Google and France: A Dust Up Escalates
March 16, 2018
The addled goose knows that most Google watchers are mesmerized by the GOOG’s about face with regard to editorial responsibility. There’s the ban on crypto currency. If you missed that news, Google is doing with other firms and some governments have failed to do — taken steps to check the rampant craziness about calculated “money” designed to work around countries’ banking systems, laws, and procedure. Then there is the linkage of the ever accurate Wikipedia to some YouTube videos. The idea is to provide some sort of knowledge based balance to what is now the Alexandria of cat videos.
Put those decisions aside, gentle reader.
Tucked into the flow of news, almost hidden beneath the editorial responsibility stories, was “France Will Sue Apple and Google over ‘Abusive’ Treatment of Developers.” A article states:
Speaking on RTL Radio on Wednesday, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said that he “believes in an economy based on justice” and “will take Google and Apple before the Paris Commercial Court for abusive business practices”, Reuters reports. These allegedly-abusive business practices relate to the way that the tech giants impose tariffs on developers who sell their apps via the iTunes App Store and Google Play, respectively.
There are some flashpoint words in this report. We noted “abusive.” We also think the references to “tariffs” is interesting.
The signal from France merits attention. The consequences could be interesting.
Oh, the subtitle to the story is:
Firms could face fines in the ‘millions of Euros’ if found guilty
That might be why this signal cannot be dismissed with, « Bah laisse tomber ! »
Stephen E Arnold, March 16, 2018
IBM Watson: Just When I Thought Big Blue Was Going to Sell Mainframes
March 2, 2018
I read and marveled at the report called “IBM Watson Is Heading to Space in an 11-Pound Smiling Orb Called CIMON.” I thought IBM went to space with HAL almost 50 years ago. Like IBM’s use of Charlie Chaplin, IBM dips into the past for its new ideas.
I learned:
The orb, dubbed CIMON, short for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion, will be taken to the ISS in June by German astronaut and scientist Alexander Gerst. It has been designed as an experimental assistance system to support astronauts in performing routine work.
Okay, none of that HAL stuff this time around. At least, that’s my assumption.
The write up added:
Manfred Jaumann, head of microgravity payloads at Airbus SE, which designed the hardware, said that “CIMON will be the first AI-based mission and flight assistance system,” a sort of “free flyer, a kind of flying brain” that will interact with, aid and learn from astronauts.
From Jeopardy to cancer to an astronaut’s digital Friday. Amazing.
As the song lyrics say:
You’ll take the lead on each trip we take
Then if I don’t do well
I will permit you to use the brake.
For me, I would pull the plug. Just as Dave did 50 years ago.
Stephen E Arnold, March 2, 2018
Amazon and Google Voice Recognition Easily Fooled
January 31, 2018
Voice recognition technology has vastly improved over the past decade, but it still has a long way to go before it responds like a quick-thinking science-fiction computer. CNET shares how funny and harmful voice recognition technology can be in the article, “Fooling Amazon and Googles’ Voice Recognition Isn’t Hard.” What exactly is the problem with voice recognition technology? If someone sounds like you, smart speakers like Google Home or Amazon Echo with Alexa will allow that person to use your credit cards and access your personal information.
The smart speakers can be trained to recognize voices, so that they can respond according to an individual. For example, families can program the smart speakers to recognize individual members so each person can access their personal information. It is quite easy to fool Alexa and Googles’ voice recognition. Purchases can be made vocally and personal information can be exposed. There are ways to take precautions, such as disabling voice purchasing and there are features to turn of broadcasting your personal information.
In their defense, Google said voice recognition should not be used as a security feature:
Google warns you when you first set up voice recognition that a similar voice might be able to access your info. In response to this story, Kara Stockton on the Google Assistant team offered the following statement over email: Users shouldn’t rely upon Voice Match as a security feature. It is possible for a user to not be identified, or for a guest to be identified as a connected user. Those cases are rare, but they do exist and we’re continuing to work on making the product better.’
