NR2 Search
March 23, 2020
DarkCyber noted that NR2 made a public version of its innovation search engine available. This information and investment startup was founded about a year ago. NR2 won the K Startup Grand Challenge in 2019, beating 176 other startups from 95 countries.
The company says:
Powered by big data and artificial intelligence, we deliver insights that predict trends in innovation before they sweep the globe. We sit at the heart of China and Europe’s innovation hubs, enabling us to seamlessly link global investment to local innovation, accelerating growth and returns for both.
The company’s headquarters are in Paris. The founders are Maxim Parr, a graduate of HEC Paris (a business school with an eight percent acceptance rate),and Jordan Monnet, a PhD who is proficient in Mandarin.
The founders told the HEC publication:
We can learn so much about how innovation thrives by understanding data on start-ups. Our algorithms have found many characteristics present in disruptive companies and we use them to help our users identify the next generation of revolutionary companies. We started with Chinese start ups, but we are building out our search engine to capture innovation everywhere.
A query for analytics returned a list of companies shown below:
The companies listed were Chinese.
Clicking on the company Hesaitech returned a useful summary of the firm:
The icon allows the user to copy the link to the NR2.io entry.
Observations:
- Extremely useful resource in its present form. DarkCyber anticipates enhancements
- There are a number of monetization options available to this company
- Content valuable to investment firms and organizations looking for companies to explore deals or partnerships
- Data appear to be of high value because obtaining current information about venture funded firms in China and elsewhere can be time consuming.
We ran our standard queries for surveillance technology, facial recognition, and investigative software and did not immediately locate useful information. We think that this is a result of the search terms we tested.
DarkCyber will add this resource to our list of useful resources. Worth a look.
Stephen E Arnold, March 23, 2020
Betting $11 Million That Content Processing Can Be Fixed
February 13, 2020
The Semantic Web, data lakes, data ponds, dark data, federated information, natural language processing — you have heard the buzzwords for years. The solution? MarkLogic, IBM (Data Fountain, OmniFind, Vivisimo, or Watson), social graph outfits like CluedIn, and Google’s Ramanathan Guha inventions. What about Kapow? And there are others, hundreds maybe.
Nevertheless, making sense of oceans of digital information is a bit of task. What MBA-inspired manager asks about document exception folders? Ah, what’s that mean? Just delete them because no one wants to explain. It is Foosball time.
“AI Document Engineering Startup Docugami Raises $10M Seed Round in Unusually Large Early Stage Deal” reports some interesting information; for example:
Some former Microsofties did not gain traction at the Amazon-chasing Redmond firm
Funding sources include an assortment of investment firms SignalFire and NextWorld Capital. There are some people with links to the Google
What does Docugami seek to do? The article states:
The startup’s technology uses artificial intelligence to help users create documents such as contracts and reports that can then be analyzed in the aggregate as if the contents were stored in a structured database.
Okay, smart software, machine learning, computer vision, and “unique XML approaches.”
The millions of money indicate that the company founder Jean Paoli (who had his fingers on the keyboard cranking out the XML standard) can tell a heck of a story. The official word for this craft is “creating a narrative.”
The most interesting factoid in the write up is the multiple references to InfoPath. As you may know, InfoPath appears in Office 2003 and disappeared in 2014. Like many Microsoft ideas, filling in the blanks — like filling out a form to get work at Wendy’s — is a logical way to get users to generate structured data. Yeah, well. InfoPath is still around, and there are some rah rah users, but support officially ends in 2026. (Some of those users like forms and spend lots of money for SharePoint and other Microsoft works in progress.)
What happened to InfoPath other than not becoming the next Azure super service? XML and structured data for information in email, note apps, Excel files used to allow analysts to write their reports in a spreadsheet, and other Microsoft products was not a home run. That’s one problem, and the idea is to let smart software apply structure, assign index terms, extract named entities, and perform “knowledge extraction.” Sounds easy. Yeah, well.
But the federation issue has some other facets, and it is not clear if the Docugami approach will solve these; for example:
- Does a company want software to have access to content which may be confidential, incriminating, or restricted by law or common sense (that new drug in trial seems to be killing people so let’s not index that)?
- How does a content and indexing system deal with the wild and crazy information on the Internet? Some of that information may be important in litigation, competitive intelligence, and personal idiosyncrasies like comments added to certain interesting social media content.
