Personalizing a Chromebook Search Takes Some Elbow Grease
December 8, 2017
Chromebooks are a great laptop and cost a fraction of the price of an Apple or a Microsoft PC. There is a learning curve for new users to Chromebooks, because they lack the familiar PC and Apple interfaces. With a little elbow grease, however, and research any Chromebook user can become an expert. The Verge shares a how-to article, “How To Customize Your Google Chrome And Chromebook Searches” that can get new users started.
The Chromebook OS lacks customization options, especially when it comes to search. There is a little-known feature in Chrome OS that allows users to customize their search options. What is great about this option is that it syncs customization across all Chrome browser you use.
The article provides a step by step guide on how to activate the search customization option and also includes some tips on how to improve you search overall.
Those customizations aren’t just limited to the Google search bar on Chromebooks. Basically, as long as you’re logged into Chrome, your customizations for the search bar will sync across to any Chrome Browser you’re using. So whether you use a Chromebook or just use the Chrome browser, here’s how to supercharge your searches for the stuff you use most often.
Read the article and learn how your Chromebook functions with search. The learning curve is small and it will be well worth it.
Whitney Grace, December 8, 2017
Google and Amping the Pressure in the Ad Fire Hose
December 7, 2017
Screen real estate for mobile devices is limited. The number of queries on desktop boat anchor computers has flat lined, even for “real” researchers. What’s the fix?
A partial answer may appear in “Improving Search and Discovery on Google.” I learned from the write up:
- More related searches. Google helps a busy person consider alternative ways of obtaining needed information.
- Featured snippets. Google decides what’s important so a busy person does not have to think or assess too much.
- Knowledge panels. Google helps a user obtain “real” knowledge. No thinking required.
Each of these search boosters allow Google to line up and display more advertising. Each time one clicks or swipes, Google obtains another item of data to allow its system to “predict” what a user wants and needs.
Now that’s relevance. Ads and feedback.
Why? To the user, search is just “there.” To Google, it’s a way to consume that Adwords inventory in my opinion.
Relevance? What could be more relevant than information which makes thinking easy?
Keep the money flowing in I say.
Stephen E Arnold, December 7, 2017
Some Think the Time Has Come for Government Regulation of Social Media
December 7, 2017
In this era of fake news and data hacking, some people think it’s time for the government to step in and help. As the stakes get higher, commentators think that we can no longer police ourselves on the internet. This thought was brought up in a recent Bill Moyers piece, “The Facebook Inside Facebook.”
According to the story:
But in the US, it’s time to consider more dramatic measures. Speaking of disclosure, many social scientists outside the company would like Facebook to open up more of its data — for one reason among others, to understand how their algorithms work. There are those in the company who say they would respond reasonably if reformers and researchers got specific about what data they want to see. What specifically should they ask?
Should there be, along British lines, a centrally appointed regulatory board? Since 2003, the UK has had an Office of Communications with regulatory powers. Its board is appointed by a Cabinet minister.
This is an interesting prospect. Perhaps an FCC-style regulatory commission could help weed out all the quirks that make social media potentially dangerous. Even Mark Zuckerberg’s mentor thinks the time has come. However, all of this would require Facebook to open up their algorithms to outside eyes and, as anyone remotely interested in social media knows, those codes are the company’s bread and butter. We think it’ll be a snowy day in Death Valley before Silicon Valley welcomes oversight.
Patrick Roland, December 7, 2017
Neural Network Revamps Search for Research
December 7, 2017
Research is a pain, especially when you have to slog through millions of results to find specific and accurate results. It takes time and lot of reading, but neural networks could cut down on the investigation phase. The Economist wrote a new article about how AI will benefit research: “A Better Way To Search Through Scientific Papers.”
The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence developed Semantic Search to aid scientific research. Semantic Search’s purpose is to discover scientific papers most relevant to a particular problem. How does Semantic Scholar work?
Instead of relying on citations in other papers, or the frequency of recurring phrases to rank the relevance of papers, as it once did and rivals such as Google Scholar still do, the new version of Semantic Scholar applies AI to try to understand the context of those phrases, and thus achieve better results.
