DarkCyber noted “Algolia Finds $110M from Accel and Salesforce for Its Search-As-a-Service, Used by Slack, Twitch and 8K Others.” The write up reports that the company has “closed a Series C of $110 million, money that it plans to invest in R&D around its search technology, including doubling down on voice, and further global expansion in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.”
Oxford University and HobbyLobby: A Criminal Duo?
October 17, 2019
I have wandered around Oxford and its hallowed halls. Interesting place. Not much going on. I have also visited a HobbyLobby. Lots going on. My take: Oxford was snooty; HobbyLobby was crass.
I read “Oxford Professor Accused of selling Ancient Bible Fragments.” When I saw the headline, I thought about MIT and its tie up and cover up of its Jeffrey Epstein connection.
What’s with universities?
The write up states:
An Oxford University professor has been accused of selling ancient Bible fragments to a controversial US company that has been involved in several high-profile scandals related to its aggressive purchases of biblical artifacts.
DarkCyber noted:
Commenting after the statement on Monday, Nongbri [New Testament scholar],said: “The sale of the manuscripts and the attempt to cover it up by removing records is almost unbelievable. But the first thing to note are the words ‘so far’. We don’t yet know the full extent of this. More items may well have been sold to Hobby Lobby.”
No digital connection. No Dark Web. Just a prestigious institution and an outfit which sells stuff to people who create owl plaques in their ovens.
Remember. Just allegations.
Stephen E Arnold, October 17, 2019
Bias: Female Digital Assistant Voices
October 17, 2019
It was a seemingly benign choice based on consumer research, but there is an unforeseen complication. TechRadar considers, “The Problem with Alexa: What’s the Solution to Sexist Voice Assistants?” From smart speakers to cell phones, voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, Google’s Assistant, and Apple’s Siri generally default to female voices (and usually sport female-sounding names) because studies show humans tend to respond best to female voices. Seems like an obvious choice—until you consider the long-term consequences. Reporter Olivia Tambini cites a report UNESCO issued earlier this year that suggests the practice sets us up to perpetuate sexist attitudes toward women, particularly subconscious biases. She writes:
“This progress [society has made toward more respect and agency for women] could potentially be undone by the proliferation of female voice assistants, according to UNESCO. Its report claims that the default use of female-sounding voice assistants sends a signal to users that women are ‘obliging, docile and eager-to-please helpers, available at the touch of a button or with a blunt voice command like “hey” or “OK”.’ It’s also worrying that these voice assistants have ‘no power of agency beyond what the commander asks of it’ and respond to queries ‘regardless of [the user’s] tone or hostility’. These may be desirable traits in an AI voice assistant, but what if the way we talk to Alexa and Siri ends up influencing the way we talk to women in our everyday lives? One of UNESCO’s main criticisms of companies like Amazon, Google, Apple and Microsoft is that the docile nature of our voice assistants has the unintended effect of reinforcing ‘commonly held gender biases that women are subservient and tolerant of poor treatment’. This subservience is particularly worrying when these female-sounding voice assistants give ‘deflecting, lackluster or apologetic responses to verbal sexual harassment’.”
So what is a voice-assistant maker to do? Certainly, male voices could be used and are, in fact, selectable options for several models. Another idea is to give users a wide variety of voices to choose from—not just different genders, but different accents and ages, as well. Perhaps the most effective solution would be to use a gender-neutral voice; one dubbed “Q” has now been created, proving it is possible. (You can listen to Q through the article or on YouTube.)
Of course, this and other problems might have been avoided had there been more diversity on the teams behind the voices. Tambini notes that just seven percent of information- and communication-tech patents across G20 countries are generated by women. As more women move into STEM fields, will unintended gender bias shrink as a natural result?
Cynthia Murrell, October 17, 2019
Tracking Trends in News Homepage Links with Google BigQuery
October 17, 2019
Some readers may be familiar with the term “culturomics,” a particular application of n-gram-based linguistic analysis to text. The practice arose after a 2010 project that applied such analysis to five million historical books across seven languages. The technique creates n-gram word frequency histograms from the source text. Now the technique has been applied to links found on news organizations’ home pages using Google’s BigQuery platform. Forbes reports, “Using the Cloud to Explore the Linguistic Patterns of Half a Trillion Words of News Homepage Hyperlinks.” Writer Kalev Leetaru explains:
“News media represents a real-time reflection of localized events, narratives, beliefs and emotions across the world, offering an unprecedented look into the lens through which we see the world around us. The open data GDELT Project has monitored the homepages of more than 50,000 news outlets worldwide every hour since March 2018 through its Global Frontpage Graph (GFG), cataloging their links in an effort to understand global journalistic editorial decision-making. In contrast to traditional print and broadcast mediums, online outlets have theoretically unlimited space, allowing them to publish a story without displacing another. Their homepages, however, remain precious fixed real estate, carefully curated by editors that must decide which stories are the most important at any moment. Analyzing these decisions can help researchers better understand which stories each news outlet believed to be the most important to its readership at any given moment in time and how those decisions changed hour by hour.”
