Oracle Data Integrator Extension
June 29, 2015
The article titled Oracle Launches ODI in April with the Aim to Revolutionize Big Data on Market Realist makes it clear that Oracle sees big money in NoSQL. Oracle Data Integrator, or ODI, enables developers and analysts to simplify their lives and training. It cancels the requirement for their learning multiple programming languages and allows them to use Hadoop and the like without much coding expertise. The article states,
“According to a report from PCWorld, Jeff Pollock, Oracle vice president of product management, said, “The Oracle Data Integrator for Big Data makes a non-Hadoop developer instantly productive on Hadoop…” Databases like Hadoop and Spark are targeted towards programmers who have the coding knowledge expertise required to manipulate these databases with knowledge of the coding needed to manage them. On the other hand, analysts usually use software for data analytics.”
The article also relates some of Oracle’s claims about itself, including that it holds a larger revenue than IBM, Microsoft, SAP AG, and Teradata combined. Those are also Oracle’s four major competitors. With the release of ODI, Oracle intends to filter data arriving from a myriad of different places. Clustering data into groups related by their format or framework is part of this process. The end result is a more streamlined version without assumptions about the level of coding knowledge held by an analyst.
Chelsea Kerwin, June 29, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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Traditional Publishers, What Is Your Digital Media State?
June 28, 2015
I read “An Investment Bank Made This Epic Presentation on the Future of Digital Media.” “Epic” invokes memories of a required class in which we had to read The Iliad, Paradise Lost, Gilgamesh, and – my favorite – Beowulf. Go, Grendel.
This “epic” appears to tell the tale of the destruction of printed-on-paper outfits. I am not sure that the PowerPoint deck of Terence Kawaja will displace the yucks in the Divine Comedy, but who knows?
The basic idea is that digital media is entangled with marketing. Marketing means money. Money leads back to the focus of Luma. If you are interested in digital media and money, you will, of course, want to work with Luna, but that is another thread in the epic.
Several points warranted a pale blue highlight:
- Facebook and Google are the big boys
- Demand means “imbalance”
- Opportunities for M&A folks
- Five trends which require about half of the slides in the deck. Spoiler: “new” TV is a big deal
If you are into epics which thrill the MBAs, check out the deck. If you are happy to be a displaced worker, why not go fishing?
And for traditional media types? You did not make the cut.
Stephen E Arnold, June 28, 3025
Forrester: Join Us in the Revolution
June 28, 2015
Err, I am not a revolutionary. The term evokes memories and thoughts which I find uncomfortable. Revolution, Forrester, IS/ISIL/Daesh. Shiver.
The intent of ““Big Data” Has Lost Its Zing – Businesses Want Insight And Action” is one of those marketing, mid tier consulting pronouncements. Most of these are designed to stimulate existing customers to buy more expertise or lure those with problems which the management team cannot solve to the door of an expert who purports to have the answer.
I highlighted this passage in pale yellow with my trusty Office Depot highlighter:
I saw it coming last year. Big data isn’t what it used to be. Not because firms are disillusioned with the technology, but rather because the term is no longer helpful. With nearly two-thirds of firms having implemented or planning to implement some big data capability by the end of 2015, the wave has definitely hit. People have bought in. But that doesn’t mean we find many firms extolling the benefits they should be seeing by now; even early adopters still have problems across the customer lifecycle.
Big Data faces challenges because users want accurate, reliable outputs. News?
Stephen E Arnold, June 28, 2015
A Xoogler Fixes Yahoo Mobile Search
June 27, 2015
If you have not explored Yahoo Search, give it a whirl. Try to find information about these topics:
The query “Yahoo Search: displays this result:
Note that the second hit is to Tumblr. There you go. The other hits point to the very same page I used to launch my search for “Yahoo Search.” Helpful?
Try this query: “price diapers”. On the left side of the results page, Yahoo displayed:
On the right side of the results page, Yahoo displayed:
These are prices from advertisers. Oh, there is a link to something called Yahoo Shopping. Okay, that is one way to generate revenue and create an extra click. Annoying to me. To Yahoo, fulfillment and joy.
