Washington Post Wants PowerPoint Banned
May 26, 2015
Poor Microsoft. Now Jeff Bezos’ newspaper is demanding that PowerPoint be banned. Microsoft did not write PowerPoint. Microsoft bought what is now reviled in 1987. The current PowerPoint emerged from spaghetti code created by Forethought, Inc. I recall hearing at a Microsoft meeting that the code jockey on this puppy was the work of a Berkeley grad. Microsoft took the product and the rest is history.
The Washington Post presents its viewpoint in “PowerPoint Should Be Banned. This PowerPoint Presentation Explains Why.” I don’t think Jimmy Kimmel or Jimmy Fallon will be adding the author of the article to their writing teams. I was hoping for a bit of Swiftian humor. What I got was a write up that would have benefited from a PowerPoint with zip.
I noted a couple of interesting points:
- I loved this quote: “PowerPoint makes us stupid.” The statement is attributed to General James Mattis. What makes this interesting is that it is tough to command attention in some military circles without a nifty presentation with Hollywood graphics. Palantir exists for a reason, folks.
- Amazon does not permit PowerPoint presentations. I wonder if Amazon’s hostility to PowerPoint influenced the Washington Post article. Perhaps the Amazon phone would have been a success if some PowerPoint effort had been made before paying an offshore outfit to make the gizmos.
- I found the Afghan strategy slide quite easy to understand. Here it is to spark your thinking. I concluded I don’t want to head in that direction again.
- I enjoyed the assertion that DoD briefings would be improved. “officers would no longer be able to duck behind mu mo jumbo slides to bury facts or their lack of understanding of the issues. Ah, the naïveté of youth. The briefings would feature foam core or poster board with artist drawings of the very same information. Instead of bits, the message would be delivered with a pointer tapping the cardboard.
The rather parental statement “Go without any presentation” is going to make it pretty dull for the law enforcement and intelligence professionals in my Dark Web briefing. I have to show screen shots of the bad actors’ Dark Web sites. I cannot describe CP, hit men, weapons for sale, stolen credit cards, false passports, and the other charming points of interest to my audience. Going online is a good idea, but in central Europe underground the Internet connections are often problematic.
In short, Washington Post:
Stephen E Arnold, May 27, 2015
Artificial Intelligence Scary? Nah. Think Clouds Not Swarms.
May 26, 2015
I don’t think too much about artificial intelligence, smart software, and predictive methods that tell me what I want. I do my own thing, working hard to get around weird stuff like Microsoft’s grammar checker and Google’s filtering of search results based on my “history.”
Robots were interesting when I was a young sprout. Now I am a withered ginko. I fear yard crews more than intelligent machines.
The New York Times published “A Reality Check for A.I.” The short version is, “Stuff doesn’t work as well as hoped.” You can find the write up in the dead tree edition Science Section, page D 2 or online if you are lucky. Cross your fingers that the New York Times online site includes “science” as a section and indexes that content.
I don’t want to spend much time on the write up. I do want to highlight the use of “cloud robotics” instead of the more accurate “swarm robotics”. Swarms are alive and well. The cloud stuff is diaphonous to me.
The other interesting item is the backhand across Google’s futuristic lingo. Here’s the passage:
Ken Goldberg, a University of Californina Berkeley, roboticist, has called on the computing word to drop its obsession with singularity, the much ballyhooed time when computers are predicted to surpass their human designers. Rather, he has proposed a concept he calls “multiplicity” with diverse groups of humans and machines solving problems through collaboration.
Poor Google. Singularity is just not a term that captures what is happening, dudes.
Reality check. More like a collection of anecdotes which do little to make clear the pervasiveness of smart software. Maybe the makers of smart software prefer the messages to be fuzzy or “cloudy.”
Stephen E Arnold, May 27, 2015
X1 Search: A Unified Single Pane of Glass
May 26, 2015
I read “X1’s Microsoft Enterprise Search Strategy: Better Than Microsoft’s?”
Here’s the passage I noted:
Providing one single pane of glass to a business worker’s most critical information assets is key. Requiring end-users to search Outlook for email in one interface, then log into another to search SharePoint, and then another to search for document and OneDrive is a non-starter. A single interface to search for information, no matter where it lives fits the workflow that business workers require.
The write up points out that X1 starts with an “end user’s email and files.” That’s fine, but there are other data types to which an end user requires access.
My reaction was these questions and the answers thereto:
- What about video?
- What about drafts of financial data or patent applications and other content centric documents in perpetual draft form?
- What about images?
- What about third party content downloaded by a user to a local or shared drive?
- What about Excel files used as text documents and Excel documents with data and generic column names?
- What about versions?
- What about time and data flags versus the time and date information within a content object?
- What about SMS messages?
- What information is related to other information; for example, an offer of employment to a former employee?
