Stamped 2 0 Released With Celebrity Supporters
August 20, 2012
The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported on the re-release of a new app called Stamped this a bound to give GooglePlus a run for its money the article “Ex-Googlers Relaunch Their Startup Stamped And Get Ryan Seacrest, Justin Bieber, and Ellen DeGeneres to Invest.”
According to the article, Stamped is an app that was originally created by former Google employees Robert Stein and Bart Stein to make small business reviews more social. But after the app was launched, the Googlers quickly realized that they had an even better idea for it. They wanted Stamped to be a place where users could keep track of all of their favorite things, from restaurants to books, movies and music.
So after spending six months of rewriting the app coding, the small team of ten has now released Stamped 2.0:
“Stamped 2.0 now app operates like Twitter; you can follow others and see their activity in your feed. Each user only gets 100 stamps to use on their favorite things and they’re given more if users interact with their recommendations. The stamp limit, Stein believes, will make every recommendation more authentic.
In addition, Stamped creates personalized guides for users based on their interests and their friends’ recommendations. It pulls together lists of books, restaurants, movies and songs for users to try based on suggestions from trusted people and publishers. The New York Times, for example, will be putting all of its Best Sellers on Stamped as book recommendations.”
The Stamped team has done a great job of getting celebrity support. It will not take long before their fans follow suit.
Jasmine Ashton, August 20, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Wall Street Journal Fails to Correct Major Misstep
August 20, 2012
A big flub at Wall Street Journal was made when L. Gordon Crovitz made some extravagantly false claims about the origins of the Internet.
The incredibly wrong opinion piece by the former publisher was not the part of this story that is impressive. The fascinating part is that WSJ is not making any corrections, instead choosing to simply state, “A version of this article appeared July 23, 2012, on page A11 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Who Really Invented the Internet?” We learn more about the mishap in the TechDirt article, “WSJ Still Hasn’t Corrected Its Bogus internet Revisionist Story, As Vint Cerf & Xerox Both Claim the Story is Wrong.” The article states:
“That was a pretty minor correction, involving Crovitz being confused about how to understand how blockquotes work in HTML. But what about all of the other factual errors, including whoppers like saying that Tim Berners-Lee invented hyperlinks? Of course, considering the very premise of the article and nearly all of its supporting factoids were in error, it raises questions about how you do such a correction, other than crossing out the whole thing and posting a note admitting to the error (none of which has yet been done).”
We here at the goose pond love seeing real journalists in action. Considering how public the discussion about these errors has gotten, we are surprised that the WSJ is not doing more to remedy the situation. Which begs the question: why aren’t they?
Andrea Hayden, August 20, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Imagining The Future of Search
August 20, 2012
Citing (and sharing) an Israeli short film titled “Sight,” CNet News gives us “A Look at Our Gamified, Augmented-Reality Future.” Maybe a virtual librarian is the next innovation?
Perhaps, but that is not the focus of this film from student filmmakers Eran May-raz and Daniel Lazo of the Screen-Based Arts Department of Bezaleal Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem. (There’s a more extensive article on the film here, but do not read it before you view the film if you dislike spoilers.) Writer Eric Mack summarizes:
“Imagine a future where everything is a game, from cooking to dating, thanks to pervasive augmented-reality technology.
“That’s the premise behind this deliciously geeky, but ultimately disturbing Israeli short film titled ‘Sight.’ This seven-minute flick takes us along for a day in the life of an engineer at a dominant AR company, from breakfast to a date that goes off the rails and has to be ‘reprogrammed.’ The concept imagines the merging of big data, social media, gamification, and augmented reality into something that ultimately doesn’t seem that far-fetched, or even that far down the road.”
I agree with Mack, and I thoroughly enjoyed the video. It extrapolates a possible future that could quickly arise from something like Google’s Project Glass, and at least most of it seems quite probable to me. Definitely worth the eight minutes of your life; check it out.
Cynthia Murrell, August 20, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Go Go Google Gadget Goodbye
August 20, 2012
Go, go Google gadget Nexus Q! The software, math and physics wizards may be modern day Professor Gadgets, but even the good professor had issues from time to time.
