Security, Data Analytics Make List of Predicted Trends in 2015
January 9, 2015
The article on ZyLab titled Looking Ahead to 2015 sums up the latest areas of focus at the end of one year and the beginning of the next. Obviously security is at the top of the list. According to the article, incidents of breaches in security grew 43% in 2014. We assume Sony would be the first to agree that security is of the utmost importance to most companies. The article goes on to predict audio data being increasingly important as evidence,
“Audio evidence brings many challenges. For example, the review of audio evidence can be more labor intensive than other types of electronically stored information because of the need to listen not only to the words but also take into consideration tone, expression and other subtle nuances of speech and intonation…As a result, the cost of reviewing audio evidence can quickly become prohibitive and with only a proportional of the data relevant in most cases.”
The article also briefly discusses various data sources, data analytics and information governance in their prediction of the trends for 2015. The article makes a point of focusing on the growth of data and types of data sources, which will hopefully coincide with an improved ability to discover the sort of insights that companies desire.
Chelsea Kerwin, January 09, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Why Video Is Booming
January 8, 2015
I read “The Average College Freshman Reads at 7th Grade Level.” I find this fascinating. No wonder folks are baffled when it comes to framing a query using Boolean logic. Little wonder that youthful search “experts” are clueless about the antics of search vendors from the 1980s. These folks cannot and will not become the type of readers I encountered when I was in college in 1962.
The write up says:
“We are spending billions of dollars trying to send students to college and maintain them there when, on average, they read at about the grade 6 or 7 level, according to Renaissance Learning’s latest report on what American students in grades 9-12 read, whether assigned or chosen,” said education expert Dr. Sandra Stotsky.
I can think of many possible consequences of poor education. Today I am thinking about the interest young folks show in video. Why read when one can sit down and let the content flow to you.
In a more practical vein, those who cannot read will not be too keen on using information access systems that require a user to read content to locate needed information.
Exciting if you are pumping out videos. Not so exciting if you write books.
Stephen E Arnold, January 8. 2015
Google and Search Share
January 8, 2015
I like this headline: “Google Loses Most US Search Share since 2009 While Yahoo Gains.” Maybe the sky is falling? Maybe Yahoo search is just so darned great?
The write up says:
Google’s slice of the U.S. search market fell to 75.2 percent in December from 79.3 percent a year ago, while Yahoo jumped to 10.4 percent from 7.4 percent, according to analytics firm StatCounter. That put Google at its smallest share of the U.S. Web search market since at least 2008, when StatCounter first started tracking the numbers, and the highest share for Yahoo since 2009.
The reason for the decline is that Firefox uses Yahoo as its default search provider. The article even references a search engine optimization expert.
Now, from my vantage point in rural Kentucky, there are several factors at play:
First, counting traffic is a slippery business. I view most counts as suspicious.
Second, search is not the go to solution for locating content that it was five years ago. Watch a teen look for information. How often does that future hope run a keyword query compared to getting links or information in other ways.
Third, Google has a problem, but it is not traffic yet. The company is vulnerable to the behavior of users. Mobile, which Google seems to dominate, is a bit of a challenge for the 40 somethings in Mountain View.
Exciting times.
Stephen E Arnold, January 8, 2015
Roundup of Personalization Software for Search Improvement
January 8, 2015
The article titled 15 Website Personalization and Recommendation Software Tools on Smart Insights contains a roundup of personalization software. Think of Amazon.com. Groups of customers see vastly different suggestions from the store, all based on what they have bought or looked at in the past and what other people who bought or looked at similar items also considered. But in the last few years personalization software has become even more tailored to specific pursuits. The article explains the winning brands in one category, B2B and publisher personalization tools,
“Evergage is mentioned as tool that fits best in this category. WP Greet Box is a personalisation plug-in used by WordPress blogging users, including me once, to deliver a welcome message to first time users depending on their referrers. It’s amazing this approach isn’t used more on commercial sites. WP Marketing Suite is another WordPress plugin that has been featured in the comments.”
The article also explores the best in the category of Commerce management systems. The article states that “both Sitecore and Kentico have built in tools to personalize content based on various rules, such as geo-location, search terms…” this is in addition to the more widely understood personalization based on user behavior. The idea behind all of these companies is to improve search for consumers.
Chelsea Kerwin, January 08, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Could It Be? An Accurate Image Search?