- What happens when copyrighted material is sucked into the Docugami digital weather system? What happens when pornographic, drug related, and other information of a possible criminal nature is indexed along with those human resource salary data and the actual earnings data on the CFO’s computing device?
- Where will the content reside? What’s the cost for storage, transmission, updating, and flagging “incorrect” data?
For quite specific types of content, InfoPath and probably Docugami makes sense.
But the narrative may be more important than the word painting to describe a world in which information is at one’s fingertips.
Is DarkCyber skeptical? Not at all. There is insufficient information at this time to determine if those millions are bet on a potential Kentucky Derby winner or a creature who will spend its life carrying kids around a dude ranch’s pony ride.
Stephen E Arnold, February 13, 2020
One of Big Datas Giants Accused of Big Time Fraud
January 15, 2018
Palantir, one of the biggest names in big data has been praised for its innovative solutions since it began 2004. However, it has been getting attention for all the wrong reasons lately, as we saw in a recent Deal Street Asia story, “Palantir Holder Says Company Sabotaged Stock Sale to Chinese.”
One of Palantir Technologies Inc.’s early investors accused the data-mining startup of sabotaging his attempt to sell his $60 million stakes to a Chinese company so directors and executives could enrich themselves by selling their stock instead.
Marc Abramowitz, a 63-year-old lawyer and investor, contends that when Palantir executives got wind of his offer to sell his stock to Chinese private equity firm CDH Investments Fund Management Co., they sunk the deal by offering to sell their shares to CDH instead, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in Delaware. Palantir’s campaign to spoil Abramowitz’s sale demonstrates the Silicon Valley company’s “willingness to intentionally interfere with shareholder transactions in an effort…’
It may be tough to prove this in court, however. Palantir is famous for its secrecy, though that may become a thing of the past when they go public. Either way, this is an interesting look at the cutthroat world of big data and the potential things people do to stay on top.
Patrick Roland, January 15, 2018
Alphabet Google Is Allegedly Inventing the Future
January 14, 2018
I read an interesting round up of Alphabet Google’s research initiatives. The article’s title is “The Future According to Alphabet Moonshots: From Calico to X.”
The write up begins by pointing out that Alphabet Google has trimmed some of its notable explorations. I learned:
Alphabet has already started to shed some of its less successful side projects, suggesting the holding company will only tolerate so much discomfort. In the past year, it sold satellite imaging firm Terra Bella and terrifying robotics division Boston Dynamics, while shuttering down solar-powered, internet-by-drone idea Titan and modular smartphone Project Ara.
Yep, cost control exists at Alphabet Google.
The list of “inventions” for the future mentioned in the article includes:
- Calico which is part of the “solving death” thing
- CapitalG, which is another of Alphabet Google’s “invest in others” activities
- DeepMind, which is Alphabet Google’s smart software outfit
- Jigsaw, the company’s “tech accelerator.”
- Project Jacquard which is focused on weaving electronics into clothing
- Project Soli which is a sensor “that uses radar to track miniscule motions”
- Sidewalk Labs, which is Google’s smart city play
- Verily, which seems to be another component of the “solving death”, immortality initiative
- Waymo, which is the self driving auto initiative
- X, which is the home of the Loon Balloon and “early stage trials”
Several thoughts crossed my mind as I worked through this list.
- Google is largely dependent on online advertising for its revenues. After 20 years of investing and inventing, the company still remains dependent on an idea inspired by GoTo.com. You know trend lines reveal quite a bit about the past and the future. This trend line suggests that Alphabet Google is an online advertising company with little success in diversification or leapfrogging.
- Alphabet Google in into a wide spectrum of technologies. The unifying theme of these inventions, bets, or moonshots is not evident to me. The analogy is a person who has money betting on many different long odds lottery games.
- The artificial intelligence plays like DeepMind do not allow Alphabet Google to deal with malware in the Android store, filter YouTube videos for certain proscribed content for children, and cope with Google Images penchant for returning oddball search results. (Try male bikini without parental filters enabled.)
Without doing any additional research, I think that Alphabet Google is demonstrating that some Internet start up ideas do not enable additional revenue streams by throwing money at many bets. The old Bell Labs pulled off this trick but so far Google has not been able to duplicate Bell Telephone’s success in innovations that stick, then diffuse, and ultimately create new businesses.