Also, try this query: “Dark Web paste sites”.
Here’s the results page:
Ads and two links to Dot ONION addresses. For the Yahoo user, I am not sure if the user will know what to make of this result:
I suppose I can find some positives in these results pages. On the other hand, the impact for me was inconsistency.
Navigate now to “Yahoo Search Becomes More Like Google on Mobile Devices.” The headline tells the story. Yahoo is lost in search space, so the Xoogler running the Yahoo comedy hour is imitating Google.
So much for innovation. One hopes the approach works because when Yahoo is left to its own devices, the information access thing is a bit like a rice cake and water to a Big O tire changer taking a break from three hours of roadside work in the blazing sun.
Stephen E Arnold, June 27, 2015
How to Succeed in China: Maybe Follow the Rules?
June 27, 2015
I love articles which explain how to do something to anticipated readers who have zero chance to build a business in China. Navigate to “A New Wave of US Internet Companies Is Succeeding in China—By Giving the Government What It Wants.”
I am not sure a degree in business is required to understand this concept. In my experience, when one is in another country, common sense suggests that the government officials expect outsiders to play by the rules. Ever wonder why West Point cadets look so darned polished. Well, consider the downside associated with wearing an Iron Maiden T shirt, soccer trunks, and flip flops?
The write up points out:
“If you want to develop an internet business in Chinese now, you have to be willing to work with the Chinese government, even if that means censoring content or sharing access to your data,” Ben Cavender, principal at the China Market Research Group, told Quartz.
Outfits who have learned this simple lesson, according to the write up, are LinkedIn, Uber, and Evernote. Outfits who have not figured out the calculus of the West Point approach to order include Facebook, Google, and Twitter. Hey, Facebook is trying. I saw a news item revealing that the Facebook top Facebooker learned sort of Chinese. Yippy.
So which companies have “better” managers? Those in the big market or those looking at the big market?
How does this related to search and content processing? I don’t know of too many information access companies dominating the Chinese market. When it comes to cyberOSINT, there is Knowlesys which sort of operates in Hong Kong and does have an office in China.
Class dismissed. Oh, you with the flip flops, may I have a word with you?
Stephen E Arnold, June 27, 2015
Technology Takes It on the Nose
June 26, 2015
I put this passage in my quote file:
But technology is not neutral – and neither is code nor numbers. There are human, subjective judgments lurking behind the apparent objectivity offered by algorithms and the “user-friendly” operating systems. These technologies perform almost magically, while at the same time enabling all sorts of organizations to easily collect information about us, something that makes it that bit easier to usher in new forms of surveillance and control.
You can read the context for the passage in “Our Love of Technology Risks Becoming a Quiet Conspiracy against Ourselves.” I am not sure the Sillycon Valley crowd will agree completely.
Stephen E. Arnold, June 26, 2015
You Cannot Search It If It Is Not There: The Wayback in Russia
June 26, 2015
I know that many people believe that a search reveals “all” and “everything” about a topic. Nothing is further from the truth. There are forces at work which wish to ensure that only certain information is available to a person with an Internet connection.
Navigate to “Russia Bans the Internet Archive’s ‘Wayback Machine’.” The Wayback Machine, which once had tie ups with outfits as different as the Library of Congress and Amazon. I found it useful when working as an expert witness to be able refresh my memory on certain Web sites’ presentation of information. I am confident there are other uses of “old information.”
According the write up, Russia is not to keen on the notion of old information. Kenneth Waggner, one of my high school teachers, had Russian language textbooks from the Stalin era. He had marked passages included in one book and excluded from another. If he were correct, the tradition of filtering has a reasonable track record in Russia. Keep in mind that other countries and company and individuals have the same goal: Present only what a smarter, more informed person thinks I should be able to access.
The article states:
By banning access to the Internet Archive, the government is denying Russian Internet users a powerful tool—one that is particularly useful in an environment where websites often disappear behind a state-operated blacklist, as is increasingly true in Russia today.