January 8, 2015
Image search is a touchy subject. Copyright, royalties, privacy, and accuracy are a huge concern for image holders and searchers. People are scouring the Internet for images they can freely use without problems, but often times the images have a watermark or are so common they are mediocre. Killer Startups points to a great new startup that could revolutionize how people find pictures: “Today’s Killer Startup: Compfight.”
Compfight is an image search engine comparable to Flicker, except it is faster and uses features similar to the advanced search function on Google.
“The site also lets you specify if you’re looking only for Creative Commons licensed images or ones to use commercially. If you’re new to this kind of image use, Compfight even provides a handy little guide on how to cite your sources properly. Last and probably least, Compfight also provides access to professional stock photos, starting as low as $1 per image.”
Developers are still trying to create the perfect image search and while it is a work in progress, Compfight shows we’re on the right path.
Whitney Grace, January 08, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
SharePoint Online and Apps Working Together
January 8, 2015
Microsoft is planning deeper integration between SharePoint Online and other Office 365 apps. Users can expect to see some changes in the coming year, and Search Content Management covers the story in their recent article, “SharePoint Online, Other Office 365 Apps Work Together.”
The article begins:
“Microsoft has long adhered to a ‘better together’ strategy that suggests its operating systems and applications can achieve greater capabilities if used in conjunction with other Microsoft products. Although it’s easy to dismiss the ‘better together’ philosophy as being nothing more than a strategy to sell products, this argument begins to break down when you consider Office 365.”
Stephen E. Arnold is another resource to consult for SharePoint and Office 365 needs. His Web service, ArnoldIT.com, contains a separate SharePoint feed full of the latest tips, tricks and news for users and managers alike. Heading in to the new year, it would be worthwhile to spend some time considering how to streamline and improve your organization’s infrastructure.
Emily Rae Aldridge, January 08, 2015
Grand View Research Looks at Enterprise Search and Misses a Market Shift
January 7, 2015
Every time I write about a low-tier or mid-tier consulting firm’s reports, I get nastygrams. One outfit demanded that I publish an apology. Okay, no problem. I apologize for expressing that the research was at odds with my own work. So before I tackle Grand View Research’s $4,700 report called “Enterprise Search Market Analysis By End-Use (Government & Commercial Offices, Banking & Finance, Healthcare, Retail), By Enterprise Size (Small, Medium, Large) And Segment Forecasts To 2020,” Let me say, I am sorry. Really, really sorry.
This is a report that is about a new Fantasyland loved by the naive. The year 2020 will not be about old school search.
Image source: http://www.themeparkreview.com/parks/photo.php?pageid=116&linkid=12739
I know I am taking a risk because my new report “CyberOSINT: Next Generation Information Access” will be available in a very short time. The fact that I elected to abandon search as an operative term is one signal that search is a bit of a dead end. I know that there are many companies flogging fixes for SharePoint, specialized systems that “do” business intelligence, and decades old information retrieval approaches packaged as discovery or customer service solutions.
But the reality is that plugging words into a search box means that the user has to know the terminology and what he or she needs to answer a question. Then the real work begins. Working through the results list takes time. Documents have to read and pertinent passages copied and pasted in another file. Then the researcher has to figure out what is right or wrong, relevant or irrelevant. I don’t know about you, but most 20 somethings are spending more time thumb typing than old fashioned research.
What has Grand View Research figured out?
First off, the company knows it has to charge a lot of money for a report on a topic that has been beaten to death for decades. Grand View’s approach is to define “search” by some fairly broad categories; for example, small, medium and large and Government and commercial, banking and finance, healthcare, retail and “others.”
Machine versus Human Translations
January 7, 2015
I am fascinated with the notion of real time translation. I recall with fondness lunches with my colleagues at Ziff in Foster City. Then we talked about the numerous opportunities to create killer software solutions. Translation would be “solved”. Now 27 years later, progress has been made, just slowly.
Every once in a while an old technical cardboard box gets hauled out from under the car port. There are old ideas that just don’t have an affordable, reliable, practical solution. After rummaging in the box, the enthusiasts put it back on the shelf and move on to the next YouTube video.
I read “The Battle of the Translators: Man vs Machine.” The write up tackles Skype’s real time translation feature. Then there is a quick excursion through Google Translate.