The project has now collected more than 134 billion such links. The article describes how researchers have used BigQuery to analyze this dataset with a single SQL query, so navigate there for the technical details. Interestingly, one thing they are looking at is trends across the 110 languages represented by the samples. Leetaru emphasizes this endeavor demonstrates how much faster these computations can be achieved compared to the 2010 project. He concludes:
“Even large-scale analyses are moving so close to real-time that we are fast approaching the ability of almost any analysis to transition from ‘what if’ and ‘I wonder’ to final analysis in just minutes with a single query.”
Will faster analysis lead to wiser decisions? We shall see.
Cynthia Murrell, October 17, 2019
Libraries Fight Publishers In Ebook Limitations
October 17, 2019
Public libraries are an equalizing tool for people who do not have access to technology, books, and other materials that come with higher incomes. Unlike academic and textbook publishers, popular book publishers have had working relationships with libraries for decades. One of the biggest publishing houses in the United States might bring that to an end if they instill limitations on ebooks. The Stranger shares one library’s story against publisher in, “Seattle Public Library ‘Denounces’ Publisher’s New E-Book Policy.”
Come November 1, 2019, Macmillan plans to only sell one digital copy of newly released ebooks for half price. Libraries will also be forced to wait two months before they can buy more copies and that will be at the full retail price. Digital ebooks sell for $60, but are $30 for many libraries due to their non-profit status.
Macmillan CEO John Sargent’s reasoning makes sense from a company trying to make a profit:
“The rationale behind this move, according to a draft of a memo to authors written by Macmillan CEO John Sargent, is “to balance the great importance of libraries with the value of [an author’s] work.” Sargent argues that library lending is “cannibalizing sales” of e-books. He thinks the embargo will help the e-books sell better online, and claims to have data proving that the publisher makes far less on “library reads” than they they do on “retail reads.””
Librarians speak the truth about the issue, because they are in the trenches where the action takes place. Libraries act as free PR for publishers and assist them in selling books with the profits going directly to the publishers, not libraries. Libraries also pay for ebooks than physical copies, despite it being cheaper to release ebooks.
This is going to hurt people with lower incomes, because they use libraries to get books they otherwise would not be able to afford.
The libraries, as always, will bear the brunt of this decision, because the general public does not understand or know about lending agreements between libraries and publishers. Authors could get bad reputations as well.
The number of people using ebooks and audiobooks has dramatically increased not only for the Seattle Public Library, but for libraries across the nation. Libraries have collected data that proves their circulating collections, physical and digital, do increase sales and boosts readership.
Libraries will also spend money, because of the products and services they offer people. If the price of ebooks go up, they will be forced to limit their collection’s holdings which will decrease circulation and the amount of people who visit. It would also lead to a decrease in readership and even book sales.
With an ever increasing cost of living, increasing the price for luxury goods like books will do more damage than boost sales. As a public institution, libraries have a good reputation and will give Macmillan a run for their pages.
Whitney Grace, MLS, October 17, 2019
IQ and Health: Maybe Plausible?
October 16, 2019
DarkCyber noted the Scientific American (is this an oxymoron now?) article “Bad News for the Highly Intelligent: Superior IQs Aare Associated with Mental and Physical Disorders, Research Suggests.” DarkCyber enjoys the waffling baked into to the phrase “research suggests.”
The write up states:
The survey of Mensa’s highly intelligent members found that they were more likely to suffer from a range of serious disorders.
The write up reports:
The biggest differences between the Mensa group and the general population were seen for mood disorders and anxiety disorders.
A reasonable question to pose is, “Why?” Well, there is an answer:
To explain their findings, Karpinski [the researcher] and her colleagues propose the hyper brain/hyper body theory. This theory holds that, for all of its advantages, being highly intelligent is associated with psychological and physiological “over excitabilities,” or OEs. A concept introduced by the Polish psychiatrist and psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski in the 1960s, an OE is an unusually intense reaction to an environmental threat or insult. This can include anything from a startling sound to confrontation with another person.
