MIT Tries to Rescue IBM Watson
January 21, 2016
“Don’t Blame Watson for IBM’s Slide” is a remarkable example of “real” journalism. I love it when academics (you know the innocent party in the student loan maneuver) defends a really big outfit (IBM).
The write up focuses squarely on the problem IBM has created; for example:
If you’ve seen IBM’s advertisements or have read the proclamations that the company is making a big bet on Watson, its famed “cognitive computing” engine, you might be tempted to think the gamble is failing.
I know that IBM has made a serious miscalculation with the Watson play. First, HP is learning the hard way that search is not something that generates tons of dough without some serious management expertise. How is HP solving its conundrum with regard to the $11 billion bet on mid 1990s technology? HP is just going to fly like the legal eagles. Now legal eagles don’t like a sparrow in the flock. You may be able to guess who the winners will be in the HP solution.
IBM has embraced Lucene. That’s a good move. Palantir has done the same thing. IBM then failed to learn from outfits like Palantir even though IBM owns i2 and could have pursued a similarly focused and clear headed approach.
Nope. IBM made Watson into what I consider Jack Benny Show material. Watson does game shows without realizing that post production wizardry makes a “win” look like the mouse clicks of a film school grad. Watson does cook books. Watson cures cancer. Watson solves insurance woes. Watson does not generate the type of revenue that will make a dent in IBM’s revenue needs.
But IBM has achieved one thing. IBM has made cognitive computing the skateboard on which more nimble outfits are riding. Perhaps IBM should charge these start ups for the psychological assistance the wonky Watson PR campaigns have delivered without a prescription or a juicy hourly fee.
The write up reports in “real” journalistic style:
… Even if Watson had become a big business by now, IBM would still be in huge trouble because of trends that have been afoot for a very long time—notably the rise of cloud computing services that have diminished the need for large organizations to buy IBM servers and mainframes. This was in play long before Ginni Rometty was named CEO in 2011, but her predecessor, Sam Palmisano, was better able to mask the decline and keep Wall Street happy by selling off unprofitable lines of business, buying high-margin software companies, and returning billions of dollars to investors through dividends and share buybacks. Now there are fewer financial levers left to pull. Revenue has been falling for 15 quarters in a row.
Yep, blame Sam. Blame someone.
The reality is that Lucene, acquired technology, and home brew software are not going to do lots of stuff.
Back to Palantir. Whatever the company’s faults (and there are some Doozies), Palantir aced IBM in the intelligence sector. Palantir focused and then used indirect sales methods to move into financial services and health care.
IBM buys ads and does PR. Palantir gets others to push the product. I wonder if anyone at some of the banks know what a “helper” is or how to create and “object” in Palantir land.
Probably not.
But IBM has demonstrated that it lacks focus, has no effective strategy to make search and information access generate big money or in Palantir’s case, big flows of venture capital.
What IBM can do, however, is get the “real” journalists to play along. After 15 consecutive quarters of revenue excitement, IBM needs to find a solution.
Hint: i2 can help. Will IBM listen? Nah, it’s more fund thinking up ways to hire Bob Dylan to explain Watson or visualizing Watson as chemical structures.
Stephen E Arnold, January 21, 2016
The Total Patent Counts for 2015 Are in, and IBM Wins (Again)
January 21, 2016
The article on Reuters titled IBM Granted Most U.S. Patents in 2015, Study Finds confirms the 23rd consecutive win in this area for IBM. Patents are a key indicator of the direction and focus of a given business, and top companies take these numbers very seriously. Interestingly, 2015 was the first year since 2007 that the total count of U.S. patents fell. Following that trend, Microsoft Corp’s patents were also 31% lower than past totals, and as a result the company took only tenth place on the list. The article provides some other details on patent rankings,
“Among the technology giants notable for their intellectual property, Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google stepped up its patent activity, moving to the fifth position from eighth in 2014, while Apple Inc (AAPL.O) stayed at the 11th position. Patents are sometimes the subject of legal battles, and investors, analysts and enthusiasts alike track patents closely to see what companies are looking to develop next. Following IBM, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) and Canon Inc (7751.T) rounded off the top three spots…”
There are no big surprises here, but one aspect of patents that the article does not cover is whether patents count as revenue? We were under the impression that money did that trick, but the emphasis on patents seems to suggest otherwise.
Chelsea Kerwin, January 21, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Woman Fights Google and Wins
January 21, 2016
Google is one of those big corporations that if you have a problem with it, you might as well let it go. Google is powerful, respected, and has (we suspect) a very good legal department. There are problems with Google, such as the “right to be forgotten” and Australian citizens have a big bone to pick with the search engine. Australian News reports that “SA Court Orders Google Pay Dr. Janice Duffy $115,000 Damages For Defamatory Search Results.”
