US Government Outdoes Squarespace and Weebly
September 18, 2015
The ability of the US government to innovate is remarkable. I learned in “18F’s Federalist Helps Agencies Build Websites Faster.” You, gentle reader, probably know that 18F refers to the street on which the ever efficient General Services Administration, part of the White House’s Executive Branch, works its wonders. In addition to a big courtyard, the 18 F Street facility also has an auditorium which sometimes floods, thus becoming a convenient swimming pool for the tireless innovators laboring in the structure a short walk from the president’s oval office.
The write up explained to me:
Currently in its first phase of software testing, the Federalist [the US government’s Web site builder] “automates common tasks for integrating GitHub, a content editor and Amazon Web Services,” so that web developers can manage and create new static websites on one consolidated platform, 18F said in a post on GSA.gov. The toolkit is equipped with a collection of static-site templates and a web-based content editor, allowing agencies to easily add and create section 508-compliant content while cutting the cost of designing an entirely new site or standing up a content management system.
When I read this, I thought about Squarespace, Weebly, and other services which have been providing similar functions, often for free, for many years.
The write up pointed out:
The platform is intended to be a faster, less expensive and more efficient option for developers building static sites and agencies without the website expertise. According to 18F, Federalist uses the same scalable content delivery strategy developed for healthcare.gov and the recently launched College Scorecard.
Obviously using one of the existing, free or low cost commercial services was inappropriate. The next project will be inventing the wheel and using vulcanized rubber, not polymers. The road map also calls for a multi year study of fire.
Stephen E Arnold, September 18, 2015
Neural Network Image Analysis: A Resource for Comedy Central
September 18, 2015
I read “This Neural Network’s Hilariously Bad Image Descriptions Are Still Advanced AI .” Describing a parrot as a cat sitting on a commode struck me as clever.
The write up reminded me:
Samim [a narrative engineer whatever that is] recently asked a neural net to caption a series of pop culture videos and clips from movies to illustrate the huge variance in how accurate these algorithms are—producing some amazing stupid and funny machine-written descriptions of Kanye West, Luke Skywalker, and even Big Dog.
I learned:
His most recent computational comedy project popped up on his blog last week. In it, he set up an experiment that tested how well neural networks could caption videos from pop culture. He used an open source model developed by Google and Stanford called NeuralTalk, which looks at an image and describes it with a brief caption.
The result is digital humor.
One quick question: What if smart software focused on curing cancer like Watson or reversing a genetic disorder like Alphabet wants to do stand up instead of filling out required forms? Subrogation may not have much of a funny bone.
Stephen E Arnold, September 18, 2015
Google Play Serves as Make Up Letter from Google to China
September 18, 2015
The article titled Google’s Return to China Won’t Be Easy on VentureBeat discusses Google’s ambitions to revisit China with the help of Google Play, its Android mobile operating system app store. If you don’t remember, about five years ago Google refused to self-censor search results and pulled its services from China to boot. But Google can’t help looking longingly over its shoulder at the world’s largest Internet market. The article explains,
“Apple Inc complies with local laws and made $13.2 billion last quarter in Greater China…, making it its second-biggest market. Some in the industry doubt whether Google can use the Play store to help get its other services into China as domestic rivals are now well established and Google would have to comply with Chinese law. That would mean storing all data in China, and meeting information access and censorship requests, a thorny issue, particularly if the U.S. government gets involved.”
Obviously, China did not heed Google’s advice on reforming its approach to business and government oversight. Some argue that the focus on Google Play may make the movement toward China less threatening to Chinese regulators than their other services like search and Gmail. The article suggests the possibility that the lapse in Google’s presence in the market may be fatal to them there. The niche market has been working just fine, thank you very much, many mobile players believe. At any rate, Google’s hopes are a long shot unless they are willing to do it the Chinese way.
