Factualities for December 26, 2018
December 26, 2018
Accurate data are everywhere on the Interwebs. Here’s a selection of rock solid factoids for your consideration. Believe ‘em or not.
1,700. Number of voice recording Amazon sent to a random person. Source: Threat Post
31. Number of major scandals in which Facebook was involved. Source: Buzzfeed
1. The number of requests from Slovakia’s government to Apple for help unlocking an Apple device. Source: Apple
1. Number of Microsoft products in wide use among Googlers. What’s the product? Visual Studio Code. Source: CNBC
11. Number of shirt buttons equipped as spying devices requested by the US embassy in Frankfurt, Germany. Source: Russia Today
1,000 dollars. The amount one would have to pay a Facebook user to quit the service. BoingBoing
Stephen E Arnold, December 26, 2018
Amazonia for December 24, 2018
December 24, 2018
Amazon operates at scale. For those who don’t want a lump of coal in their holiday stocking, Amazon cheer is in order:
Sharing the Digital Goodies
Amazon, according to the Inquirer, gave a customer access to another Amazon customer’s Alexa voice recordings. Just an error. According to the Inquirer,
It turns out two men has requested their data under Europe’s GDPR, and Amazon had just sent each set of files to the wrong person, ironically causing more GDPR paperwork. Source: The Inquirer
Amazon Means Delivering the Goods
Amazon is the new USPS. According to the New York Times, customers perceive that only Amazon can deliver gifts in time for the holiday. The newspaper adds its own Amazon commercial, stating “Amazon is far and away the leader in e-commerce, outpacing competitors like Wal-Mart, Target and eBay.”
Alleged Dirty Tricks
Bloomberg dissects the procurement dust up for the multi-billion dollar Department of Defense cloud computing contract. IBM and Oracle have signaled that whatever the DoD does will result in a loss for these two long-standing DoD vendors. There’s another dossier zipping around DC, complete with allegations of improper relationships. The Bloomberg story reveals that the dossier reveals that Amazon acquired ABD Advisor to pump out pro-Amazon information.
The Amazon Marketplace Jungle
Amazon’s marketplace has its own culture and its own rules. “Prime and Punishment” reveals what may be a digital jungle. Bogus reviews, dirty tricks, and eBay-inspired questionable products. Push through the underbrush for a look at the primitive life thriving in the Amazon.
Another Amazon Product Service Run Down
Wired explains why Amazon is the king of the digital jungle. The write up reveals that Amazon’s cloud services generate money. The write up states:
AWS offers so many cloud computing products and services that it would be cumbersome to name them all. In 2011, Amazon introduced AWS GovCloud, aimed at government agencies. Four years later, it launched AWS IoT, a platform for connecting and managing the plethora of connected devices known as the Internet of Things. Shortly after, the company won a $600 million contract to build AWS Secret Region, a cloud storage service for the CIA.
Advertising gets a mere three mentions, but our research teams anticipates that ads will be an opportunity for the company to put increased pressure on the fragmented colossus, Google.
AWS: How Big? $600 Billion Big
Business Insider reports that Amazon Web Services could be a $600 billion dollar business by itself. That’s a hefty number. But Excel spreadsheet fever is easy to catch at this time of year. Jeff Bezos himself believes Amazon can fail. So whom does one believe: The financial analyst or the king of the jungle?
Crystal City to Gleam Again?
The once lustrous Crystal City may gleam again. The reason? Amazon. The “Update On Amazon’s HQ2 Impact On Crystal City & Long Island City” states:
According to Trulia via Forbes, as of December 8, there were almost 100 properties for-rent or for-sale that mentioned Amazon’s new headquarters, or National Landing. A total of 44 neighborhoods across the DC metro area contained at least one listing that mentioned Amazon’s new campus (to be built) as a noted selling point.
What? Us Worry? Ask FedEx and UPS
FedEx and UPS may face a tough 2019. Amazon has added more aircraft to its fleet of airplane. According to CNet:
Amazon announced that it was expanding its fleet to 50 aircraft (up from 40). Amazon says this is to support the increasing number of Prime subscribers who expect free two-day delivery…. By adding 10 more aircraft, Amazon is expanding its fleet by 25 percent — a sizable increase.