Governments are like horse races. No one is sure of the winner unless the race is rigged.
Stephen E Arnold, June 26, 2015
Another Bayes Theorem Explanation
June 26, 2015
Our old pal Reverend Bayes cooked up an important numerical recipe. Sure, it strikes some as counter intuitive, but the approach has been useful, controversial, and tough to explain to those who struggle with math.
If you want to know why some real journalists get nervous when confronted with Bayesian methods, navigate to “Bayes’ Theorem.” There is a useful explanation plus a dusting of equations. I know these are often deal breakers, but the author, as I, find them helpful.
The discussion of Priors is quite well done. There is also a touch of poetry:
As an example, the explanation that Thor’s wrath is responsible for thunderstorms may sound simple enough to humans, and definitely simpler than atmospheric physics. However, a computer program that simulated Thor throwing lightning bolts needed not only to simulate the lightning bolts themselves, but Thor as well. Viewed from this perspective, Thor appears as an unnecessary complication, which does not in fact have any explanatory power. By contrast, the Standard Model of particle physics explains much, much more than thunderstorms, and its rules could be written down in a few pages of programming code.
Remember that the sun will shine through the metaphor.
Stephen E Arnold, June 26, 2015
Matchlight Lights Up Stolen Data
June 26, 2015
It is a common gimmick on crime shows for the computer expert to be able to locate information, often stolen data, by using a few clever hacking tricks. In reality it is not that easy and quick to find stolen data, but eWeek posted an article about a new intelligence platform that might be able to do the trick: “Terbium Labs Launches Matchlight Data Intelligence Platform.” Terbium Labs’ Matchlight is able to recover stolen data as soon as it is released on the Dark Web.
How it works is simply remarkable. Matchlight attaches digital fingerprints to a company’s files, down to the smallest byte. Data recovered on the Dark Web can then be matched to the Terbium Labs’s database. Matchlight is available under a SaaS model. Another option they have for clients is a one-way fingerprinting feature that keeps a company’s data private from Terbium Labs. They would only have access to the digital fingerprints in order to track the data. Matchlight can also be integrated into already existing SharePoint or other document management systems. The entire approach to Matchlight is taking a protective stance towards data, rather than a defensive.
“We see the market shifting toward a risk management approach to information security,” [Danny Rogers, CEO and co-founder of Terbium} said. “Previously, information security was focused on IT and defensive technologies. These days, the most innovative companies are no longer asking if a data breach is going to happen, but when. In fact, the most innovative companies are asking what has already happened that they might not know about. This is where Matchlight provides a unique solution.”
Across the board, data breaches are becoming common and Matchlight offers an automated way to proactively protect data. While the digital fingerprinting helps track down stolen data, does Terbium Labs have a way to prevent it from being stolen at all?
Whitney Grace, June 26, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Digital Reasoning a Self-Described Cognitive Computing Company
June 26, 2015
The article titled Spy Tools Come to the Cloud on Enterprise Tech shows how Amazon’s work with analytics companies on behalf of the government have realized platforms like “GovCloud”, with increased security. The presumed reason for such platforms being the gathering of intelligence and threat analysis on the big data scale. The article explains,
“The Digital Reasoning cognitive computing tool is designed to generate “knowledge graphs of connected objects” gleaned from structured and unstructured data. These “nodes” (profiles of persons or things of interest) and “edges” (the relationships between them) are graphed, “and then being able to take this and put it into time and space,” explained Bill DiPietro, vice president of product management at Digital Reasoning. The partners noted that the elastic computing capability… is allowing customers to bring together much larger datasets.”
For former CIA staff officer DiPietro it logically follows that bigger questions can be answered by the data with tools like the AWS GovCloud and subsequent Hadoop ecosystems. He cites the ability to quickly spotlight and identify someone on a watch list out of the haystack of people as the challenge set to overcome. They call it “cluster on demand,” the process that allows them to manage and bring together data.
Chelsea Kerwin, June 26, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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