Maybe silence is golden after all. It keeps credit cards and purchases free from vocal stealing.
Whitney Grace, January 31, 2018
Amazon and Google Voice Recognition Easily Fooled
January 25, 2018
Voice recognition technology has vastly improved over the past decade, but it still has a long way to go before it responds like a quick-thinking science-fiction computer. CNET shares how funny and harmful voice recognition technology can be in the article, “Fooling Amazon and Googles’ Voice Recognition Isn’t Hard.” What exactly is the problem with voice recognition technology? If someone sounds like you, smart speakers like Google Home or Amazon Echo with Alexa will allow that person to use your credit cards and access your personal information.
The smart speakers can be trained to recognize voices so that they can respond according to an individual. For example, families can program the smart speakers to recognize individual members so each person can access their personal information. It is quite easy to fool Alexa and Googles’ voice recognition. Purchases can be made vocally and personal information can be exposed. There are ways to take precautions, such as disabling voice purchasing and there are features to turn of broadcasting your personal information.
In their defense, Google said voice recognition should not be used as a security feature:
Google warns you when you first set up voice recognition that a similar voice might be able to access your info. In response to this story, Kara Stockton on the Google Assistant team offered the following statement over email: Users shouldn’t rely upon Voice Match as a security feature. It is possible for a user to not be identified, or for a guest to be identified as a connected user. Those cases are rare, but they do exist and we’re continuing to work on making the product better.’
Maybe silence is golden after all. It keeps credit cards and purchases free from vocal stealing.
Whitney Grace, January 25, 2018
Will Mobile Be Microsoft Downfall in AI Field?
January 12, 2018
We are startled to see Computerworld levy such a blow to Microsoft, but here we go— see their article, “The Missing Link in Microsoft’s AI Strategy.” Writer Preston Gralla insists that the company’s weakness lies in mobile tech—and it could prove to be a real problem as Microsoft competes against the likes of Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon in the growing field of AI. Galla acknowledges Microsoft’s advantages here—its vast quantities of valuable data and its AI system, Cortana, already built into Windows. However, she writes:
Microsoft is missing something very big in A.I. as well: a significant mobile presence. Google and Apple, via Android and iOS, gather tremendous amounts of useful data for their A.I. work. And gathering the data is just the starting point. Hundreds of millions of people around the world use the A.I.-powered Siri, Google Assistant and Google Now on their mobile devices. So Google and Apple can continue to improve their A.I. work, based on how people use their devices. Given that the future (and to a great extent, the present) is mobile, all this means serious problems for Microsoft in A.I. A.I. is likely a big part of the reason that Microsoft kept Windows Phone on life support for so many years, spending billions of dollars while it died a slow, ugly, public death.
The article outlines a few things Microsoft has been doing to try to catch up to its rivals, like developing (little-used) versions of Cortana for iOS and Android, working with hardware makers on Cortana-powered speakers, and partnering with Amazon’s Alexa for any tasks Cortana is not quite up to (yet). Will this need to play catch-up seriously hamper Microsoft’s AI prominence? We shall see.
Cynthia Murrell, January 12, 2018
Two Senior Citizens Go Steady: IBM and British Telecom Hug in the Cloud
January 10, 2018
I read “BT Offers businesses Direct Access to IBM Cloud Services.” That sounds like an interesting idea. However, BT (the new version of British Telecom) has joined hands with Amazon’s cloud as well. See this Telecompaper item, please.
These tie ups are interesting.
When I learned of BT’s partnering, I thought of an image which I saw on a Knoxville, Tennessee, TV news program. I dug through Bing and located the story “Couple Renews Vows in Nursing Home after 70 Years of Marriage” and this image:
British Telecom open for business in maybe as far back as 1880, depending on how one interprets the history of the British post office. IBM, of course, flipped on its lights in 1911.