Duffy filed a lawsuit against Google for displaying her name along with false and defamatory content within its search results. Google claimed no responsibility for the actual content, as it was not the publisher. The Australian Supreme Court felt differently:
“In October, the court rejected Google’s arguments and found it had defamed Dr Duffy due to the way the company’s patented algorithm operated. Justice Malcolm Blue found the search results either published, republished or directed users toward comments harmful to her reputation. On Wednesday, Justice Blue awarded Dr Duffy damages of $100,000 and a $15,000 lump sum to cover interest.”
Duffy was not the only one who was upset with Google. Other Australians filed their own complaints, including Michael Trkulja with a claim search results linked him to crime and Shane Radbone sued to learn the identities of bloggers who wrote negative comments.
It does not seem that Google should be held accountable, but technically they are not responsible for the content. However, Google’s algorithms are wired to bring up the most popular and in-depth results. Should they develop a filter that measures negative and harmful information or is it too subjective?
Whitney Grace, January 21, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Yandex Faces the Reality of the Android Phone Trojan Horse
January 20, 2016
I noticed this statement in “Russia’s Google Could Be Poised for a Huge 2016”:
…Just two years ago Yandex had twice the search market share as Google, the company only owns 57% of the Russian search market today. Google, on the other hand, has increased its share from 25% to nearly 35%. But this is where the story gets interesting. Yandex contends that the reason Google has increased its market share is because Android phones — which account for 80% of the smartphone market in Russia, according to Yandex — are preloaded with the Google search app, while the same isn’t the case for Yandex’s app.
The Yandex system is pretty good. If you are looking for information in Russian, the system is excellent.
What Yandex lasts is a Trojan horse like Android to carry the search clicks to the mother ship.
Will litigation in Russia thwart the Alphabet Google thing? Nope.
Stephen E Arnold, January 20, 2016
Big Data Blending Solution
January 20, 2016
I would have used Palantir or maybe our own tools. But an outfit named National Instruments found a different way to perform data blending. “How This Instrument Firm Tackled Big Data Blending” provides a case study and a rah rah for Alteryx. Here’s the paragraph I highlighted:
The software it [National Instruments] selected, from Alteryx, takes a somewhat unique approach in that it provides a visual representation of the data transformation process. Users can acquire, transform, and blend multiple data sources essentially by dragging and dropping icons on a screen. This GUI approach is beneficial to NI employees who aren’t proficient at manipulating data using something like SQL.
The graphical approach has been part of a number of tools. There are also some systems which just figure out where to put what.
The issue for me is, “What happens to rich media like imagery and unstructured information like email?”
There are systems which handle these types of content.
Another challenge is the dependence on structured relational data tables. Certain types of operations are difficult in this environment.
The write up is interesting, but it reveals that a narrow view of available tools may produce a partial solution.
Stephen E Arnold, January 20, 2016
IBM: 15 Whiffs in a Row
January 20, 2016
Watson seems to be running out of answers. The system came up with a cook book, a plan to put a dent in cancer, and make sense of Big Data. Great public relations efforts, but the financial payoff seems to be lacking.
I read “IBM Shares Slide as Revenue Drops for 15th Stright Quarter.” How can this be when a company has the smartest, fastest, bestest artificial intelligence system in the world?
The answer is similar to Google’s analysis of its autonomous car’s track record. Wrecks are the fault of those pesky humans. IBM may be better off letting Watson and its Lucene based, home brew, and acquired technology make business decisions for IBM.
I learned in the write up:
Revenue shrank to $22.06 billion versus $24.11 billion.
And in “IBM Still on a Downward Roll with 15th Consecutive Quartgerly Revenuye Drop” this caught my attention:
“We continue to make significant progress in our transformation to higher value,” offered IBM chairwoman and chief executive Ginni Rometty.
Perhaps Ms. Rometty is not listening to IBM Watson? Or, on the other hand, perhaps she is? Either way, Watson is not delivering the payoff that IBM’s somewhat wonky Watson marketing purports.
Revenue, gentle reader, not marketing fluff seems to be needed. Cognitive computing and humans seem to be ineffective when it comes to generating sustainable, substantive revenue.
Stephen E Arnold, January 20, 2016
A Death of Dark Web Weapons
January 20, 2016
President Obama recently announced some executive orders designed to curb gun violence; one of these moves, according to the U.S. Attorney General, specifically targets weapon purchases through the Dark Web. However, Deep.Dot.Web asks, “Do People Really Buy Weapons from Dark Web Markets?” Not many of them, as it turns out. Reporter Benjamin Vitáris writes:
“Fast Company made an interview with Nicolas Christin, assistant research professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). The professor is one of the researchers behind a recent deep-dive analysis of sales on 35 marketplaces from 2013 to early 2015. According to him, dark web gun sales are pretty uncommon: ‘Weapons represent a very small portion of the overall trade on anonymous marketplaces. There is some trade, but it is pretty much negligible.’ On the dark net, the most popular niche is drugs, especially, MDMA and marijuana, which takes around 25% of sales on the dark web, according to Christin’s analysis. However, weapons are so uncommon that they were put into the ‘miscellaneous’ category, along with drug paraphernalia, electronics, tobacco, viagra, and steroids. These together takes 3% of sales.”
