Standard EBooks Pleases Bibliophiles
July 10, 2017
Volunteer and not for profit organization Standard EBooks has released a large collection of public domain books in digital format that is free for all.
According to their own website Standard EBooks, the organization says:
Standard Ebooks takes ebooks from sources like Project Gutenberg, formats and typesets them using a carefully designed and professional-grade style guide, lightly modernizes them, fully proofreads and corrects them, and then builds them to take advantage of state-of-the-art ereader and browser technology.
In recent past, The Library of Congress also has thrown open its doors to the Internet to explore its vast collection of books in digital format. The major issue with most digital libraries, however, is its search capabilities. Apart from digitizing the books and literature, organizations should also concentrate on easy search capabilities. Are Google, Amazon, and Apple listening?
Vishal Ingole, July 10, 2017
Google and Its Vestager Adventure
July 7, 2017
I found the analyses of Google’s fine for certain misunderstood and misinterpreted behavior interesting. I noted a round up in that font of legal and technical wisdom, the Hollywood Reporter, which presented pros and cons of the decision. Well, sort of one pro and one con. My question, “Why was the Hollywood Reporter interested in a legal decision seemingly far removed from the concerns of Hollywood?”
I also noted “More Than Money: Why Google’s Antitrust Loss Matters.” One of the points in this write up was that the EU process might qualify some other companies for a day in court with a stop at the toll booth on the way out of the building.
I noted this passage:
These other cases involve: (1) the available range of mobile apps in the Android operating system, and (2) allegations that through AdSense, Google has prevented third-party websites from sourcing search ads. Once complete, these cases could result in similarly hefty fines. Indeed, given the European Commission’s statements regarding the potentiality of findings of abuse, it seems unlikely that Google will escape further punitive measures.
Several observations:
- Google will pay the fine one way or another but there will be some legal excitement on the information highway leading to the pay station
- Other US companies are likely to be getting an invitation to explain their business practices. Brussels and Strasbourg are fun cities with good restaurants and some nice hotels.
- Google will have an opportunity to explain some of its other systems and methods in the future.
I am not sure saying, “Hey, we’re sorry” will work very well. One thing is certain: Google will not ask IBM Watson for its take on the matter.
Stephen E Arnold, July 7, 2017
Mistakes to Avoid to Implement Hadoop Successfully
July 7, 2017
Hadoop has been at the forefront of Big Data implementation methodologies. The journey so far has been filled with more failures than successes. An expert thus has put up a list of common mistakes to avoid while implementing Hadoop.
Wael Elrifai in a post titled How to Avoid Seven Common Hadoop Mistakes and posted on IT Pro Portal says:
Business needs specialized skills, data integration, and budget all need to factor into planning and implementation. Even when this happens, a large percentage of Hadoop implementations fail.
For instance, the author says that one of the most common mistakes that most consultants commit is treated Hadoop like any other database management system. The trick is to treat data lake like a box of Legos and start building the model with one brick at a time. Some other common mistakes include not migrating the data before implementation, not thinking about security issues at the outset and so on. Read the entire article here.
Vishol Ingole, July 7, 2017
Darktrace Attracts Lucrative Clients, Releases New Product
July 7, 2017
We are happy to see innovative cyber-security firm Darktrace meet with success. Access AI informs us that “Darktrace Reports $125 Million in New Contracts.” The post lists some of the company’s diverse customers, including the Blackhawk Network, Rakuten Securities, the Church of England, and Birmingham International Airport. We also learn:
A well-performing final financial quarter has left the company with a revenue increasing 600 percent year on year. 60 countries worldwide are currently using the company’s Enterprise Immune System technology. Darktrace reports that customer renewals are at 90% and that with over 360 employees, the company has doubled inside over the past year.
What makes Darktrace so special? The company is bringing machine learning and other AI tech into the cybersecurity field, where they are sorely needed. Leveraging the mathematics chops of certain Cambridge University specialists, their unique model takes inspiration from biological immune systems. The press release,“Darktrace Cyber ‘Immune System’ Fights Back” at PR Newswire, heralds the arrival of their product Antigena, which offers a sort of self-defense system for networks. The write-up tells us:
Darktrace is the first company in the world to arm the defenders with proven machine learning and mathematics that work without any prior knowledge of attacks, rules or signatures. With Antigena, Darktrace now spots and inoculates against unknown threats, as they germinate within organizations in real time.