The Q is crucial in Google’s efforts to connect home devices to the Internet and compete with Apple, but it will not be joining the competition anytime soon. The NYTimes’ article “Google Delays the Nexus Q After Poor Reviews” says the Nexus Q is back on the design table to improve functionality and answer consumer demands.
Google’s new gadget is similar to Apple TV and Roku because it can be plugged into televisions or speakers and be used for music or games. However, it still lacks when compared to the other devices:
“At $299, the Nexus Q is much more expensive than those products and does less. It only plays music, movies and TV shows from Google Play’s limited collection and YouTube, and can be controlled only from Android devices. Google promoted the Q’s ability to make listening to music social because people could change songs from their own Android devices, but early users said the process was cumbersome and it isn’t clear that people have a burning desire to do that.”
Google eventually plans on creating software that can handle mundane tasks like ordering eggs when needed, but we’d probably end up with cracked eggs. Yep, software, math, and physics wizards know how to do great hardware, but they need to know when to say “go, go Google gadget goodbye.”
Jennifer Shockley, August 20, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
XML Exhausting Possibly Too Complex to Last
August 19, 2012
A post on DevXtra Editors’ Blog, “Is XML Too Big? Does Anyone Care?,” poses an interesting sentiment on the size and possibilities of XML.
XML, or the Extensible Markup Language, is too big and can be quite complex depending on the size and purpose of the documents. Syntactic analysis of XML documents are time consuming and difficult, not only for the people completing the task but also for the CPU. The World Wide Web Consortium says that XML “is a simple, very flexible text format.”
The blog post disagrees, stating:
“[…]it’s actually more difficult to parse a large document than to create one. If an XML document is damaged or malformed, software can become very confused, and often, even trivial errors or corruption in the XML document can stop processing. Working with schema extensions can be difficult, and older documents written using DTDs (Document Type Definitions) and Document Object Models (DOMs) can be incomprehensible.”
We think the better question is: “Will people care about XML in two years?” Currently, XML is crucial to exchange data and documents, but will the complexity of the system make it an inexpugnable solution? It is hard to validate using such extensive resources. A simplified system is surely, hopefully, on the way.
Andrea Hayden, August 19, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
How Sellers Manipulate Consumers
August 19, 2012
The Atlantic has also taken note of the study from the Journal of Marketing which revealed how weak consumers are in the face of math, specifically when considering a choice between paying less or getting more. The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson goes beyond that quandary to look at ten more vulnerabilities sellers exploit in “The 11 Ways that Consumers are Hopeless at Math.” Basically, consumers are easy to manipulate because most of us don’t know what anything is truly worth.
I recommend reading the article to fleece-proof yourself. A few points that stood out to me: Stores know that everything is relative; if you pass a wickedly overpriced handbag, you are more likely to go for the only wildly overpriced watch you spot next. Also, when faced with three choices of a similar product, consumers usually opt for the middle one whether it is really the best deal or not. On top of it all, we still fall for prices that end in the number 9. My favorite passage regards the power of emotion to direct purchasing decisions:
“In a brilliant experiment from Poundstone’s book, volunteers are offered a certain number of dollars out of $10. Offers seen as ‘unfair’ ($1, let’s say) activated the insula cortex, ‘which is otherwise triggered by pain and foul odors.’ When we feel like we’re being ripped off, we literally feel disgusted — even when it’s a good deal. Poundstone equates this to the minibar experience. It’s late, you’re hungry, there’s a Snickers right there, but you’re so turned off by the price, that you starve yourself to avoid the feeling of being ripped off. The flip-side is that bargains literally make us feel good about ourselves. Even the most useless junk in the world is appealing if the price feels like a steal.”
Yes, and so online pricing has become a veritable playground for clever folks. Now about the fees charged for online search services. . . .
Cynthia Murrell, August 19, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Holographic to DNA Storage: What about the Hardware Requirements?
August 18, 2012
About 20 years ago, I received an award from a professional association. I was nominated by someone at Bell Labs, and as part of the activities, I was invited to tour a Bell Labs’s facility in New Jersey. On that tour, my hosts introduced me to a Bell Labs’s researcher who had developed a holographic storage technology. The demo was in a small, gray room. I asked the inventor, “What hardware is required?” I recall that a research assistant open a door to reveal a large room stuffed full of gizmos. I asked, “What’s the challenge to commercialize the multi terabyte storage system.” The answer, “Making everything small.”