Chelsea Kerwin, September 18, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Wabion Pairs with Twigkit to Boost User Experience
September 18, 2015
We’ve learned of an interesting alliance from this announcement at OpenPR, “Strategic Partnership Between Wabion and Twigkit in the Enterprise Search Sector.” We predict that more and fancier interfaces will arise from this deal. Wabion works closely with Google, and was named “top Google for Work Partner” in the DACH (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) region. Now the company will bring TwigKit’s user-experience prowess to their enterprise search offerings. The press release notes:
“By providing simple building blocks for traditionally complex problems, Twigkit strikes the perfect balance between out of the box experience and fine-grained control for GSA applications. Twigkit delivers customised, elegant, search-based applications that can be delivered in a fraction of the time when compared to bespoke development. The resulting applications delivers demonstrably better results and have been proven in the most demanding scenarios. The outcome is not just a better and more efficient experience for both administrators and users alike but the opportunity to allow businesses to realise the value of their information outside of the standard keyword search and list of results approach.”
Twigkit is excited for this chance to expand into the German-speaking market, while Wabion looks forward to providing a richer UI within the Google Search Appliance.
Founded in 2009, Twigkit splits its operations between Cambridge, UK, and Milpitas, California. As of this writing, they are looking to hire some developers and engineers. The Wabion Group maintains offices in Germany and Austria, and was founded in 2011. They are currently seeking one developer to fill a vacancy in Switzerland.
Cynthia Murrell, September 18, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Oracle Revenues: Implications for HP and IBM
September 17, 2015
Oracle is an interesting company because it owns a number of enterprise search and content processing technologies. For example, decades ago, the company bought the often overlooked Artificial Linguistics. Then Oracle complemented its “Text” and “Secure Enterprise Search” technology with Triple Hop. Gentle reader, I am confident you know about Triple Hop’s clustering methods. Then in a spate of content processing fury, Oracle bought RightNow (Dutch developed indexing technology), InQuira (natural language processing crafted from two early Sillycon Valley search vendors), and Endeca, the now long in the tooth, computationally intensive “Guided Navigation” outfit. And we must not forget the retrieval functions of PL/SQL. Oracle has almost as many search and retrieval systems to nurture as that high flying OpenText outfit in Canada.
With such a backpack of information access goodies, should we expect a revenue report bursting with good news? It struck me as I read “Oracle Beats Profit Estimates by a Penny a Share but Revenue Slides” that search and retrieval may not be a zoo with golden geese.
Oracle delivered earnings which made the fine Wall Street MBAs glow. However, the revenue did not win a gold star.
Set aside Oracle for the nonce.
Think about Hewlett Packard (Autonomy stuff) and IBM (Watson stuff). Both of these outfits are reporting declining revenues too. Both have bet large sums on information access.
My question is, “Will a payoff arrive?”
My other question is, “When the payoff arrives, will it make up for the loss in revenues from old line products and services?”
My hunch is that these big bets on search are current and future ponds of despair.
Now set aside these floundering blue chips.
What about the up and coming search vendors? Life is not easy for vendors of search and content processing technology. There are some bright spots, of course, but vendors with deep roots in traditional search craziness are likely to find revenues insufficient to pay for customer support, bug fixing, and implementation of new technical methods.
Google before its founders did an arabesque into Alphabet figured this out with the high interest credit card of technical debt. When will HP, IBM, and Oracle get the message?
Stephen E Arnold, September 17, 2015
Svelte Python Web Crawler
September 17, 2015
Short honk: Looking for a compact, lean Web crawler? Navigate to “A Web Crawler With Asyncio Coroutines.” One of the code wizards is Guido van Rossum. You, gentle reader, are probably aware that Mr. Van Rossum was the author of Python. He is a former Xoogler. The presentation of the crawler is a bit like a box of Legos. You will be rewarded.
Stephen E Arnold, September 17, 2015
Google and SEO: Fudging Relevance Okay. Robocalling Out of Bounds
September 17, 2015
I read “Google Sues SEO Company over Harassing Calls Selling Front Page Domination.” I like the notion of front page domination. I like it even more when irrelevant results are generated because of search engine optimization.
The Alphabet Google thing wants to sell ads. Free visibility is just not job one. The write up points out:
Google says that Tustin, California-based Local Lighthouse has bombarded consumers with “incessant, unsolicited automated telephone calls” since mid-2014, making “false guarantees of first-page placement in Google search results.”
The surge in ad blockers is another issue. The fact that I am bombarded with ads when running a Google query is just not as annoying as robocalls.
I agree.
Google should be able to bombard me. Local Lighthouse should not be allowed to bombard anyone.