‘The battlefield is the corporate network – we cannot fight the battle on the border anymore. We are living through a new era of threat which is relentless and pernicious – and it’s inside our networks now. Today, we have arrived at new detection that reacts faster than any security team can,’ said Nicole Eagan, CEO, Darktrace. …
Darktrace Antigena is a new product innovation, which replicates the function of antibodies in the human immune system. As the Enterprise Immune System detects a threat in its tracks, Antigena modules act as an additional defense capability that automatically neutralize live threats, without requiring human intervention.
Besides automatically fending off potential threats, there’s another big, but perhaps underappreciated advantage to Antigena—no time-wasting false alerts. To learn about the rest of Darktrace’s products, navigate here. The company was founded in Cambridge in 2013, and now keeps a second headquarters in San Francisco and offices around the world. Darktrace puts the utmost confidence in their team’s considerable expertise not only in mathematics and software development but also in intelligence gathering and cyber operations.
Cynthia Murrell, July 7, 2017
Online Filtering: China and “All” Rich Media
July 6, 2017
i read “China’s Bloggers, Filmmakers Feel Chill of Internet Crackdown.” The main idea is that control over Internet content is getting exciting. I noted this point in the “real” news story:’
Over the last month, Chinese regulators have closed celebrity gossip websites, restricted what video people can post and suspended online streaming, all on grounds of inappropriate content.
Yep, an “all” in the headline and an “all” in the text of the story.
I also thought the point that emerges from the alleged statement of an academic whose travel to and from China is likely to become more interesting:
“According to these censorship rules, nothing will make it through, which will do away with audiovisual artistic creation,” Li Yinhe, an academic who studies sexuality at the government-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, wrote in an online post. Under the government rules, such works as Georges Bizet’s opera “Carmen” and Shakespeare’s “Othello” would technically have to be banned for depicting prostitution and overt displays of affection, she said.
What’s the key point? It seems to me that China wants to prevent digital content from eroding what the write up calls via a quote from “an industry association” “socialist values.” Yep, bad. Filtering and controls applied by commercial enterprises, therefore, must be better. If government filters applied by countries other than China may be sort of better than China’s approach.
Hey, gentle reader, this is news. But does “news” exist if one cannot access it online? Perhaps actions designed to limit Surface Web online content will increase the use of encrypted systems such as sites accessible via Tor.
Presumably Thomson Reuters new incubator for smart software and big data will not do any of the filtering thing? On the other hand, my hunch is that Thomson Reuters will filter like the Dickens: From screening ideas to fund to guiding the development trajectories of the lucky folks who get some cash.
Worth watching the publishing giant which has been struggling to generate significant top line growth.
Stephen E Arnold, July 5, 2017
Facebook Factoid: Deleting User Content
July 6, 2017
Who knows if this number is accurate. I found the assertion of a specific number of Facebook deletions interesting. Plus, someone took the time to wrap the number is some verbiage about filtering, aka censorship. The factoid appears in “Facebook Deletes 66,000 Posts a Week to Curb Hate Speech, Extremism.”
Here’s the passage with the “data”:
Facebook has said that over the past two months, it has removed roughly 66,000 posts on average per week that were identified as hate speech.
My thought is that the 3.2 million “content objects” is neither high nor low. The number is without context other than my assumption that Facebook has two billion users per month. The method used to locate and scrub the data seems to be a mystical process powered by artificial intelligence and humans.
One thing is clear to me: Figuring out what to delete will give both the engineers writing the smart software and the lucky humans who get paid to identity inappropriate content in the musings of billions of happy Facebookers seems to be a somewhat challenging task.
What about those “failures”? Good question. What about that “context”? Another good question. Without context what have we with this magical 66,000? Not much in my opinion. One can’t find information if it has been deleted. That’s another issue to consider.
Stephen E Arnold, July 6, 2017
Ubers Kalanick Knew About Google IP Theft
July 6, 2017
Travis Kalanick’s troubles seem to be far from over. A new report suggests that Uber was in the know-how of Anthony Levandowski misdeeds at Google in IP theft.
TechCrunch in an article titled Waymo Filing Says Ex-Uber CEO Travis Kalanick Knew Engineer Had Google Info says:
In the ongoing legal case between Uber and Waymo, a new filing suggests Uber knew that Anthony Levandowski possessed Google information as of last March, before Otto’s acquisition.
Levandowski who headed the AI based self-driving car division Waymo at Google left the company and started Otto. The newly founded venture was soon usurped by Uber in 2016 to propel self-driving car division. Waymo claims that this is a breach of trust and despite Uber knowing the wrongdoings of Otto’s founder, still proceeded with the acquisition.