- What about employee health, salary, and performance information?
- What about intercepted data from watched insiders using NGIA tools?
- What about geo-plotted results based on inputs from the organization’s tracking devices on delivery vans and similar geo systems?
My point is that SharePoint represents a huge market to search and content processing vendors. The generalizations about what a third party system can do boggle my mind. Vendors as a rule do not focus on the content issues my questions probe. There are good reasons for the emphasis on email and experiences. Tackling substantive findability issues within an organization is just not what most SharePoint search alternatives do.
Not surprisingly, for certain types of use cases, SharePoint search remains a bit of a challenge regardless what system is deployed into a somewhat chaotic sea of code, functions, and components.
A unified single pane of glass is redundant. Solutions to the challenges of SharePoint may deserve this type of remediation because vendors have been tilting at the SharePoint windmill in a highly repetitive way for more than a decade. And to what end? For many, SharePoint information access remains opaque, cloudy, and dark.
Stephen E Arnold, May 26, 2015
Generalizations about Big Data: Hail, the Mighty Hadoop
May 26, 2015
I read “A Big Data Cheat Sheet: What Executives Want to Know.” The hidden agenda in the write up is revealed with the juxtaposition of the source Social Media Today and the technology Hadoop.
Big Data is one of those buzzwords which now grates on me. When I hear it, I wonder what the outfit is pitching and how something as nebulous as Big Data is going to save someone’s bacon or, if one is a vegetarian, tofu.
This write up beats the Hadoop drum. Isn’t Hadoop one method for performing certain types of data management tasks and extracting results from those tasks? Hadoop is a tool, and like a router in the home workshop, a pretty feisty gizmo in the hands of a novice.
The article suggests that Hadoop is a federation system. Hadoop can be a federation system, but it can handle data from a single source; for example, log files. Federation is not magic; it requires work. In fact, federation may render the benefits of Hadoop secondary to the cost of the resources required to utilize Hadoop in an effective way.
There are other assertions as well; for example:
- Hadoop can archive “all data.” Hmmm. “All.” Does this sound a bit over blown.
- Hadoop is enterprise ready? Sure, if the enterprise has the resources to make appropriate use of Hadoop.
- Are data lakes and data warehouses the same? According to the write up, the data warehouse uses structured data and the data lake is just a big pool of disparate data. Queries across this type of “pool” can be exciting and expensive.
- The upsides and downsides of the data lake pivot on data management. Okay, that is definitely true. What is not explored is the cost of managing large volumes of data, their updates, and their manipulation. Queries can be expensive.
My point is that sweeping generalizations about a technology which is useful are not helpful. Firing buzzwords into the mushy brain of a person involved in social media can have some interesting consequences.
Hadoop is not magic. Hadoop requires specialized knowledge. Hadoop does not deliver like the tooth fairy a quarter under one’s pillow. If Hadoop were the answer to Big Data problems, why are so many Hadoop projects vulnerable to very common problems in configuration, memory handling, lousy performance, and problematic hives?
Social media experts are not likely to appreciate these challenges as they work to deal with large volumes of data, updates, and queries. Oh, are the outputs valid? Frankly some Hadoop projects never face that problem.
Stephen E Arnold, May 26, 2015
Hijacking Semantics for Search Engine Optimization
May 26, 2015
I am just too old and cranky to get with the search engine optimization program. If a person cannot find your content, too bad. SEO has caused some of the erosion of relevance across public Web search engines.
The reason is that pages with lousy content are marketed as having other, more valuable content. The result is queries like this:
I want information about methods of digital reasoning. What I get is a company profile.
How do I get information for my specific requirement? I have to know how to work around the problems SEO puts in my face every day, over and over again.
This query works on Bing, Google, and Yandex: artificial intelligence decision procedures.
The results do not point to a small company in Tennessee, but to substantive documents from which other, pointed queries can be launched for individuals, industry associations, and methods.
When I read “Semantic Search Strategies That Work,” I became agitated. The notion of “forgetting about content” and “focusing on quality” miss the mark. Telling me to “spend time on engagement” are a collection of unrelated assertions.
The goal of semantics for SEO is to generate traffic. The search systems suck in shaped content and persist in directing people to topics that may have little or nothing to do with the information a person needs to solve his or her problem.
In short, the bastardization of semantics in the name of SEO is ensuring that some users will define the world from the point of view of marketing, not objective information.
What’s the fix?
Here’s the shocker: There is no fix. As individuals abrogate their responsibility to demand high value, on point results, schlock becomes the order of the day.
So much for clear thinking. Semantic strategies that erode relevance do not “work” from my point of view. This type of semantics thickens the cloud of unknowning.