I thought of this demo when I read “Harvard Cracks DNA Storage, Crams 700 Terabytes of Data into a Single Gram.” The write up points out:
“The work, carried out by George Church and Sri Kosuri, basically treats DNA as just another digital storage device. Instead of binary data being encoded as magnetic regions on a hard drive platter, strands of DNA that store 96 bits are synthesized, with each of the bases (TGAC) representing a binary value (T and G = 1, A and C = 0). To read the data stored in DNA, you simply sequence it — just as if you were sequencing the human genome — and convert each of the TGAC bases back into binary. To aid with sequencing, each strand of DNA has a 19-bit address block at the start (the red bits in the image below) — so a whole vat of DNA can be sequenced out of order, and then sorted into usable data using the addresses.”
I like the word “simply.” Now what about the hardware required to make this stuff work? No information. Fancy Dan storage technologies are fascinating. Practical too … if you have the resources to make these breakthroughs work when you are checking email at a coffee shop.
Stephen E Arnold, August 18, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Expert System Client Wins Web Site Award
August 18, 2012
In another “we won a prize” announcement from a search and content processing vendor, Expert System boasts, “Expert System Customer Telecom Italia Recognized for Top Website.” Telecom Italia‘s site, which uses Expert System’s Cogito semantic technology, was named the top corporate site by KWD Webranking in its Europe 500 annual survey.
Naturally, Expert System takes the opportunity to highlight the newest Cogito features that helped Telecom Italia build a great site. The write up lists:
- “Did you mean?”: Cogito’s ability to understand the meaning of words facilitates greater access to information, even in the case of ambiguous requests. This feature suggests alternate formulas for search queries that contain errors or misspellings.
- Categorization: Expert System developed a custom taxonomy to categorize the Telecom Italia knowledge base, which enables more effective search and navigation of site content.
- Multilanguage results: In addition to search results in Italian, the search engine broadens results by including a separate set of results in English for each query.
- Results filtering by file type: Users can choose to refine results by the type of content they’re looking for, such as by web pages, videos or PDF.
All valuable features, to be sure. We find this crowing about prizes to be an interesting approach to marketing. Effective? Not sure.
Based in Modena, Italy, Expert System has satellite offices in Europe and the US. Business and government organizations in several fields use their solutions for data management, collaboration, and customer relationship management.
Cynthia Murrell, August 18, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Latest Version of TemaTres Vocabulary Server
August 18, 2012
Version 1.5 of the open-source vocabulary server TemaTres and ISO 25964-1 can now be downloaded here. A number of enhancements in this version aim to extend the configuration possibilities and specialization of controlled vocabularies. On new relationship management capabilities, the description states:
“Allow create user-defined relationships:
“By default, includes the following sub-types of relationships: hierarchical partitive, Hierarchical instance, Spelling variant, Abbreviation, Full form of the term. It allows creation of unlimited sub??-types of relationships.
“Manage relationships between terms and other web entities:
“Set relations between terms and other resources available online. Allows mapping relationships with other vocabularies, or other web resources.
“Includes types of relationships editor for creating new types of relationships. By default include: broadMatch, broadMatch, exactMatch, majorMatch, minorMatch, narrowMatch. These types of relationships are recognized by the skos-core engine as valid to be mapped in skos-core.”
The ability to export to WordPress XML has been added, and users can now define hidden labels. As of this version, the SKOS Core engine recognizes the following as valid note types for mapping: DEF (definition note), ED (editorial note), EX (example), and CH (change note.)
TemaTres data can also be exported in the following formats: Zthes, TopicMap, Dublin Core, MADS, BS8723-5, RSS, SiteMap, txt, and SQL.
Cynthia Murrell, August 18, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Search: A Persistent Disconnect between Reality and Innovation
August 17, 2012
Two years ago I wrote The New Landscape of Search. Originally published by Pandia in Norway, the book is now available without charge when you sign up for our new “no holds barred” search newsletter Honk!. In the discussion of Microsoft’s acquisition of Fast Search & Transfer SA in 2008, I cite documents which describe the version of Fast Search which the company hoped to release in 2009 or 2010. After the deal closed, the new version of Fast seemed to drop from view. What became available was “old” Fast.
