are publishers supposed to do when they are not making a profit?
Next up for Google DoubleClick?
GDPR.
Whitney Grace, June 2, 2018
Google Magnetism Weakening? High Profile Wizard Allegedly Sidesteps Job Offer
May 22, 2018
Who knows if this “real” news item from a crypto currency online service in India is accurate? I find it interesting because it adds another straw to the pile on Googzilla’s back.
The write up is called “Google Tries Hiring Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin and Fails.” Now Ethereum may not be a big deal in Harrod’s Creek and similar rust belt cities. Amazon sort of has a thing for Ethereum. And despite the chatter about deanonymizing some of the blockchain-centric services, Ethereum continues to generate interest in its “platform.”
The write up states:
Search Engine giant Google tried hiring Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin to work for them. Buterin posted a screenshot of the mail he received from Google on twitter, asking his followers if he should take their offer.
The “offer” was made via a Tweet. I love that type of approach. Very trendy.
The write up adds:
Like most Silicon Valley startups, Google has also been exploring Blockchain for the past few months. In March, Google revealed that they were working on two different Blockchain products; a tamper-proof auditing system and a cloud operations platform. The recruiter may have reached out to Buterin for these projects or any upcoming unannounced projects.
Google does not allow crypto currency ads. However, the Google may have been monitoring some of the actions of super successful company and realized that the train is leaving the station.
Several observations:
- Google appears to be going for a home run play if we assume the information in the write up is accurate
- Google may be in a position which it finds uncomfortable: Back in the pack when it comes to the platformization of blockchain centric innovation
- Google may be losing its magnetism which once pulled wizards to the land of pay to play search.
Fascinating piece of possibly semi accurate, possibly real Twitter delivered information. Communicating by tweet is the new thing I assume.
Stephen E Arnold, May 22, 2018
IBM: Just When You Thought Crazy Stuff Was Dwindling
May 19, 2018
How has IBM marketing reacted to the company’s Watson and other assorted technologies? Consider IBM and quantum computing. That’s the next big thing, just as soon as the systems become scalable. And the problem of programming? No big deal. What about applications? Hey, what is this a reality roll call?
Answer: Yes, plus another example of IBM predicting the future.
Navigate to “IBM Warns of Instant Breaking of Encryption by Quantum Computers: ‘Move Your Data Today’.”
I like that “warning.” I like that “instant breaking of encryption.” I like that command: “Move your data today.”
Hogwash.
IBM’s quantum computing can solve encryption problems instantly. Can this technology wash this hog? The answer is that solving encryption instantly and cleaning this dirty beast remain highly improbably. To verify this hunch, let’s ask Watson.
The write up states with considerable aplomb:
“Anyone that wants to make sure that their data is protected for longer than 10 years should move to alternate forms of encryption now,” said Arvind Krishna, director of IBM Research.
So, let me get this straight. Quantum computing can break encryption instantly. I am supposed to move to an alternate form of encryption. But if encryption can be broken instantly, why bother?
That strikes me as a bit of the good old tautological reasoning which leads exactly to nowhere. Perhaps I don’t understand.
I learned:
The IBM Q is an attempt to build a commercial system, and IBM has allowed more than 80,000 developers run applications through a cloud-based interface. Not all types of applications will benefit from quantum computers. The best suited are problems that can be broken up into parallel processes. It requires different coding techniques. “We still don’t know which applications will be best to run on quantum computers,” Krishna said. “We need a lot of new algorithms.”
No kidding. Now we need numerical recipes, and researchers have to figure out what types of problems quantum computing can solve?
We have some dirty hogs in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky. Perhaps IBM’s quantum cloud computing thing which needs algorithms can earn some extra money. You know that farmers in Kentucky pay pretty well for hog washing.
Stephen E Arnold, May 19, 2018
Algolia: Doing What Exalead Failed to Do
May 7, 2018
I read “How Algolia Built Their Real-time Search as a Service Product.” Reading between the lines and doing a bit of thinking, I arrived a hypothesis. The story begins with the Exalead search system. (You can get some information from the original three editions of “The Enterprise Search Report” which I wrote between 2004 and 2008. I also have a for fee profile of Exalead which you can order by writing benkent2020 @ yahoo dot com. The report is $40 payable via PayPal.)
The developers of Algolia focused on the shortcomings of Exalead, which has not changed significantly since its purchase by Dassault Systèmes. A number of Exalead professionals have left the company and had an impact on a number of companies. That may be the case at Algolia, or the founders of Algolia identified the weakness of other French systems and moved forward. Does anyone think about Antidot, Datop, Pertimm, Sinequa, and other French centric search systems?
Crunchbase reports that Algolia says:
Algolia is the most reliable platform for building search. Our hosted search API supplies the building blocks for creating great search to connect your users with what matters most to them. Our hosted search API powers billions of queries for thousands of websites & mobile applications every month, delivering relevant results in an as-you-type search experience in under 50ms anywhere in the world. Algolia’s full-stack solution takes the pain out of building search; we maintain the infrastructure & the engine, and we provide extensive documentations to our dozens of up-to-date API clients and SDKs with all the latest search features, so you can focus on delighting your users.
The write up explains that the complexity of other search systems, the lack of a hosted cloud-based platform, and the failure to swap out proprietary code for open source alternatives have differentiated Algolia from other enterprise search systems.