Stephen E Arnold, May 26, 2015
Welcome YottaSearch
May 26, 2015
There is another game player in the world of enterprise search: Yotta Data Technologies announced their newest product: “Yotta Data Technologies Announces Enterprise Search And Big Data Analytics Platform.” Yotta Data Technologies is known for its affordable and easy to use information management solutions. Yotta has increased its solutions by creating YottaSearch, a data analytics and search platform designed to be a data hub for organizations.
“YottaSearch brings together the most powerful and agile open source technologies available to enable today’s demanding users to easily collect data, search it, analyze it and create rich visualizations in real time. From social media and email for Information Governance and eDiscovery to web and network server logs for Information Technology Operations Analytics (ITOA), YottaSearch™ provides the Big Data Analytics for users to derive information intelligence that may be critical to a project, case, business unit or market.”
YottaSearch uses the popular SaaS model and offers users not only data analytics and search, but also knowledge management, information governance, eDiscovery, and IT operations analytics. Yotta decided to create YottaSearch to earn revenue from the burgeoning big data market, especially the enterprise search end.
The market is worth $1.7 billion, so Yotta has a lot of competition, but if they offer something different and better than their rivals they stand a chance to rise to the top.
Whitney Grace, May 26, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
SharePoint Server 2016 Brings Along Deprecated Software
May 26, 2015
As SharePoint Server 2016 gets closer to a release date, experts turn their attention to its various components. Along with those that are getting an update to accompany the new release, there are several pieces of deprecated software that will come along for the ride. Read the details in the Redmond Magazine article, “SharePoint Server 2016 To Rely on Some ‘Deprecated’ Software.”
The article begins:
“SharePoint Server 2016 will arrive with a deprecated InfoPath 2013 forms creation technology. In addition SharePoint Server 2016 will require Windows Server AppFabric 1.1, which also is being deprecated. Per Microsoft’s definition, ‘deprecated’ software can continue to work. It doesn’t exactly mean that the software is dead product. It just means that Microsoft won’t perform any further development work on it.”
Keep an eye on these and other components that may cause a hiccup at the time of upgrade, or further down the road. Also, stay tuned to ArnoldIT.com for workarounds, tips, and tricks to help ease the transition to Server 2016. Stephen E. Arnold is a longtime leader in search and an interested party in SharePoint. His SharePoint feed is a concise and professional rundown of need-to-know information.
Emily Rae Aldridge, May 26, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
SLI Systems Still Struggling
May 26, 2015
Early this year, we reported on the sudden personnel shift over at e-commerce search firm SLI Systems. Now, New Zealand’s National Business Review reports, “SLI Systems Says Second-Half Revenue Will Miss Expectations on Weaker American Sales.” It seems the staff shake-up led to disappointing sales, but the company is confident they will make up ground later this year, after the dust settles. They also cite a weak economy in Brazil as a limiting factor. Reporter Tina Morrison writes:
“Operating revenue will rise to $28 million in the year ending June 30, from $22 million a year earlier, the Christchurch-based company said in a statement. The forecast is lower than the $30.5 million expected by analysts in a Reuters poll. …
“The company is forgoing profits and dividends to fund growth in the expanding e-commerce market, particularly in the US, and says its software as a service is the second biggest after Oracle to provide online retailers with suggestive search engines. Analysts polled by Reuters before today’s announcement had expected the company’s annual loss to widen to $7 million this year, from $5.7 million last year. It expects to report its annual earnings in late August.”
Founded in 2001, SLI Systems now powers e-commerce on over 800 websites. The company is based in Christchurch, New Zealand, and maintains offices in San Jose, California; London; Melbourne; and Tokyo. Anyone who thinks they can help the company bounce back should note that (as of this writing) SLI is looking for new Sales Directors in Melbourne and San Jose.
Cynthia Murrell, May 26, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Computing Power Up a Trillion Fold in 60 Years. Search Remains Unchanged.
May 25, 2015
I get the Moore’s Law thing. The question is, “Why isn’t search and content processing improving?”
Navigate to “Processing Power Has Increased by One Trillion-Fold over the Past Six Decades” and check out the infographic. There are FLOPs and examples of devices which deliver them. I focused on the technology equivalents; for example, the Tianhe 2 Supercomputer is the equivalent of 18,400 PlayStation 4s.
The problem is that search and content processing continue to bedevil users. Perhaps the limitations of the methods cannot be remediated by a bigger, faster assemblage of metal and circuits?
The improvement in graphics is evident. But allowing me to locate a single document in my multi petabyte archive continues to a challenge. I have more search systems than the average squirrel in Harrod’s Creek.
Findability is creeping along. After 60 years, the benefits of information access systems are very difficult to tie to better decisions, increased revenues, and more efficient human endeavors even when a “team of teams” approach is used.