UPS owns 247 aircraft and FedEx owns over 650. Nothing for these firms to worry about.
Amazon In House Brands
Amazon has more than 100 in house brands. Bloomberg points out:
Amazon has more data on what people shop for than anyone else and can lure people to its own brands with house ads and software-generated product suggestions online and through the Alexa digital assistant and prominent online placements like in the Solo and Dawn examples. And those brands may feel compelled to pay Amazon for ads to ensure their products remain front-and-center when shoppers go looking for them. Amazon loves to say it only thinks about what’s best for shoppers, but is it good for shoppers to have top product listings dominated by companies that pay Amazon for prominent placement and Amazon’s house brands?
If you own shares of Amazon, the answer is, “Yes.”
Stephen E Arnold, December 24, 2018
Amazon: Wheel Re-Invention
December 19, 2018
Some languages have bound phrases; that is, two words which go together. Examples include “White House”, a presidential dwelling, and “ticket counter”, a place to talk with an uninterested airline professionals. How does a smart software system recognize a bound phrase and then connect it to the speaker’s or writer’s intended meaning. There is a difference between “I toured the White House” and “Turn left at the white house.”
Traditionally, vendors of text analysis, indexing, and NLP systems used jargon to explain a collection of methods pressed into action to make sense of language quirks. The guts of most systems are word lists, training material selected to make clear that in certain contexts some words go together and have a specific meaning; for example, “terminal” doesn’t make much sense until one gets whether the speaker or writer is referencing a place to board a train (railroad terminal), the likely fate of a sundowner (terminal as in dead), or a computer interface device (dumb terminal).
How does Amazon accomplish this magic? Amazon embraces jargon, of course, and then explains its bound phrase magic in “How Alexa Knows “Peanut Butter” Is One Shopping-List Item, Not Two.”
Amazon’s spin is spoken language understanding. The write up explains how the system operates. But the methods are ones that others have used. Amazon, to be sure, has tweaked the procedures. That’s standard operating procedure in the index game.
What’s interesting is that no reference is made to the contextual information which Amazon has to assist its smart software with disambiguation.
But Amazon is now talking, presumably to further the message that the company is a bold, brave innovator.
No argument from Harrod’s Creek. That’s a bound phrase, by the way, with capital letters and sometimes and apostrophe or not.
Stephen E Arnold, December 19, 2018
Amazonia for December 17, 2018
December 17, 2018
The online bookstore has been motoring forward. As Facebook and Google face heat in Europe and the US, Amazon floats in the clouds.
We noted these items this week:
A parrot has used the owner’s Alexa to play music and order products. The parrot allegedly specified strawberries, watermelon, raisins, broccoli and ice cream. — Source: Fox News
You can buy an Alexa enabled twerking stuffed bear. The bear complements the Big Mouth Billy talking fish. Source: PocketLint
Amazon is uniquely well-positioned to dethrone UPS and FedEx’s duopoly. It’s built up a strong logistics infrastructure, counting hundreds of warehouses and thousands of delivery trucks. — Source: Business Insider
AWS used to be easy, but over the last decade it’s become a specialization. Every time I wander back to it, there’s another layer of complexity in the way towards doing something simple. — Source: Hacker News post by Sonny Blarney at https://bit.ly/2SJSQjg
Amazon could be using facial recognition to create ‘database of suspicious persons’ The concept would give homeowners, police a way to more easily ID someone engaged in potential criminal activity. — Source: OCRegister.com
“Use NoSQL and do things the “dumb” way every time. Because the perf characteristics are much more obvious to the programmer and designer, now you can just do a full join, or a full table scan every time for every query. Much more stable!” — Source: Colm Mac Carthaigh at https://bit.ly/2QQ7Vm4
An interesting browser plug in surfaces. “Looking to raise awareness of Amazon’s power in the marketplace and of its HQ2 incentives, a group of tech workers in New York created a Chrome browser plug-in called Block Amazon for Me. ‘We asking people to reconsider what they are supporting and what are the real costs,’ said Woody, who is the project manager for the plug-in project…”– Source: CNet