We noted this paragraph:
Psychological OEs include a heighted tendency to ruminate and worry, whereas physiological OEs arise from the body’s response to stress. According to the hyper brain/hyper body theory, these two types of OEs are more common in highly intelligent people and interact with each other in a “vicious cycle” to cause both psychological and physiological dysfunction. For example, a highly intelligent person may overanalyze a disapproving comment made by a boss, imagining negative outcomes that simply wouldn’t occur to someone less intelligent. That may trigger the body’s stress response, which may make the person even more anxious.
Interesting. Over excitabilities. A more informal way to reach a similar conclusion is to attend a hacker conference, observe the employee (not contractor) dining facility at Google Mountain View, or watch an episode or two of Sharktank. One can also dip into history: Van Gogh’s ear, Michelangelo’s aversion to clean feet, and the fierce Prioritätsstreit between Newton and Leibnitz. (Leibnitz’s notation won. Take that, you first-year students.) Do you hear a really smart person laughing?
Stephen E Arnold, October 16, 2019
Oracle Not Performant: The Gloves Are Off
October 16, 2019
I read “Migration Complete – Amazon’s Consumer Business Just Turned off its Final Oracle Database.” The world’s largest online bookstore is free from the Oracle handcuffs. No more proprietary databases. It took Amazon decades to reach this point.
According to the write up, Oracle is not “performant.” I think that means “not as good as Amazon’s data management technology.” In other words, loser or more accurately “Fair game.”
Oracle does databases, and it also is in the data licensing business. Amazon may have designs on that sector as well, but with a distinct Amazon flavor: Amazon will focus on stream data and have its own proprietary data goodies to license and use in its proprietary data management systems.
Amazon data management solutions in their various forms. Question: Where does Amazon’s blockchain data management fit in this semi-helpful, mostly opaque diagram? Answer: DynamoDB.
The write up states:
Over the years we realized that we were spending too much time managing and scaling thousands of legacy Oracle databases. Instead of focusing on high-value differentiated work, our database administrators (DBAs) spent a lot of time simply keeping the lights on while transaction rates climbed and the overall amount of stored data mounted. This included time spent dealing with complex & inefficient hardware provisioning, license management, and many other issues that are now best handled by modern, managed database services.
One might infer that this litany of woes are not part of the Amazon data management services. DarkCyber thinks the passage is more than a catalog of Oracle problems; it is the list of Amazon benefits generated with a bit of quick editing; for example, “keeping the lights on” is an Oracle problem. Amazon delivers “lights on operation”.
When will the Amazon Oracle challenger début. Look to the United Arab Emirates and maybe suburban Virginia.
Performant. What a word.
Stephen E Arnold, October 16, 2019
Machine Learning Tutorials
October 16, 2019
Want to know more about smart software? A useful list of instructional, reference, and learning materials appears in “40+ Modern Tutorials Covering All Aspects of Machine Learning.”
Materials include free books about machine learning to lists of related material from SAP. DarkCyber noted that a short explanation about how to download documents posted on LinkedIn is included. (This says more about LinkedIn’s interesting approach to content than DarkCyber thinks the compiler of the list expresses.)
Quite useful round up.
Stephen E Arnold, October 16, 2019
Algolia: Cash Funding Hits $184 Million
October 15, 2019
Exalead was sucked into Dassault Systèmes. Then former Exaleaders abandoned ship. Algolia benefited from some Exalead experience. But unlike Exalead, Algolia embraced venture funding with cash provided by Accel, Point Nine Capital, Storm Ventures, and Y Combinator, among others.
The write up adds:
Having Salesforce as a strategic backer in this round is notable: the CRM giant currently does not have a native search product in its wide range of cloud-based services for enterprises, instead opting for endorsed integrations with third parties, such as Algolia competitor Coveo. The plan will be to further integrate with Salesforce although no products to speak of as of yet.
The challenge will be to go where few search and retrieval systems have gone before.
Some people have forgotten the disappointments and questionable financial tricks promising search vendors delivered to stakeholders and customers.
With venture firms looking for winners, returns of 20 percent will not deliver what the sources of the funds expect. The good old days of a 17X return may have cooled, but generating an 8X or 12X return may be a challenge.
Why?