IP thefts are not uncommon in the corporate world. Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft, IBM every blue-chip tech firm has been accused of IP theft at one point in their lifetime. However, what needs to see is how Google that also has equity in Uber proceeds with the case.
Vishal Ingole, July 6, 2017
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to Wield Meta Search for Good
July 6, 2017
Mark Zuckerberg’s and Priscilla Chan’s philanthropic project, aptly named the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), is beginning its mission with a compelling step—it has acquired Meta, a search engine built specifically for scientific research. TechCrunch examines the acquisition in, “Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Acquires, and Will Free Up, Science Search Engine Meta.”
Researchers face a uniquely mind-boggling amount of data in their work. The article notes, for example, that between 2,000 and 4,000 scientific papers are published daily in the field of biomedicine alone. The article includes a helpful one-and-a-half minute video explaining the platform’s capabilities. Reporter Josh Constine emphasizes:
What’s special about Meta is that its AI recognizes authors and citations between papers so it can surface the most important research instead of just what has the best SEO. It also provides free full-text access to 18,000 journals and literature sources. …
Meta, formerly known as Sciencescape, indexes entire repositories of papers like PubMed and crawls the web, identifying and building profiles for the authors while analyzing who cites or links to what. It’s effectively Google PageRank for science, making it simple to discover relevant papers and prioritize which to read. It even adapts to provide feeds of updates on newly published research related to your previous searches.
The price CZI paid for the startup was not disclosed. Though Meta has charged some users in the past (for subscriptions or customizations), CEO Sam Molyneux promises the platform will be available for free once the transition is complete; he assures us:
Going forward, our intent is not to profit from Meta’s data and capabilities; instead we aim to ensure they get to those who need them most, across sectors and as quickly as possible, for the benefit of the world.
Molyneux posted a heartfelt letter detailing his company’s history and his hopes for the future, so the curious should take a gander. He and his sister Amy founded Meta in Toronto in 2010. Not surprisingly, they are currently hiring.
Cynthia Murrell, July 6, 2017
Bros Say They Are Sorry: Search Bros Exempted, Of Course
July 5, 2017
The bro-haha over Silicon Valley type males getting frisky are everywhere. Quite a surprise. Who would have thought that testosterone charged MBAs would take a proprietary approach to their interactions with people?
But where are the entrepreneurs who created the wild and wonderful world of search-and-retrieval thrills and chills. The only company which I recall as slightly frisky are the late and much missed outfits. Will I name them? No, gentle reader, alas. I am retired, and I am happy with my present status in life; to wit, a wooden shack in rural Kentucky.
The right shoes help make the “right” impression and allow a quick sprint if warranted.
I am happy to read blog posts from Uber expatriates, the revelations of the New York Times (an outfit which managed to overlook this “story” for decades), and the me culpa from former venture capitalists. Want sources? you ask. Well, here are a few to peruse:
- I’m a Creep. I’m Sorry.
- Reflecting On One Very, Very Strange Year At Uber
- Women in Tech Speak Frankly on Culture of Harassment
Are there other signs of “bro” culture? Sure, I have a handful in my memory bank. Some examples:
- The idea that one does not ask for permission. One just apologizes and moves on. Guess which company uses this method: [a] Amazon, [b] Facebook, [c] Google. [d] Palantir Technologies
- The idea that one can do end runs around established procurement procedures: [a] Amazon, [b] Facebook, [c] Google. [d] Palantir Technologies
- The idea that one can take a database management system and pitch it as a slicing and dicing machine which can “create” content from old information: [a] Hadoop, [b] IBM. [c] MarkLogic. [d] Oracle, [e] two of the previous choices
- The idea that customers and licensees are stupid: [a] Every company located between San Francisco and Fremont, [b] anyone not working at a company in Silicon Valley, [c] anyone not working for one of the big name companies located in Mountain View, [d] anyone older than 25
- The idea that laws and ethical behavior are for “other people”: [a] Anyone with a degree from Stanford, CMU, or MIT with an MBA, [b] Anyone with a degree from Stanford, CMU, or MIT with a law degree, [c] A person referred by a senior executive who has passed the “unwritten test” for certified, organic brain power, [d] your roommate.
Harrod’s Creek is also a hot bed of corruption, but our deals usually involve moonshine, questionable real estate deals, and the provision of lap dancers for athletes. I am encouraged. Silicon Valley has much to teach us here in rural Kentucky.
Stephen E Arnold, July 5, 2017
Deep Text: A Review of an Important New Book by Tom Reamy
July 5, 2017
You have reached a special page. To continue, click here.
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