Amazon is moving in, leaning in, and pressuring both the Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure: “Amazon Outposts, a service scheduled to become available in the second half of 2019, will allow customers to provision physical racks of Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers and have them shipped to their own data centers. The racks will be configured with the same servers that Amazon runs in its AWS data centers; once installed, the racks will connect back to the AWS mothership over the Internet and then can be configured with storage services and virtual machines through Amazon’s AWS Management Console. And just as with services hosted in Amazon’s own data centers, customers won’t own these racks—they’ll rent them. The costs and connectivity requirements associated with Outpost have yet to be determined.” — Source Ars Technica
An Alexa clock is available. Engadget notes that the Amazon Echo clock requires an Amazon Echo in Version 1.0. These Amazon gadgets will connect to gizmos like the Amazon microwave in the near future. — Source: Engadget
The “everything” is hyperbole. But a useful run down of some Amazon developments has been assembled by Vox. Here’s an interesting item: “AWS also partnered with Lockheed Martin to get a competitive edge on faster and cheaper “downlinking” (downloading, basically) of information stored on satellites, making it officially part of the military industrial complex.” — Source: Vox
Stephen E Arnold, December 17, 2018
Microsoft Cortana and Search: About Face, Go in Circles, At Ease
December 16, 2018
Tom’s Hardware reports that Microsoft may be divorcing the odd couple, Cortana and search. “Microsoft May Split Cortana From Search in Windows 10” reports the supposed move this way:
Some Insiders testing the new build observe that Search and Cortana actions, once intertwined to enable search with voice activation, are now separated on the taskbar. This is being interpreted as a signal away from Cortana as an integral part of Windows 10.
Here in Harrod’s Creek, we type to our computers. When we ride in our mule drawn wagon to go to the big city, we don’t talk to our mobile phone. We text and scan headlines.
Is it possible that Microsoft has realized that voice as the interface of the future may be going in different directions. Can Cortana say, “Alexa, what’s Microsoft doing?”
Stephen E Arnold, December 16, 2018
Amazon: Making the Fuzzy Laptop Maker Look Silly
November 29, 2018
In an upcoming DarkCyber and in my new series of lectures for LE and intel professionals, I will be exploring the implications of Amazon’s public admissions that the company is the beastie in the policeware kennel. The “few words are better” Jeff Barr has summarized some of the more public announcements in “AWS launches, Previews, and Pre-Announcements” which is a useful, if incomplete, checklist of what’s happening at the Zon. (Where is that policeware info by the way?)
But for Beyond Search and its handful of very gentle readers I want to point out that Microsoft’s furry laptop, Azure outages, and the ineptitude of updating Windows 10 looks bad.
Consider what Amazon has been doing for the past five years or so: Developing not one but two different custom chips, building a range of machine learning tools including free for now training programs, and rolling out features and function to keep the often creaky Amazon Web Services engine chugging along.
Microsoft has the furry laptop thing. Oh, I almost forgot. Microsoft brought back the Microsoft “IntelliMouse Explorer.” Plus Microsoft continues to play more nicely with Amazon Alexa as it tries to make sure it can be Number Two in the big cloud game. Google, HP, IBM, and a number of companies whose names I struggle to remember want to knock of the big dog. The breed is a Bezos I believe.
Net net: Amazon seems to be taking bits and pieces from the Google, Palantir, and IBM playbook. Chef Bezos mixes the ingredients and rolls out a mind boggling array of new stuff.
But which company looks a little behind the times? Here in Harrod’s Creek we see Microsoft and its fuzzy laptop tablet thing. By the way, how does one keep fuzzy stuff free from dirt, bacteria, and burrito juice?
Amazon probably sells some type of cleaner. Why not do a product search on Amazon. Product searches account for a hefty chuck of online search action. Perhaps there is an Amazon Basics to clean the furry gizmo? Better yet, there are ads on Amazon. Ads which once were the exclusive domain of the Google.
Google. That’s another story one can research on a furry Microsoft device using an “old is new mouse” too.