In the course of our researching and writing the enterprise search report in 2003 to 2006 and out and our subsequent work, several “themes” or “learnings” surfaced:
- Good enough search is now the order of the day; that is, an organization-wide search system does not meet the needs of many operating units. Examples range from the legal department to research and development to engineering and the drawings plus data embedded in product manufacturing systems to information under security umbrellas with real time data and video content objects. Therefore, the “one solution” approach dissipates like morning fog.
- Utility search from outfits like Amazon are “good enough.” This means that a developer using Amazon blockchain services and workflow tools may use the search functions available from Amazon. Maybe Amazon will buy Algolia, but for the foreseeable future, search is a tag-along function, not a driver of the big money apps which Amazon is aiming toward.
- Search, regardless of vendor, must spend significant sums to enrich the functions of the system. Natural language processing, predictive analytics, entity extraction, and other desired functions are moving targets. Adding and tuning these capabilities becomes expensive. And it the experiences of Autonomy and Fast Search & Transfer are representative, the costs become difficult to control.
DarkCyber hopes that Algolia can adapt to these research factoids. If not, search and retrieval may be rushing toward a disconnect between revenues, sustainable profits, and investor expectations.
The wheel of fortune is spinning. Where will it stop? On a winner or a loser? This is a difficult question to answer, and one which Attivio, BA-Insight, Coveo, Elastic, IBM Watson, Lucidworks, Microsoft, Sinequa, Voyager Search, and others have been trying to answer with millions of dollars, thousands of engineering hours, and massive investments in marketing. I am not including the search vendors positioned as policeware and intelware; for example, BAE NetReveal, Diffeo, LookingGlass, Palantir Technologies, and Shadowdragon, among others.
Worth monitoring the trajectory of Algolia.
Stephen E Arnold, October 15, 2019
YouTube: Tidying Up Script Kiddie Crumbs
October 15, 2019
An interesting series of comments flowed on Reddit (Monday, October 14, 2019). You may be ablt to access the original post and the comments at this link. No guarantees, however. The subject: Alleged Google censorship. The topic: Methods for penetrating other people’s computers.
Is Google actively removing videos which violate the Jello-like terms of service?
DarkCyber hopes so.
YouTube is TV for hundreds of millions around the world.
There is some interesting material available on YouTube.
The post includes links. DarkCyber suggests you do some clicking and forming your own conclusion. Google often lacks consistency, so it is difficult to know where the Googley ball is bouncing.
Stephen E Arnold, October 15, 2019.
Chatbot: Baloney Sliced and Served as Steak
October 15, 2019
DarkCyber noted “The Truth about Chatbots: Five Myths Debunked.” Silver bullets are keenly desired. Use smart software to eliminate most of the costs of customer support. (Anyone remember the last time customer support was painless, helpful, and a joy?)
IT Pro Portal seems to be aware that smart software dispensing customer service is in need of a bit of reality-marketing mustard. My goodness. Interesting. What’s next? Straight talk about quantum computing?
The write up identifies five “myths.” Viewing these from some sylvan viewshed, the disabused “myths” are:
- You will need multiple bots. Now multiple bots increase the costs of eliminating most humans from customer support and other roles. Yep, expensive.
- Humans won’t go away. That means sick days, protests, healthcare, and other peculiarly human costs are here to stay. Shocker! Smart software is not as smart as the pitch decks assert?
- Bots can do a lot. View this “myth” in the context of item 1.
- Bots require a support staff. Of course not. Buy a bot service and everything is just peachy.
- Bots don’t mean lock in.
Now this dose of reality is a presentation of baloney and hand waving.
What is the truth about chatbots? Are they works in progress? Are they cost cutting mechanisms? Are they fairly narrow demonstrations of machine learning?
The reality is that bots, like customer service, are not yet as good as the marketers, PR professionals, and managers of firms selling bots assert.
Think about these five myths. It’s not one bot. It’s multiple bots. Bots can’t do human stuff as well as some humans. Bots do many things not so well. Rely on providers; you can trust vendors, right? Don’t worry about lock in even though the goal of bot providers is to slap on those handcuffs.
To get a glimpse of unadulterated rah rah cheerleading, check out “Robots Are Catching Up to Humans in the Jobs Race.” That write up states:
In real terms, the price for an industrial robot has fallen by more than 60% in 20 years. They also get better as they get cheaper.
What’s not to like? Better, faster, cheaper.
Stephen E Arnold, October 15, 2019
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