Some reviews of the system are available on Stackshare. Among the strengths of the system are its speed, its ease of implementation, and its distributed search network. No negatives jumped out at me. Algolia seems to in a good place at this time.
The system is also available for free for “community projects.”
Several observations:
- Large companies purchasing search systems often find that change and improvement is difficult, if not impossible. Too bad for Exalead.’
- The open source orientation of Algolia may put some pressure on Elastic. I would include Lucidworks, but that company continues to borrow or chase venture funds because the home run swing is not yet butter smooth. But Algolia has ingested $74 million, and like Lucidworks, that money has to make money; otherwise, exciting events occur.
- French vendors have had some difficulty penetrating certain markets; for example, the US government. Perhaps Algolia will succeed where other French companies have fallen short.
For more information about Algolia, navigate to www.algolia.com.
I would point out that the European experts and the US SEO crowd have not paid much attention to Algolia. Quite a few dead horses are being whipped while Elastic romps forward. In the US, search means SEO, and that band of merry wizards remains convinced that Google will put their clients’ Web pages at the top of the results list without buying Google ads.
Yeah, and I believe in the tooth fairy.
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2018
Critique of IBM Watson: Complain, Complain, Complain
May 4, 2018
I read “The Fraudulent Claims Made by IBM about Watson and AI.” Harsh. As my late grandfather said when my grandmother told him to take off his boots, “Complain, complain, complain. That’s all you do, Maud.”
The write up takes issue with IBM’s claim that Watson does “cognitive computing.” I am not sure what cognitive computing means because most of the Fancy Dan artificial intelligence infused systems I have seen are works in in progress. Sure, if one does not know about the hassles of defining a domain, assembling a corpus, figuring out which of the AI building blocks to use from one’s computer science classes, and then fixing up the system so it generates 80 percent accuracy most of the time—then AI systems look pretty slick.
The problem for companies in the software game is that generating revenues is usually somewhat easier with the right selection of buzzwords, some marketing magic, and a trend strikes fear into the hearts and minds of the potential customer.
I learned fro the write up:
I [Roger Schank] invented a field called Case Based Reasoning in the 80’s which was meant to enable computers to compare new situations to old ones and then modify what the computer knew as a result. We were able to build some useful systems. And we learned a lot about human learning. Did I think we had created computers that were now going to outthink people or soon become conscious? Of course not. I thought we had begun to create computers that would be more useful to people. It would be nice if IBM would tone down the hype and let people know what Watson can actually do and stop making up nonsense about love fading and out thinking cancer. IBM is simply lying now and they need to stop. AI winter is coming soon.
I like the AI winter part.
Is artificial intelligence a field which deserves the “Complain, complain, complain” refrain?
What is interesting to me is the number of companies in the search and retrieval game now pitching their smart software. The idea is that the search system “knows” what the user wants.
Why not wear one of these cilices under your shirt when you attend an artificial intelligence conference?
Frankly, I don’t want a search and retrieval system to be smart. I want a system which returns relevant results for my keyword centric, Boolean query. No software “knows” what I need for my research.
Example: I recalled that 17th century clerics in Spain often starved themselves in order to experience religious visions. I could not recall the word one uses to describe the “vest” of sharp wire some of these individuals wore to enhance their suffering. I tried Bing. I tried Google. I tried Yandex. Finally I changed my angle of attack and poked around for redemptive suffering. Bingo. I saw a reference to cilice, and I remembered the word.
Conclusion: I will be long gone before smart software can anticipate what I need and refine my search so that I can locate the information I only vaguely remember.
Can Watson help me? Not yet. I know one thing. The craziness of the AI marketers is the 2018 equivalent of a cilice. Those gizmos are painful and make it easier to perceive the reality of software.
Stephen E Arnold, May 4, 2018
Google: Innovation Desperation?
May 3, 2018
I have lost track of the ways Google tries to spark innovation. Years ago there was something called Google Ventures and before that “20 percent free time.” Today Google has demonstrated its hunger, need, and thirst for innovation by crating an investment mechanism for the Alexa killer, Google Assistant. “Google Starts Throwing Cash at Google Assistant Startups” explains:
Google is launching a new investment program for early-stage startups working to broaden Google Assistant hardware or features. The new program provides financial resources, early access to Google features and tools, access to the Google Cloud Platform, and promotional support in efforts to bolster young companies. Google says its investment program will also support startups focusing on Google Assistant‘s use in travel, hospitality, or games industries.
Like Apple, Google is watching the Alexa McLaren eat up the miles. I know it is silly to compare Amazon, Apple, and Google. Amazon sells books and plans to become a policeware hub. Apple sells hardware and wants to be a services vendor as iPhone X devices provide evidence that peak mobile phone day has arrived. And Google? It is after 20 years of trying to be different, still sells online ads.
The fix is to pay “entrepreneurs,” high school students, MBAs, and homeless FORTRAN programmers to build and expand the Google Assistant ecosystem.
Will the play work? My thought is that Google looks a bit wild eyed with its innovation efforts.
Perhaps it is true that I am worn out by Silicon Valley gyrations. Google, according to the write up, has “passion for the digital assistant ecosystem.”
That’s a plus.
But after 20 years of innovation, Google remains, as Steve Ballmer observed, a one trick pony. Throwing money at the pony is a long shot to change the beast into something different.
Worth watching the transformation attempt, however.
Stephen E Arnold, May 3, 2018
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