Stephen E Arnold, November 29, 2018
IBM Watson: The Smart Sports Maven
November 19, 2018
The US does not follow soccer, ahem, football. The rest of the world, however, does. Whether you call it soccer or football, it is the most popular sport in the world and the World Cup requires a lot of power and technology to cover it. The Medium’s Global Editors Network explores how in the article, “Covering The World Cup Cup 2018 With AI And Automation.”
During the World Cup, fans are ravenous for information on their teams and news networks use automation and artificial intelligence to keep up with the demand. Individual networks each did something new and amazing to cover the World Cup. The UK Times launched a World Cup Alexa Skill, Fox Sports partnered with IBM Watson to make AI-powered highlight videos, and Le Figaro created automated visual summaries.
Fox Sports’s AI video highlight machine was amazing. Watson used its AI to allow users to create on-demand videos using World Cup clips from 1958 to the present.
“According to Engadget, there are 300 archived World Cup matches that Watson’s AI technology is capable of analyzing. More specifically, the IBM Watson Video Enrichment, a programmatic metadata tool, analyses the footage to create metadata that identifies what is happening in a scene at any given moment with an associated timestamp. ‘In essence, Watson Video Enrichment acts as an automatic metadata generator that is trained to use clues, such as facial characteristics, the presence of a red card, crowd noise, what’s being said by announcers and other characteristics, to create metadata that makes the massive amount of soccer video searchable’, wrote Phil Kurz on TVTechnology.”
Le Figaro’s innovation to generate World Cup visual summaries worked faster than any human. Dubbed Mondial Stories, the automated stories provide all the information someone needs to review a game as if they had watched the entire match.
Automation is a great tool, because the summaries do not require extra expenses, have low maintenance, it is an objective tool, and has potential for future sponsorships.
AI and automation cannot fully take over the human component of reporting on games, because they are just machines. However, they can enhance the viewer experience, increase commerce opportunities, and there are other ideas that have yet to be explored.
Whitney Grace, November 19, 2018
Amazonia: Chopping Digital Trees, November 12, 2018
November 12, 2018
After a few days wandering in the Peruvian mountains, I had a moment of either insight or oxygen deprivation. Amazon can yield Amazonia. No, not jungle insects. Digital information which provide some insight or shape shifting to the company which seems positioned to suck Google’s online revenue like a frisky mosquito.
Thus, we have the first installment of Amazonia:
Alexa Listens and Records
ITEM ONE: Everyone’s favorite surveillance device is in the news. According to a report from WMUR tv:
A judge has ordered Amazon to turn over recordings that might have been captured by an Echo smart speaker in the Farmington house where two women were stabbed to death in January 2017.
The write up points out:
“I think most people probably don’t even realize that Alexa is taking account of what’s going on in your house, in addition to responding to your demands and commands,” said Albert Scherr, a professor at the University of New Hampshire School of Law.
Don’t have an Alexa device? Keep in mind that Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant now available on Windows 10 PCs as a standalone app. More info is here.
Alexa, are you connected to Sagemaker and DeepLens? Unfamiliar references, gentle reader? Worth tracking down our four part Amazon policeware series. Start here.
Oracle, What Database Will Amazon Use?
ITEM TWO: Amazon Eases Out the Troublesome Oracle
“Keep Talkin’ Larry: Amazon Is Close to Tossing Oracle Software” reveals that Amazon is about ready to undergo its final chemotherapy session. Most traces of the Oracle disease have now been eliminated. Sure, there are lingering side effects like Oracle PR creating inflammation in Amazon, but the end is in sight.
I learned from the real news, real accurate Bloomberg:
An executive with Amazon’s cloud-computing unit hit back at Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison, who ridiculed the internet giant as recently as last month for relying on Oracle databases to track transactions and store information, even though Amazon sells competing software, including Redshift, Aurora and DynamoDB. Amazon’s effort to end its use of Oracle’s products has made new progress, Andy Jassy, the chief executive officer of Amazon Web Services, tweeted Friday. “In latest episode of ‘uh huh, keep talkin’ Larry,’ Amazon’s Consumer business turned off its Oracle data warehouse Nov. 1 and moved to Redshift,” Jassy wrote. By the end of 2018, Amazon will stop using 88 percent of its Oracle databases, including 97 percent of its mission-critical databases, he added.
Time’s are changing for the once dominant database giant.