Alphabet Google’s principal mechanism for innovation is the thousands of former Google employees who have left the company and pursued their own ideas. A good example is the Xoogler magnet Facebook.
Also, will Alphabet Google be been able to match Amazon’s revenue diversification?
Is Alphabet Google inventing the future? Yes, as long as it hires smart people who leave the company. The internal track record is interesting, but it has done little to allow the company to shake its addiction to online ad revenue.
What happens if that ad revenue softens, faces regulation in Europe and elsewhere, and erodes the online search value statement?
Has Alphabet Google’s bets created a situation in which the company must dog paddle frantically to maintain the status quo?
Stephen E Arnold, January 14, 2018
Bye-Bye Silicon Valley Monopoly
December 14, 2017
Silicon Valley is a technology epicenter and used to be synonymous with modern innovation, but that is no longer the case. CNBC reports that, “Billionaire Investor Peter Thiel: Silicon Valley’s Monopoly On Big Growth Tech Companies Is Over.” Peter Thiel is a famous Silicon Valley investor. He helped launch PayPal, was an early investor in Facebook and Airbnb, and he also launched Palantir Technologies. As one of the top Silicon Valley insiders, he said that:
‘I have been investing in the technology space — entrepreneur and investor over the past 20 years in Silicon Valley — and within the area of IT, it has for the last 10, 15 years in the US and the world been extremely centered on Silicon Valley,’ Thiel says, speaking at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Thursday. ‘I think there are a lot of reasons for that, but the question is, ‘Where is the growth going to happen the next 10 years?’ And what I would tend to think is that it will be more diversified from just Silicon Valley.’
Thiel continued that technology startups can be built anywhere, you just need the right people, money, and the right governance structures. He was surprised that so many technology businesses popped up in Silicon Valley, but that happened because of the number of mentors and entrepreneurship concentrated in one area. Innovators went where the action was happening. It is similar to how actors go to Hollywood and writers head to New York City.
Thanks to Silicon Valley, technology has changed the world, so the next venture company can be located anywhere. Take a guess about where the next big technology might be or if it will be spread out along the grid.
Whitney Grace, December 14, 2017
Knowledge Supposedly the Best Investment
December 13, 2017
Read, read, read, read! You are told it is good for you, but, much like eating vegetables, no one wants to do it. School children loath their primers, adults say they do not have the time, and senior citizens explain it puts them to sleep. Reading, however, is the single best investment an individual can make. This is not new, but the Observer treats reading like some epiphany in the article, “If You’re Not Spending Five Hours Per Week Learning, You’re Being Irresponsible.”
The article opens with snippets about famous smart people and how they take the time to read at least an hour a day. The stories are followed by these wise words:
The answer is simple: Learning is the single best investment of our time that we can make. Or as Benjamin Franklin said, ‘An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.’ This insight is fundamental to succeeding in our knowledge economy, yet few people realize it. Luckily, once you do understand the value of knowledge, it’s simple to get more of it. Just dedicate yourself to constant learning.
The standard excuse follows that in today’s modern world we are too busy making money in order to survive to learn new things, then we are slugged with the dire downer that demonetization is making previously expensive technology cheaper or even free. Examples are provided such as video conferencing, video game consoles, cameras, encyclopedias, and anything digital. All of these are found on a smartphone.
Technology that was once gold is now cheap, making knowledge more valuable. Then we are told that technology will make certain jobs obsolete and the only way to survive in the future will be to gain more knowledge and apply, because this can never be taken from you. The bottom line is to read, learn, apply knowledge, and then make that a daily ritual. The message is not anything new, but does learning via filtered and censored online search results count?
Whitney Grace, December 13, 2017
Free Language Learning Resources That Are Not Duolingo
October 25, 2017
For those who wish to learn a foreign language, the fun and engaging Duolingo has become a go-to free resource, offering courses in more than 20 languages. However, it is not the only game in town; MakeUseOf gives us a rundown of “The Best (Completely Free) Language Learning Alternatives to Duolingo.” Writer Briallyn Smith tells us:
One of the reasons some people are looking to move away from Duolingo is the recent introduction of in-app purchases. While the core functions of Duolingo are still free, the purchase options can give learners a boost when playing games — much like the bonuses and extra lives you can purchase on Bejewelled or other addictive gaming apps. Learners may become frustrated when they are prevented from working on a specific language skill or accomplishment because they ran out of ‘hearts’ or need to purchase ‘gems’ to continue. Other in-app purchases allow users to remove ads from their learning experience and to download offline content.