Wake up call for the search industry. Why not deliver some substantive improvements in information access which are not tied to advertising? Please, do not use the words metadata, semantics, analytics, and intelligence in your marketing. Just deliver something that provides me with the information I require without my having to guess key words, figure out odd ball clustering, or waiting minutes or hours for a query to process.
I don’t want Hollywood graphics. I want on point information. In the last 60 years, my information access needs have not been met.
Stephen E Arnold, May 25, 2015
IBM Watson: 75 Industries Have Watson Apps. What about Revenue from Watson?
May 25, 2015
Was it just four years ago? How PR time flies. I read “Boyhood.” Now here’s the subtitle, which is definitely Google-licious:
Watson was just 4 years old when it beat the best human contestants on Jeopardy! As it grows up and goes out into the world, the question becomes: How afraid of it should we be?
I am not too afraid. If I were the president of IBM, I would be fearful. Watson was supposed to be well on its way north of $1 billion in revenue. If I were the top wizards responsible for Watson, I would be trepedatious . If I were a stakeholder in IBM, I would be terrified.
But Watson does not frighten me. Watson, in case you do not know, is built from:
- Open source search
- Acquired companies’ technology
- Home brew scripts
- IBM bit iron
The mix is held together with massive hyperbole-infused marketing.
The problem is that the revenue is just not moving the needle for the Big Blue bean counters. Please, recall that IBM has reported dismal financial results for three years. IBM is buying back its stock. IBM is selling its assets. IBM is looking at the exhaust pipes of outfits like Amazon. IBM is in a pickle.
The write up ignores what I think are important factoids about IBM. The article asserts:
The machine began as the product of a long-shot corporate stunt, in which IBM engineers set out to build an artificial intelligence that could beat the greatest human champions at Jeopardy!, one that could master language’s subtleties: rhymes, allusions, puns….It has folded so seamlessly into the world that, according to IBM, the Watson program has been applied in 75 industries in 17 countries, and tens of thousands of people are using its applications in their own work. [Emphasis added]
How could I be skeptical? Molecular biology. A cook book. Jeopardy.
Now for some history:
Language is the “holy grail,” he said, “the reflection of how we think about the world.” He tapped his head. “It’s the path into here.”
And then the epiphany:
Watson was becoming something strange, and new — an expert that was only beginning to understand. One day, a young Watson engineer named Mike Barborak and his colleagues wrote something close to the simplest rule that he could imagine, which, translated from code to English, roughly meant: Things are related to things. They intended the rule as an instigation, an instruction to begin making a chain of inferences, each idea leaping to the next. Barborak presented a medical scenario, a few sentences from a patient note that described an older woman entering the doctor’s office with a tremor. He ran the program — things are related to things — and let Watson roam. In many ways, Watson’s truest expression is a graph, a concept map of clusters and connective lines that showed the leaps it was making. Barborak began to study its clusters — hundreds, maybe thousands of ideas that Watson had explored, many of them strange or obscure. “Just no way that a person would ever manually do those searches,” Barborak said. The inferences led it to a dense node that, when Barborak examined it, concerned a part of the brain…that becomes degraded by Parkinson’s disease. “Pretty amazing,” Barborak said. Watson didn’t really understand the woman’s suffering. But even so, it had done exactly what a doctor would do — pinpointed the relevant parts of the clinical report, discerned the disease, identified the biological cause. To make these leaps, all you needed was to read like a machine: voraciously and perfectly.
I have to take a break. My heart is racing. How could this marvel of technology be used to save lives, improve the output of Burger King, and become the all time big winner on the the Price Is Right?
Now let’s give IBM a pat on the back for getting this 6.000 word write up in a magazine consumed by those who love the Big Apple without the New Yorker’s copy editors poking their human nose into reportage.
From my point of view, Watson needs to deliver:
- Sustainable revenue
- Demonstrate that the system can be affordable
- Does not require human intermediaries to baby sit the system
- Process content so that real time outputs are usable by those needing “now” insights
- Does not make egregious errors which cause a human using Watson to spend time shaping or figuring out if the outputs are going to deliver what the user requires; for example, a cancer treatment regimen which helps the patient or a burrito a human can enjoy.
Hewlett Packard and IBM have managed to get themselves into the “search and content processing” bottle. It sure seems as if better information outputs will lead to billions in revenue. Unfortunately the realty is that getting big bucks from search and content processing is very difficult to do. For verification, just run a query on Google News with these terms: Hewlett Packard Autonomy.
The search and content processing sector is a utility function. There are applications which can generate substantial revenue. And it is true that these vendors include search as a utility function.
But pitching smart software spitballs works when one is not being watched by stakeholders. Under scrutiny, the approach does not have much of a chance. Don’t believe me? Take your entire life savings and buy IBM stock. Let me know how that works out.
Stephen E Arnold, May 25, 2015
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