Amazon: Free PR on a National Scale
ITEM 3: The location of a big Amazon office complex may be known. Surprise, Amazon’s giant PR play called HQ2, the erstwhile competition among cities for a second headquarters, may be over. Where is the online giant and policeware vendor heading? The Washington, DC, area. We learned in “Amazon and Microsoft Are Fighting for a $10 Billion Pentagon Contract — and HQ2 in Virginia Could Be Jeff Bezos’ Boss Move”:
“Let’s just put it this way. I don’t think the timing of Amazon moving its headquarters near D.C. is coincidental,” Daniel Ives, Managing Director of Equity Research at Wedbush Securities, told Business Insider.
Yep, coincidence. But can Amazon win JEDI? Microsoft is trying to prevent the juicy plum from ending up in a Whole Foods shopping basket. But Amazon does have that other government cloud contract, and it seems to deliver what In-Q-Tel could not. Plus, the bitter harvest of the Distributed Common Ground project still lingers in some mess halls.
Stephen E Arnold, November 12, 2018
Which Is the Winner: Google Speech or Amazon Transcribe?
October 22, 2018
The answer appears in a write up called “Google Speech Vs Amazon Transcribe: The War Of Speech Technology.” Spoiler: It looks like Google stomps Amazon in this remarkable analysis.
When it comes to languages supported, Google is king; 119 to Amazon’s paltry dozen or so.
Which system does better with long talking, it is a tie. Two hours is the audio limit. But the write up does not explain if the two hours are chunked or if multiple two hour blocks can be strung together. Important information excluded or ignored in this head to head analysis.
Programming languages? Looks like a toss up. But Amazon supports Dot Net, which may be important at clients like the US Department of Defense.
Privacy? Yeah, well, not much information. The write up ignores Amazon’s federation capabilities and its cross correlation analytics. And Google? Yeah, advertising. We know what that means.
Audio formats? Google seems to cover the bases. The write up ignores the Amazon APIs, which is not surprising because none of Amazon’s law enforcement and policeware capabilities seem to have hit the author’s radar.
Vocabulary? Well, if Google supports more languages, whatever vocabulary tweaking it permits will crush Amazon’s capabilities.
Additional features? Google can do emotions. Right, Alexa cannot it seems. The Beyond Search goose thinks the author should check into Alexa’s capabilities with regard to Amazon Sagemaker. Just a thought: You, gentle reader, may want to check this out as well.
Wrap up?
Both are equal. But the way the write up presents information, Google is the implicit winner.
The Beyond Search goose happens to disagree. What are those Alexa enabled gizmos doing? Interesting question which this Analytics India article does not address.
Stephen E Arnold, October 22, 2018
Amazon: Device Proliferation and One Interesting Use Case
September 21, 2018
The technology “real news” channels are stuffed with Amazon gizmo news. Interesting stuff if one considers that these devices may snap into the eCommerce company’s policeware subsystems.
Here in Harrod’s Creek, we noted one announcement almost lost in the flood of device announcements. “Skype Calling Coming to Amazon Alexa Devices Later This Year” indicates that the tension between the two companies may be lessening. Years ago Microsoft had database envy generated by the eCommerce giant’s innovations in data management and data wrangling. Then there were the skirmishes over staff and office space.
If the information in the ZDNet “real news” write up is accurate, this statement may be more interesting than using an Alexa gizmo as a telephone:
Alexa users will be able to make outgoing Skype voice and video calls, accept incoming Skype calls and make SkypeOut calls to most phone numbers around the world, according to Microsoft officials. Users will be able to say “Alexa, call Jimmy on Skype,” or to say “Alexa, answer” when a Skype call comes in.
But the “real news” continues with an admission from the author:
I have to admit at this point I am kind of lost as to how Microsoft hopes to differentiate and position Cortana. Granted, Microsoft execs said they want Cortana not to be just about convenience, but about built-in assistance, but Skype is a Microsoft service….
From my vantage point in Harrod’s Creek, the tie up in voice may be more than a test. In fact, the deal may signal another victim of the Amazon strategy. Microsoft may be losing without knowing that it is in a fight.
Stephen E Arnold, September 21, 2018
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