The idea that those with some life experience find partnering rewarding underscores the essence of humanity.
Will the going steady evolve into significant, sustainable new revenues?
Where there is a will there is a way. I am tempted to state boldly, “Let’s ask Watson.” But I think I will go with Amazon’s Alexa which will be installed in some Lexus automobiles.
But age has its virtues. A happy quack to WVLT in Knoxville. No pix of the new couple (BT and IBM) were available to me. Darn.
Stephen E Arnold, January 10, 2018
Google Just Caught the Amazon Ad Disease
January 3, 2018
The ideas are good. Build up revenue from online sales. Diversity revenue and offset infrastructure costs, the bane of Alphabet Google. Open new channels with consumer hardware. Then look around for a competitor with a back injury or a wobbly knee and run plays at that weak spot.
Football American style?
Nope. Just Amazon’s apparent 2018 game plan.
I read “What It Means That Amazon Is Bringing Ads to Alexa.” (I must admit the working of the title was interesting with the phrase “means that”.)
The point of the write up focuses on the consumer “experience.” Sigh. I learned from the write up:
Amazon is reportedly testing out various ad types, including videos and promoted paid search results (a la Google). CNBC reports that Amazon is preparing for a “serious run at the ad market” that could begin as soon as this year.
I understand the counter argument: Google’s ad revenue is “safe.” See, for example, the analyst think in “Amazon’s Advertising Push Will Not Threaten Google’s Search Business, Analyst Says.”
My view is that Google is dependent upon online advertising. In the company’s two decades of making relevance irrelevant, Google lacks Amazon’s revenue diversity.
I may be a simplistic hick living in rural Kentucky, but it seems to be that the cost to Amazon to probe online ad revenues poses few risks and comparatively cost-free opportunities for the digital behemoth.
Let’s assume that Amazon is only partially successful; that is, the company lands a few big advertisers and confines its efforts to ads in Amazon search results and to Alexa outputs.
Google will have to spend big or cost costs in order to make up for the loss of a handful of big advertisers. The problem is similar to that Westlaw and LexisNexis face when a big law firm dies or merges with another firm. The revenues are expensive, time consuming, and difficult to replace.
Assume that Amazon is quite successful. The erosion of Google revenue may be modest at first and then map into one of those nifty diagrams for the spread of cancer. My recollection is that Sartwell’s Law may be germane. See “Sartwell’s Incubation Period Model Revisited in the Light of Dynamic Modeling.”
Amazon advertising may be a form of cancer. If it gains traction, the cancer will spread. Unpleasant metaphor, but it illustrates how Amazon can undermine Google and either [a] force Alphabet Google to spend more to remain healthy, [b] weaken Google so that it cannot resist other “infectious” incursions like governmental actions related to taxes and allegations of unfair practices, or [c] set Google up for gradual stagnation followed by a phase change (collapse).
In short, whether one is pro or anti Amazon, the testing of Amazon ads warrants watching.
Stephen E Arnold, January 3, 2018
The Google Imperative 2018: Do Not Survive. Thrive
January 1, 2018
At a New Year’s celebration, a well-meaning person buttonholed me and asked, “What’s going to happen to Google in 2018?” The person does not search like a high-powered information professional nor like an analyst laboring in the bowels of Shin Bet. I think the fellow wanted a stock tip presented as a query about the GOOG.
I don’t do stock tips.
I shared with the person my opinion that Google is not one company. How many firms have multiple overlapping applications to perform the same function? Want to search for online videos from antsy teens? Use either GoogleVideo.com or YouTube.com? Need to chat online? You have Google Duo and Google Groups and — what? — eight, nine, or more? Need high-speed communications in Puerto Rico? Pick either the Loon balloon or the laser method if you can.