Semantic Scholar relies on a neural network, a system that mirrors real neural networks and learns by trial and error tests. To make Semantic Search work, the Allen Institute team annotated ten and sixty-seven abstracts. From this test sample, they found 7,000 medical terms with which 2,000 could be paired. The information was fed into the Semantic Search neural network, then it found more relationships based on the data. Through trial and error, the neural network learns more patterns.
The Allen Institute added 26 million biomedical research papers to the already 12 million in the database. The plan is to make scientific and medical research more readily available to professionals, but also to regular people.
Whitney Grace, December 7, 2017
Editorial Excitement: Will Facebook and Google Struggle with Social Responsibility
December 6, 2017
I noted three interesting news items. Both cast high profile companies as arbiters of social responsibility. The first item is “Facebook Is Banning Women for Calling Men Scum.” The main idea is that those who use the phrase “men are scum” can be banned from Facebook. Seems simple. Phrase identification, phrase look up, phrase on list triggers banning. Some people who have been banned for 30 days object. Interesting.
The second item is “Here’s What YouTube Is Doing to Stop Its Child Exploitation Problem.” The headline makes clear that there is a problem. The Alphabet Google YouTube fix is— wait for it — to use humans to identify socially irresponsible videos. The main point for me is that Alphabet Google’s algorithms cannot do the job. I thought that Google’s artificial intelligence system can develop artificial intelligent systems better than the one that Google created itself. Guess humans still have a role and maybe AI is not exactly able to handle what seems like socially responsible functions.
The third item is “How Trolls Locked My Twitter Account for 10 Days.” Main idea? Twitter’s socially responsible mechanism for making Twitter a better digital place can be exploited.
Net net: These three firms seem to be struggling with the notion of editorial controls, implementing them in an effective manner, and making algorithms work in a socially responsible manner.
Interesting. Traditional publishers have been performing this function for hundreds of years. There are plenty of journalists and publishers looking for work. My hunch is that the Silicon Valley set may prefer to go their own way. Who can learn from traditional publishing procedures? Maybe a smart self learning algorithm?
Well, maybe not yet at least. Jeff Bezos owns a newspaper and presumably has a leg up when it comes to addressing “fake” information.
Stephen E Arnold, December 6, 2017
Craigslist Is Shooting Itself in the Foot by Shunning Search
December 6, 2017
Craigslist is legendary as a way to find things, sell things, get jobs and meet people. But, it’s aim is to do so locally. Recently, some search engines started allowing users to search all of Criagslist, but it won’t last and that’s a shame. We learned this from a Search Engines List article, “How to Search All of Craigslist.”
According to the story, there are several new search tools on the market:
All these sites work roughly the same way. They provide a simple front end with either a series of selections to choose from or a search engine box. You can use them to search Craigslist, and sometimes other classified advert websites, without having to drill down into your city or area.
Use these services while you can, though. Unfortunately, Craigslist is cracking down on scrapers and websites that crawl its website. It has already blocked a number of the more popular Craigslist crawlers and will likely block more as time goes on. In the meantime, all those websites in the links I provided are currently working fine (as of January 2017).
This is a real shame. With a national and international reach that this technology serves, Craigslist should be embracing it, not shutting it down. Something like this could turn Craigslist into the next eBay.
Patrick Roland, December 6, 2017
No More International Google Searches
December 6, 2017
One of the better things about Google is that when you needed to search for results in a different country, all you needed to do was change the domain tag. Google has decided it does not want to do that anymore shares the Verge in the article, “Google No Longer Lets You Change Domains To Search Other Countries.”
Google, instead, will deliver localized results based on your location.
If you need to access international results, however, the option can be changed on the settings menu on the bottom of google.com. Yes, you have to look for it, but it is there. Why does Google want to do this?
Google says it’s making the change because one out of five searches “is related to location,” and the company feels it’s critical to offer local information to provide the best results. The feature seems to be tailored most toward travelers: Google says that if you visit another country, it’ll automatically serve results local to where you’re visiting, then switch back again as soon as you arrive home. Before, if a traveler had kept typing in their home country’s Google domain, they may not have gotten what Google sees as ideal search results.
