What Is the Ethical Ignorance of Google?
May 17, 2012
A new concept is at hand: ethical ignorance. Ars Technica tackles the subject in “Leave Only Footprints: How Google’s Ethical Ignorance Gets It in Trouble.” At issue (this time) is the company’s ill-conceived wardriving practices. Between May 2007 and May 2010, Google’s Street View cars collected personal data from WiFi networks, including e-mail addresses and passwords. The idea was, most likely, to simply gather data that could be analyzed for insight and profit. However, when the exploit was exposed, regulators and the public were understandably irate. The FCC ultimately judged the practice to be legal.
The engineer responsible for the initiative was Marius Milner, who says he did try to get direction from his higher ups before proceeding. They insist they never read his reports. Writer Casey Johnston points to comments Milner made in 2004 that indicate he was very familiar with the legal and ethical implications of his project. She writes:
“Milner’s prior awareness of the privacy and legal issues in lifting data from open WiFi networks implicates him, in one sense: he created tools to do something that was, at best, an ethically gray area for the community out of which he came. But he did first raise questions and seek out advice from his superiors; when it was not forthcoming, he apparently decided to forge ahead. His decision to raise the issue at least partly exonerates him from Google’s initial suggestion that he acted alone and failed to make his superiors aware of what he was doing. . . .”
“Whether it was a matter of time pressure or miscommunication, the apparent lack of advice and supervision resulted in an alarming misstep for Google.”
Good points, though calling this a “misstep” is generous. We thought the policy was do what you want and just apologize if someone complains. Would a movie star convert ethics into ideological tiger blood or just winning?
Cynthia Murrell, May 17, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Test and Compare Enterprise Search Engines with Open Test Search
May 17, 2012
We recommend giving this new site a test drive: Open Test Search, still in beta, pits enterprise search engines against each other. Demos of nine search engines are now available, including Amazon CloudSearch, Google Mini, Thunderstone, Constellio, Searchdaimon ES, Microsoft SSE 2010, and SearchBlox. Each has the same data set indexed and can run the same search query simultaneously, and results display side by side for easy comparison. Users can choose to view search results from within the vendors’ interfaces. Very handy.
The site’s About page explains:
“This site is built as an experiment by me, Runar Buvik, in my free time. I love to work with search and big data problems, and have been doing so for years. During my work I have noticed that almost every search technology vendor claims to have the fastest, most scalable architecture, that delivers the most relevant results. I thought that it would be interesting to set up some of them, side by side, so I could have a look about that for myself. The result is this site.”
For an example of a blind test, click here. To see one results that include vendor interface screens, use this link. Other example queries can be found on this page. The data sets Buvik has loaded, the entire set of English Wikipedia articles and, curiously, a set of 43,426 files from Enron, provide a lot of material for experimentation.
Buvik shares some tips for testers on his Thoughts on Testing page. For example, he suggests judging by top results only. Also, don’t compare loading times because his virtual machine setup could skew those numbers.
Another informative page is labeled simply Search Engines. This page contains a chart of factoids for each search engine reviewed on the site, including useful items like costs, underlying platforms, and the maximum documents each engine can handle.
I tried my own query, for “domestic cats.” (Yes, I’m a cat person. Interestingly, Main Coon was the top result for most of the engines, though SearchBlox put Fritz the Cat first, and SearchDaimon prioritized Domestic sheep reproduction. Hmm.) Only a couple of sample views fit into my browser window at once, but each can easily be seen with the bottom slider. My only suggestion for Mr. Buvik: make the views click-and-drag-able so users can easily place two they’d like to compare next to each other.
I found Open Test Search to be well organized and easy to use, a fun and interesting site to visit. Oh, and it can help you decide which enterprise search product will best suit your company before you invest time and money in a solution. This is one site to keep in your rolodex.
Cynthia Murrell, May 17, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Google News Revamped
May 16, 2012
Do you like your news with a side of networking? Me neither, but Google is betting that enough folks do to make their Google News redesign worth the effort. The Telegraph reports, “Google News Refresh Places Google+ at Centre.” Now, Google News incorporates conversations from one’s Google+ circles and “other high profile users” (whatever that means) into the News homepage. Fortunately, the feature can be turned off. Writer Emma Barnett reports:
“In a blog post about the changes, Scott Zuccarino, product manager of Google News, wrote: ‘Many news stories inspire vibrant discussions on Google+, and today we’re starting to add this content to both the News homepage, and the real-time coverage pages.’
“Google has yet to reveal how many active users Google+ has. This latest move to weave the Facebook rival into one of Google’s most powerful products is a bid to boost the popularity of the service.”
She has that right. Google+ has not exactly been a stellar success.