Vitáris notes several reasons the Dark Web is not exactly a hotbed of gun traffic. For one thing, guns are devilishly difficult to send through the mail. Then there’s the fact that, with current federal and state laws, buying a gun in person is easier than through dark web markets in most parts of the U.S.; all one has to do is go to the closest gun show. So, perhaps, targeting Dark Web weapon sales is not the most efficient thing we could do to keep guns away from criminals.
Cynthia Murrell, January 20, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
She Is a Meme Librarian
January 20, 2016
Memes are random bits of Internet culture that come and go faster than the highest DSL speed. There are so many memes out there that it seems impossible to catalog the trends, much less each one. The Independent tells us that Amanda Brennan has made a career out of studying and documenting memes, becoming the world’s first meme librarian: “Meet Tumblr’s ‘Meme Librarian,’ The Woman With The Best Job On The Internet.”
Brennan works at Tumblr and her official title is content and community manager, but she prefers the title “meme librarian.” She earned a Master’s in Information from Rutgers and during graduate school she documented memes for Know Your Meme, followed by Tumblr.
“[In graduate school] immediately I knew I did not want to work in a traditional library. Which is weird because people go to library school and they’re like ‘I want to change the world with books!’ And I was like ‘I want to change the world of information.’ And they started a social media specialization in the library school, and I was like, ‘This is it. This is the right time for me to be here.’”
Brennan is like many librarians, obsessed with taxonomy and connections between information. The Internet gave her an outlet to explore and study to her heart’s content, but she was particularly drawn to memes, their origins, and how they traveled around the Internet. After sending an email to Know Your Meme about an internship, her career as a meme librarian was sealed. She tracks meme trends and discovers how they evolve not only in social media, but how the rest of the Internet swallows them up.
I wonder if this will be a future focus of library science in the future?
Whitney Grace, January 20, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Will 2016 Be the Year of the French Search Revolution?
January 19, 2016
I think about French search and content processing systems once a year. Okay, maybe less frequently. I check out what’s new with Antidot, KBCrawl, Exalead Dassault, Sinequa, CustomerMatrix (né Polyspot), and Pertimm Qwant plus a handful of other outfits.
Most of these firms are unknown to those who kibitz in Sillycon Valley. Each of the companies has a revolutionary technology, world class technology, and galactic confidence in their zeros and ones.
The concern I have for French information access companies in 2016 is a story in USA Today, the McPaper which is often a source of amusement for me.
The article is “French President Declares Economic Emergency.” Here’s the passage I noted:
French President Francois Holland pledged Monday to redefine France’s business model and declared what he called “a state of economic and social emergency,” unveiling a 2-billion-euro ($2.2 billion) plan to revive hiring and catch up with a fast-moving world economy.
Will a couple of billion filter down to impact the economic fortunes of the French search and retrieval vendors? That’s a good question.
But the answer is, “Non.”
Some of the systems are quite interesting. Most of the firms struggle to generate substantial organic revenue in the US. Once a search vendor announces that it will expand its US operations, the follow through is often modest.
France cranks out some good engineers. But 2016 is going to be as or more challenging for the French search engine vendors as any other year in recent memory.
Stephen E Arnold, January 19, 2016
Social Media Search: Will Informed People Respond?
January 19, 2016
I recall asking for directions recently. There were three young people standing outside a bookstore. I wanted to know where the closest ice cream shop was. The three looked at me, smiled, looked at one another, smiled, and one of them said: “No clue.”
I like the idea of asking a group of people for information, but the experiences I have suggest that one has to be careful. Ask a tough question and no one may know the answer. Ask a question in an unfamiliar way such as “shop” instead of Dairy Queen, and the group may not have the faintest idea what one is talking about.
These thoughts influenced my reading of “Social Media: The Next Best Search Engine.” The title seemed to suggest that I could rely on my old school tricks but I would be silly not to use Facebook and Twitter to get information. That’s okay, but I don’t use Facebook, and the Twitter tweet thing seems to be down.
Bummer.
The write up reports:
Many consumers skip right over Google or Yahoo when conducting a search, and instead type it into social media networks.
The approach may work for peak TV and Miley Cyrus news, but I find analysis of social media intercept data more helpful for some of my queries.
Here’s the trick, according to the article:
To make sure you are responding to this growing trend, be present on social media on the channels that best make sense for your company. …The best way to optimize your posts is through hashtags and the content itself. For Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Instagram, be sure to include relevant hashtags in your posts so that users can find your posts. For sites such as LinkedIn and Yelp which don’t utilize hashtags, make sure that you fill out your profiles as completely as possible.
Okay, indexing and details.
Search? I don’t think I will change my methods.
Stephen E Arnold, January 19, 2016
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