To make matters worse, Lighthouse allegedly says that it has some relationship with the Google. That spells trouble.
Google is not happy with misrepresentations.
So if I pay Google for storage or some other Google product and service, I do not have a relationship with Google? Guess not.
Anyway, irrelevant search results and nips and tucks at the very specious search engine optimization sector will not change the reality of online information access.
Robocalls, unwanted digital ads—what’s the difference? Perhaps I could receive a robocall on my mobile as I browsed ad choked results? Seems about par for the relevant results game.
Stephen E Arnold, September 17, 2015
Brand-New Watson Health Unit Has Boston Buzzing
September 17, 2015
The article titled IBM Watson Health Unit Begins to Take Shape on TechCrunch investigates the work being done to initiate the new healthcare unit in Boston and surrounding community that IBM hopes to use to address major issues in healthcare. Already this year IBM has purchased and partnered with numerous companies in the field. Recently, Boston Children’s Hospital joined the list as well as Apple and Johnson & Johnson. The article states,
“As part of today’s broad announcement, IBM indicated that it would be working with Sage Bionetworks’ Open Biomedical Research Platform around the first Apple projects. Sage will be collecting information from Apple Devices using ResearchKit developer tools, initially with breast cancer and Parkinson’s patients. It will be aggregating storing, curating and analyzing the information coming in from the Apple Devices. IBM will be providing the underlying technology with its IBM Watson Health Cloud platform.”
Additionally, IBM Watson Health Cloud for Life Science Compliance was also announced, as the cherry built on top of IBM Softlayer. It is designed to aid companies in the life science industry with a fully compliant cloud solution capable of meeting the demands of the heavily regulated field. Not mentioned in the article is any mention of what the revenues are for this Health Unit initiative, as if they are entirely irrelevant.
Chelsea Kerwin, September 17, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Politwoops Window Now Blackened
September 17, 2015
Why is Twitter helping politician around the world cover their tracks? The Bangkok Post reports, “Website that Saves Politicians’ Deleted Tweets Suspended.” Founded by the Open State Foundation as tool for transparency, Politwoops had made an agreement with Twitter in 2012 to use its API to post tweets that politicians (or their advisors) thought better of in retrospect. While Twitter reasons that any of their users should be able to take back tweets, the Open Foundation director asserts that public statements by public officials should remain part of the public record. The article states:
“Since being formed at a so-called hackathon five years ago, the website that is a useful tool for journalists and a frequent source of embarrassment for politicians, has spread to 30 countries from Egypt to the Vatican, as well as the European Parliament. It started operating in the US in 2012 thanks to the Sunlight Foundation, which fights for transparency in politics. Diplotwoops which screens deleted messages by diplomats and embassies around the world was set up in 2014. Twitter was not immediately available for comment, but the Open Foundation said it was told the social media giant decided to suspend access to Politwoops ‘following thoughtful internal deliberation and close consideration of a number of factors that doesn’t distinguish between users.’”
Um, except that one user is not like another. The public has a vested interest in knowing where elected officials stand, and it is tough to search when the content is no longer available. I wonder just what prompted Twitter’s “thoughtful internal deliberation.”
Cynthia Murrell, September 17, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
When Google Translate Is Not Enough
September 16, 2015
I read a delightful article called “The British Library Is Crowdsourcing the Translation of a Mysterious 13th-Century Sword Inscription.” I am not too keen on edged weapons. Nevertheless, I am interested in becoming sharper when it comes to translation methods.
The write up states:
+NDXOXCHWDRGHDXORVI+ This inscription, engraved on a 13th-century double-edged sword owned by the British Museum, is the medieval mystery of the moment. Stumped by its cryptic engraving, last week the British Library tapped the interwebs for its crowd wisdom, asking commenters to help decode the meaning.
What makes the article entertaining is the fact that the British Library, backed with the formidable talents of British universities where linguistics absolutely thrives is turning to the hoi polloi for assistance.
And assist did the rustics. Consult the original article for the full span of human ingenuity. Here’s the comment I enjoyed from a non rustic:
“Everything is explained in Winnie the Pooh.”
A Google search reveals more questions:
Helpful.
Stephen E Arnold, September 16, 2015
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