I read the InfoWorld story “Bring Better Search to SharePoint.” Set aside the PR-iness of the write up. The main point is that SharePoint has a lousy search system. Think of the $1.2 billion Microsoft paid for what seems to be, according to the write up, a mongrel dog. My analysis of Fast Search focused on its age. The code dates from the late 1990s and its use of proprietary, third party, and open source components. Complexity and the 32 bit architecture were in need of attention beyond refactoring.
The InfoWorld passage which caught my attention was:
Longitude Search’s AptivRank technology monitors users as they search, then promotes or demotes content’s relevance rankings based on the actions the user takes with that content. In a nutshell, it takes Microsoft’s search-ranking algorithm and makes it more intelligent…
The solution to SharePoint’s woes amounts to tweaking. In my experience, there are many vendors offering similar functionality and almost identical claims regarding fixing up SharePoint. You can chase down more at www.arnoldit.com/overflight.
The efforts are focused on a product with a large market footprint. In today’s dicey economic casino, it makes sense to trumpet solutions to long standing information retrieval challenges in a product like SharePoint. Heck, if I had to pick a market to pump up my revenue, SharePoint is a better bet than some others.
Contrast the InfoWorld’s “overcome SharePoint weaknesses” with the search assertions in “Search Technology That Can Gauge Opinion and Predict the Future.” We are jumping from the reality of a Microsoft product which has an allegedly flawed search system into the exciting world of what everyone really, really wants—serious magic. Fixing SharePoint is pretty much hobby store magic. Predicting the future: That is big time, hide the Statue of Liberty magic.
Here’s the passage which caught my attention:
A team of EU-funded researchers have developed a new kind of internet search that takes into account factors such as opinion, bias, context, time and location. The new technology, which could soon be in use commercially, can display trends in public opinion about a topic, company or person over time — and it can even be used to predict the future…Future Predictor application is able to make searches based on questions such as ‘What will oil prices be in 2050?’ or ‘How much will global temperatures rise over the next 100 years?’ and find relevant information and forecasts from today’s web. For example, a search for the year 2034 turns up ‘space travel’ as the most relevant topic indexed in today’s news.
Yep, rich indexing, facets, and understanding text are in use.
What these two examples make clear, in my opinion, is that:
Search is broken. If an established product delivers inadequate findability, why hasn’t Microsoft just solved the problem? If off the shelf solutions are available from numerous vendors, why hasn’t Microsoft bought the ones which fix up SharePoint and call it a day? The answer is that none of the existing solutions deliver what users want. Sure, search gets a little better, but the SharePoint search problem has been around for a decade and if search were such an easy problem to solve, Microsoft has the money to do the job. Still a problem? Well, that’s a clue that search is a tough nut to crack in my book. Marketers don’t have to make a system meet user needs. Columnists don’t even have to use the systems about which they write. Pity the users.
Writing about whiz bang new systems funded by government agencies is more fun than figuring out how to get these systems to work in the real world. If SharePoint search does not work, what effort and investment will be required to predict the future via a search query? I am not holding my breath, but the pundits can zoom forward.
The search and retrieval sector is in turmoil, and it will stay that way. The big news in search is that free and open source options are available which work as well as Autonomy- and Endeca-like systems. The proprietary and science fiction solutions illustrate on one hand the problems basic search has in meeting user needs and, on the other hand, the lengths to which researchers are trying to go to convince their funding sources and regular people that search is going to get better real soon now.
Net net: Search is a problem and it is going to stay that way. Quick fixes, big data, and predictive whatevers are not going to perform serious magic quickly, economically, or reliably without significant investment. InfoWorld seems to see chipper descriptions and assertions as evidence of better search. The Science Daily write up mingles sci-fi excitement with a government funded program to point the way to the future.
Sorry. Search is tough and will remain a chunk of elk hide until the next round of magic is spooned by public relations professionals into the coffee mugs of the mavens and real journalists.
Stephen E Arnold, August 17, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
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