Before you think this is another way Google is trying to control search content, apparently Alphabet Inc. has already been doing this with YouTube and Gmail. The procedure has just been carried over to search results, but at least there is a way out of the localized content.
Whitney Grace, December 6, 2017
Filtered Content: Tactical Differences between Dow Jones and Thomson Reuters
December 5, 2017
You may know that Dow Jones has an online search company. The firm is called Factiva, and it is an old-school approach to finding information. The company recently announced a deal with an outfit called Curation. Founded by a former newspaper professional, Curation uses mostly humans to assemble reports on hot topics. Factiva is reselling these services, and advertising for customers in the Wall Street Journal. Key point: This is mostly a manual method. The approach was more in line with the types of “reports” available from blue chip consulting firms.
You may also know that Thomson Reuters has been rolling out machine curated reports. These have many different product names. Thomson Reuters has a large number of companies and brands. Not surprisingly, Thomson’s approach has to apply to many companies managed by executives who compete with regular competitors like Dow Jones but also among themselves. Darwin would have loved Thomson Reuters. The point is that Thomson Reuters’ approach relies on “smart” software.
You can read about Dow Jones’ play here.
You can read about Thomson Reuters’ play here.
My take is that these two different approaches reflect the painful fact that there is not clear path forward for professional publishing companies. In order to make money from electronic information, two of the major players are still experimenting. The digital revolution began, what?, about 40 years ago.
One would have thought that leading companies like Dow Jones and Thomson Reuters would have moved beyond the experimental stage and into cash cow land.
Not yet it seems. The reason for my pointing out these two different approaches is that there are more innovative methods available. For snapshots of companies which move beyond the Factiva and Thomson methods, watch Dark Cyber, a new program is available every Tuesday via YouTube at this link.
Stephen E Arnold, December 5, 2017
China Has a Big Data Policy Setting Everyone Back
December 5, 2017
China is very tightlipped about the way its government handles dissent. However, with the aid of data mining and fake news, they are no longer crushing opposing voices, they are drowning them out. We learned more in the Vox piece, “China is Perfecting a New Method for Suppressing Dissent on the Internet.”
Their paper, titled “How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, Not Engaged Argument,” shows how Beijing, with the help of a massive army of government-backed internet commentators, floods the web in China with pro-regime propaganda.
What’s different about China’s approach is the content of the propaganda. The government doesn’t refute critics or defend policies; instead, it overwhelms the population with positive news (what the researchers call “cheerleading” content) in order to eclipse bad news and divert attention away from actual problems.
Seems like an unwinnable situation for China. However, it would be interesting to see what some of the good guys fighting fake news could do in this situation. We already know big data can be useful in stifling false news stories and intentionally abrasive points of view. But with China not exactly letting outside influence in easily, this will be an uphill battle for the Chinese online community.
Patrick Roland, December 5, 2017
Google Told to Rein in Profits
December 5, 2017
Google makes a lot of money with their advertising algorithms. Every quarter their profit looms higher and higher, but the San Francisco Gate reports that might change in the article, “Google Is Flying High, But Regulatory Threats Loom.” Google and Facebook are being told they need to hold back their hyper efficient advertising machines. Why? Possible Russian interference in the 2016 elections and the widespread dissemination of fake news.
New regulations would require Google and Facebook to add more human oversight into their algorithms. Congress already has a new bill on the floor with new regulations for online political ads to allow more transparency. Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook already making changes, but Google has not done anything and will not get a free pass.
It’s hard to know whether Congress or regulators will actually step up and regulate the company, but there seems to be a newfound willingness to consider such action,’ says Daniel Stevens, executive director of the Campaign for Accountability, a nonprofit watchdog that tracks Google spending on lobbyists and academics. ‘Google, like every other industry, should not be left to its own devices.’
Google has remained mostly silent, but has made a statement that they will increase “efforts to improve transparency, enhance disclosures, and reduce foreign abuse.” Google is out for profit like any other company in the world. The question is if they have the conscience to comply or will find a way around it.
Whitney Grace, December 5, 2017
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