I mentioned to the person who was guzzling bubbly while I sipped my lukewarm bottle of orange flavored Ice Water: “I think Google wants to build bridges, not walls.” I was thinking about the opinions and real news in “Google Looks to Mend Fences after Rocky 2017.” The article suggests or hypothesizes that
the GOOG In 2017, though, the company consistently found itself in damage control mode as it dealt with one controversy after another.
That’s a good thing I suggested.
I mentioned that Google seems to be struggling in relationship with Amazon, the Bezos behemoth which appears to have diversified its revenues, managed to change some business school professors’ thinking about supply chains, and created a gadget business which tells off color jokes much to the delight of 11 year old boys.
Speaking of children, I had in mind this article from Forbes: “Google And Amazon’s Childish Little Fight Is Spilling Into Your Home.” The operative idea is encapsulated in the word “childish.”
What happens when the high school science club gets into a down and out with the high school math club? Well, let me tell you that seating arrangements in the cafeteria change. Friendships are strained. Snide remarks can be heard in hallways.
Net net: Google is operating with a bicameral mind. On one hand, the company wants to do something “big.” On the other, it is scrambling to become pals with China. Recall that Google suggested to China’s leadership that the country should “change.” Now that was about as successful as a Loon balloon in a Category 3 storm I believe. Google’s million dollar lobbying machine is sputtering. Google is embroiled in an expensive battle with the European Union
Three observations:
- The spat with Amazon is an issue, and I am not sure that either company can be completely happy with the other. Let’s hope I am wrong because a teacher whom I know relies on YouTube and Amazon video for entertainment. What’s the adage, “When elephants fight, the grass gets trampled.”
- The problems with governments are going be difficult to wind down. The writing of checks and the promises of being a better corporate citizen have to be sold, then demonstrated. The problem is complicated because some countries see Google like an automated teller machine which spits out money when the lawyers enter the pass code “fines.”
- The diversification of revenue is likely to be a challenge. Google has been trying to come up with additional, high margin, sustainable revenue streams for more than 15 years. Plug those non online ad revenues in Excel. Use the “prediction” function, and what do you get? The result is a curve which does not match what Google has to do to achieve growth nirvana. Reality, unfortunately, is not the same as spreadsheet fever, public relations, and apologizing.
At the party, the person said, “So do I buy or sell Google shares?”
I smiled and said, “Ask Alexa.”
Stephen E Arnold, January 1, 2018
Artificial Intelligence: Horse Feathers?
December 25, 2017
I read “Artificial Intelligence More Hype Than Reality: Narayana Murthy.” The individual expressing this view is Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy. I am not sure some of the folks at Facebook, Google, IBM, Microsoft, and the hundreds of other companies touting smart software agree with Mr. Murthy’s opinion.
I found this comment interesting:
“There is this whole thing about automation and artificial intelligence. That is much more hype than the reality, at least in the software services.”
Let’s ask IBM Watson, Cortana, and Alexa. Well, maybe not. Those systems are engaged in more substantive matters.
Stephen E Arnold, December 25, 2017
The Thing Holding AI Back Is the Thing It Needs Most, Data
November 30, 2017
Here’s an interesting problem: for artificial intelligence and machine learning to thrive, it needs a massive amount of information. However, they need so much data that it causes hiccups in the system. Google has a really interesting solution to this problem, as we learned in the Reuter’s article, “Google’s Hinton Outlines New AI Advance That Requires Less Data.”
The bundling of neurons working together to determine both whether a feature is present and its characteristics also means the system should require less data to make its predictions.
The leader of Google Brain said, “The hope is that maybe we might require less data to learn good classifiers of objects, because they have this ability of generalizing to unseen perspectives or configurations of images.
Less data for big data? It’s just crazy enough to work. In fact, some of the brightest minds in the business are trying to, as ComputerWorld said, “do less with more.” The piece focuses on Fuzzy LogiX and their attempts to do exactly what Google is hypothetically saying. It will be interesting to see what happens, but we are betting on technology cracking this nut.
Patrick Roland, November 30, 2017
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