The passage I noted was:
So, while machine translations may be great for rudimentary translations or even video calls, professional human translators are expert craftsmen, linguists, wordsmiths and proofreaders all wrapped in one. In addition to possessing cultural insight, they also are better editors who shape and perfect a piece for better public consumption, guaranteeing a level of faithfulness to the original document — a skill that not even the most cutting-edge machine translation technology is capable of doing just yet. Machine translators are simply not yet at the level of their chess-playing counterparts, which can beat humans at their own game. As long as automatic translators lack the self-awareness, insight and fluency of a professional human translator, a combination of human translation assisted by machine translation may be the optimal solution.
I include a chapter about automated translation in CyberOSINT: Next Generation Information Access. You can express interest in ordering by writing benkent2020 at yahoo dot com. In the CyberOSINT universe, machine translation exists cheek-by-jowl with humans.
For large flows of information in many different languages, there are not enough human translators to handle the work load. Machine based translations , therefore, are an essential component of most cyber OSINT systems. For certain content, a human has to make sure that the flagged item is what the smart software thinks it is.
The problem becomes one of having enough capacity to handle first the machine translation load and then the human part of the process. For many language pairs, there are not enough humans. I don’t see a quick fix for this multi-lingual talent shortfall.
The problem is a difficult one. Toss in slang, aliases, code words and phrases, and neologisms. Stir in a bit of threat with or without salt. Do the best you can with what you have.
Translation is a thorny problem. The squabbles of the math oriented and the linguistic camps are of little interest to me. Good enough translation is what we have from both machines and humans.
I don’t see a fix that will allow me to toss out the cardboard box with its musings from 30 years ago.
Stephen E Arnold, January 7, 2015
Google Fails: Is Google in for a Tough Year?
January 7, 2015
I don’t think too much about Google. The ad crazy search system does not output the type of results I want. But there are many Google cheerleaders in the thriving world of 2015. But there are some quasi doubters. My view is that every year has been a tough one for Google. With a single revenue stream, Google is saddled with the “one trick pony” label.
“Why Betting on Google Is Risky Business” raises mostly old concerns about the company. The write up mentions a number of Google’s flops. Any of you remember Orkut or Wave? There is some hope for Google Glass, but the write up sees Glass as evidence of a larger problem at the GOOG.
Here’s the passage I noted:
Nick Selby, a police detective and CEO of StreetCred Software, says he invested a “few thousand bucks” on Google Glass as a law enforcement tool before his team eventually decided it would never go anywhere. “All I got out of it was a very expensive paperweight and some snickering friends,” Selby says. “A lot of companies were considering law enforcement applications for Glass,” Selby says. “Since our product ranks the likelihood of finding and capturing fugitives, and provides situational awareness for officers that can be easily expressed geospatially, our thought was that we might use Glass to project attributes onto buildings.” Selby’s optimism toward Glass quickly diminished the minute he tried on a pair. “In our experience the technology both wasn’t ready and wouldn’t likely be ready for the kind of nuanced display and interactivity we would require to make this useful and cop-proof.”
Glass is a bit of an aberration. The story of its beginning and slow end have more to do with interpersonal activities mixing with half baked ideas. Too bad the write up does not dig into a story that features mobile devices, the ministrations of a psychiatrist, and the exit of a high profile wizard to Amazon.
Yep, there’s more to the story, but I am not sure this write up is anywhere near the target zone.
Stephen E Arnold, January 7, 2014
The DeepMind and the Human Mind
January 7, 2015
As advanced as computers are, they still fail to replicate the human brain’s complexity. Technology Review’s article “Google’s Secretive DeepMind Startup Unveils A ‘Neural Turing Machine’” tells the story about how Google bought the startup DeepMind that is working on a prototype computer to mimic a human’s short-term working memory. The prototype is a neutral network that learns from its “memories” and then later retrieves them to perform logical tasks.
DeepMind named its project the Neural Turing Machine and it takes the basic premise of a neural network, interconnected “neurons” that respond to external input, and it acts more like a computer by storing information and retrieving it. DeepMind is testing the Neural Turing Machine by feeding it specific tasks and then giving it more complex ones.
The prototype is doing much better than a typical neural network:
“They compare the performance of their Neural Turing Machine with a conventional neural network. The difference is significant. The conventional neural network learns to copy sequences up to length 20 almost perfectly. But when it comes to sequences that are longer than the training data, errors immediately become significant. And its copy of the longest sequence of length 120 is almost unrecognizable compared to the original.”
Neural networks are closer to replicating the human brain, but they are still not close to understanding how humans work through arguments and handle high-level tasks.
Whitney Grace, January 07, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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