Another Google News addition is, perhaps, a bit more useful for the average news junkie. The new “real-time” button summons the latest articles displayed chronologically, with commentary or more in-depth pieces at the bottom. This feature is probably designed to replace the Twitter feed the site used to get; Google’s deal with Twitter expired last year and has yet to be renewed.
Oh, and images are larger now. That may be the most useful change of all.
Cynthia Murrell, May 16, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Perspectives on SharePoint from a Pioneer
May 16, 2012
As an early adopter of SharePoint 2010, Robert Schifreen was tasked with deploying SharePoint for the University of Brighton community. At the time, very little was formally written about the product, and Microsoft itself did not know how widely adopted the product would become. Schifreen relays his personal experiences in, “SharePoint Deployment: Pitfalls of a Pioneer.” He begins with the difficult task of defining SharePoint.
To some it’s a corporate collaboration tool that does everything you need straight out of the box. To others it’s a development platform upon which, with the addition of tools such as SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio, you can build a ‘portal’ (whatever that might mean). Microsoft really needs to come up with an accurate, punchy description in order to persuade more people to give it a try.
Tasked with forming his own definition of what SharePoint is and does, Schifreen soon learned that SharePoint was not always willing to work with files and software outside of its own comfort zone.
While Microsoft likes to shout loudly about the fact that SharePoint 2010 embraces not just Windows and IE but also other browsers and other hardware, the relationship does indeed stop at a mere embrace. Some of the rich editing controls don’t like non-Microsoft browsers.
While no enterprise solution is without its quirks, we have found some to be more intuitive and agile. Consider checking out Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise. This award-winning enterprise solution is prized for its ability to play nice with a wide variety of data types.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise finds every scrap of information within a very short time, whether document, contract, note, e-mail or calendar entry, in intranet or internet, person- or text-related. The software solution finds all required information, regardless of source, for its users. Get a comprehensive overview of corporate knowledge in seconds without redundancy or loss of data.
Launching an enterprise infrastructure is not yet easy, nor may it ever be. However, finding a smart and intuitive solution can go a long way in easing the task of the enterprise developer. Check out the Fabasoft Mindbreeze suite of solutions for more information.
Emily Rae Aldridge, May 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Chinese Toy Manufactures Tackle Safety with Oracle Software
May 16, 2012
Many industries have turned to PLM to streamline processes, reduce redundancies and lower the cost of production but a recent Computer World article, “HK Firm Ensures Toy Safety with PLM Tool”, sheds light on an entirely different purpose for PLM within the manufacturing industry – safety. China has long been one of the leading manufacturers of children’s toys but safety concerns have caused some Chinese manufacturers to restructure their entire enterprises.
The adoption of Oracle PLM solutions has helped WahShing Toys make their toys safer. As the article explains,
“…(Takao Kubo, executive director of the R&D, engineering and QA departments at WahShing Toys) said they are aiming to shorten the time required for toy debugging and fine tuning by one month after implementing Agile. He added the company has currently completed phase two of the project, which is to manage workload and scheduling for the different engineering teams. As they enter the third phase: integrating Agile with the company’s ERP system–also supported by Oracle–Kubo expects to achieve cost-efficiency.”
Manufacturing companies have long benefited from PLM to increase production time but the implications of adding a safety component will be far reaching. In fact, as more cloud based PLM solutions are entering the business arena companies will continually find new and creative ways to make the platforms work to their advantage. PLM solutions providers are taking full advantage of advances in cloud and open source technologies to make these dreams realities for companies of all sizes.
Catherine Lamsfuss, May 16, 2012
Perils of Social Media and Compliance
May 16, 2012
I’m sure Facebook didn’t mean to cause trouble, but the company’s recent implementation of Timeline for businesses has created a new compliance issue for firms subject to FINRA regulations. InvestmentNews reports on the transition, and warns that more changes should be expected, in “Social Media is Evolving by the Day.”
Regarding Facebook‘s Timeline change, the article explains:
“Among other things, it allows users to add a ‘cover’ to their ‘story,’ edit basic information, quickly jump to the past, see highlights of their Facebook existence from each month at a glance and more easily highlight events that they want others to notice.
“These changes present challenges to many firms.
“‘In general, I think that securities firms that allow Facebook are going to have to provide ongoing guidance when new features are available or they will find that the granular features may quickly land their firm out of compliance,’ Art Metzger, vice president of advertising supervision at Advisor Group, wrote in an e-mail a few weeks ago.”
Such twists and turns emphasize that social media compliance requires constant maintenance after the initial setup. Writer Davis Janowski is right to note that Timeline is just an example of the ever changing nature of social networks. Compliance advisors must stay on their toes, but at least it looks like they can count on some job security.
Cynthia Murrell, May 16, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
High Speed Searching Possible with Jazzy Algorithm
May 16, 2012
The first in a series where the official Avadis NGS blog describes algorithms used in their product, “Elegant Exact String Match Using BWT” explains a fast algorithm used to perform an exact string match. The article acknowledges that many readers want to know why they needed another string matching algorithm.
Summarizing the problem, the article informs us that the issue lies in the need to matchworks billions of short strings to a 3 billion character long text. Currently, the way sequencing technology works is too convoluted.
The article continues:
“We need an algorithm that allows repeatedly searching on a text as fast as possible. We are allowed to perform some preprocessing on the text once if that will help us achieve this goal. BWT search is one such algorithm. It requires a one-time preprocessing of the reference to build an index, after which the query time is of the order of the length of the query (instead of the reference).”
Overall, the article does a solid job providing the contextual technology revolving around their product and explaining it with diagrams and concise language. It is a recommended read for those who would like to know more about this interesting idea for high speed searching.
Megan Feil, May 16, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Amazon Loses Tax Battle with Texas and Other States
May 16, 2012
Engadget’s Sean Buckley recently reported on Amazon’s tax troubles in the article, “Amazon to Collect Sales Tax, Create 2,500 Jobs in Texas.”
According to the article, starting July 1 Amazon, occupying 20 percent of all US online retail sales, will begin collecting a 6.25 percent sales tax on all of its products in Texas. The deal promises to bring more jobs to the state.
Buckley writes:
“The settlement resolves the online retailer’s ongoing dispute with the Lone Star state, which claimed that Amazon owed $269 million in back taxes. In addition to taking up collection, Amazon has agreed to create at least 2,500 jobs and invest a minimum of $200 million in capital investments, though it admits no fault, and believes the assessment was without merit, according to its latest SEC filing.”
Following Kansas, Kentucky, New York, North Dakota and Washington, Texas is the sixth state to collect sales tax from Amazon. This isn’t the end either, there are several other states on the horizon looking to fight the pesky sales tax battle with the online retail giant.
Jasmine Ashton, May 16, 2012
Sponsored by HighGainBlog
Microsoft Joined by AOL in Outercurve Support
May 16, 2012
AOL is joining Microsoft in its open source ways. ZDNet reports, “AOL Joins Microsoft as Sponsor of Outercurve Foundation.” Outercurve facilitates the exchange of code between the open source community and corporations. It has been supported by Microsoft since that company launched it in 2009 (under the original name CodePlex Foundation), and has now attracted the backing of AOL. Apparently, the move was easier than setting up their own foundation. Mary Jo Foley writes:
“According to a blog post, AOL is becoming a sponsor so it can transfer its internal open-source projects to the Foundation, ‘which eliminates the complexity of creating, funding and managing a separate foundation,’ in the words of Erynn Petersen, AOL SVP of Paid Services Engineering. ‘Outercurve sponsorship also will make it simpler for our partners to contribute to AOL-sponsored open source projects,’ Petersen added.”
Foley asked whether the choice had anything to do with last month’s sale of hundreds of AOL patents to Microsoft, and was assured there’s no connection. (By the way, Microsoft is reselling a number of these patents to Facebook. Interesting.)
A 501c(6) non-profit , the Outercurve Foundation is resolved to complement other open source foundations rather than compete with them. It provides organizations with details like software IP management and project development governance in order to encourage collaboration and spur faster results.
Cynthia Murrell, May 16, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Google Fights Search Over-Optimization
May 16, 2012
Google is at it again. NetworkWorld reports, “Google Begins Penalizing Search ‘Over-Optimization’.” (SEOO?) The latest algorithmic adjustment is designed to counter the proliferation of low-quality sites designed just to attract click-throughs. I guess the poor Panda wasn’t trying hard enough. Writer Cameron Scott reports:
“The company emphasizes in Tuesday’s announcement that the algorithm shift will target only those practices, such as ‘keyword stuffing’ and ‘link schemes,’ that violate its guidelines.
“However, the announcement included the caveat that not all content punished by the changes will ‘be easily recognizable as spamming without deep analysis or expertise.’
“The shift to Google’s algorithm is likely to affect, at least initially, some websites that aren’t clearly violating its guidelines, according to a strategy paper for Web marketers released earlier this month by the search-engine marketing firm iProspect.”
The paper goes on to say that such users rankings will probably be restored with “subsequent adjustments and tweaks.” I’m sure that will be of great comfort to companies who thought they were playing by the rules but suddenly find themselves at the bottom of the heap.
Look, Google fostered search engine optimization in its effort to balance “free” placement with paid traffic. Now that the ponies have left the corral, Google wants to round ’em up. Do you hear the theme from “Rawhide”?
Cynthia Murrell, May 16, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
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