While there’s nothing wrong with Duolingo charging fees for its services, it can be frustrating for those looking for a truly free resource. Other language learners simply do not enjoy learning through games. This is especially true for those who require industry-specific vocabulary or who already have a background in the language. Thankfully, there are many other online resources available for language learners. While you won’t get the same kind of program as Duolingo for free, you can easily use these resources to put together a language learning strategy that works well for you.
Before getting to her list, Smith takes a moment to advocate for paid language-learning services, like Babbel. Basically, if you are serious about your language studies and can afford it, they are worth the investment.
The resource list begins with a compound entry, Online Communities; included here are Fluent in 3 Months, /r/LanguageLearning, and The Polyglot Club. Then there are Rhino Spike, Mango Languages, the Yojik Website, and, of course, YouTube (with a list of 10 suggested channels). Furthermore, Smith supplies a link to OpenCulture for more even options. See the article for more about each of these entries.
Cynthia Murrell, October 25, 2017
Big Data and Big Money Are on a Collision Course
October 16, 2017
A recent Forbes article has started us thinking about the similarities between long-haul truckers and Wall Street traders. Really! The editorial penned by JP Morgan, “Informing Investment Decisions Using Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence,” showcases the many ways in which investing is about to be overrun with big data machines. Depending on your stance, it is either thrilling or frightening.
The story claims:
Big data and machine learning have the potential to profoundly change the investment landscape. As the quantity and the access to data available have grown, many investors continue to evaluate how they can leverage data analysis to make more informed investment decisions. Investment managers who are willing to learn and to adopt new technologies will likely have an edge.
Sounds an awful lot like the news we have been reading recently about how almost two million truck drivers could be out of work in the next decade thanks to self-driving cars. If you have money in trucking, the amount saved is amazing, but if that’s how you make your living things have suddenly become chilly. Sounds like the future of Wall Street, according to this story.
It continues:
Big data and machine learning strategies are already eroding some of the advantage of fundamental analysts, equity long-short managers and macro investors, and systematic strategies will increasingly adopt machine learning tools and methods.
If you ask us, it’s not a matter of if but when. Nobody wants to lose their job due to efficiency, but it’s pretty much impossible to stop. Money talks and saving money talks loudest to companies and business owners, like investment firms.
Patrick Roland, October 16, 2017
Tech Industry Toxicity Goes Beyond Uber
September 13, 2017
Shiny new things have distracted people from certain behaviors, and Fast Company is calling out the entire technology startup culture in, “Why Silicon Valley Can’t Call Uber an Anomaly.” Writer Austin Carr takes us briefly through Uber’s tribulations, which culminated in the departure of infamous CEO Travis Kalanick. See the article for that useful summary, but Carr’s question was whether Uber’s noxious culture is unusual. He writes:
Silicon Valley, though, is insular and guarded. In my reporting, I encountered few people willing to speak openly, let alone critically, about Uber’s troubles. Those who did (most of them, notably, women) argue that there’s an opportunity for course correction right now. It starts by acknowledging that the Valley isn’t yet the utopian meritocracy it strives to be—and that Uber’s errant system exposed some fundamental bugs in the startup economy.
Carr identifies and discusses three of these bugs. First, that which makes a startup succeed often does not scale up well. For example, a confrontational culture that pits workers against each other might fuel a startup’s launch, but becomes unsustainable in a large, global corporation. The second problem is the myth of the “omniscient founder.” Though most of us realize that generating a brilliant idea does not necessarily go hand-in-hand with the capacity to run a large organization, much of the tech industry still seems taken by the foolish notion of one man at the top skillfully managing each and every aspect of the business. Carr points out that even Steve Jobs and Larry Page saw the wisdom in stepping back, and each tapped someone with more corporate experience to run their companies for a while. Not only is this hero-at-the-top attitude inefficient, it also risks the devaluation of every other employee. Talent does not stay where it is not respected.
Finally, Carr observes, the system of accountability needs an overhaul. It takes a lot of scandals to push investors to hold tech companies accountable for bad behavior, and even then board members hesitate to act. The article concludes:
If there really were healthy checks and balances, boards wouldn’t wait for public outrage to act. But to acknowledge that Uber’s system of accountability failed is to acknowledge that fundamental change—something Silicon Valley normally embraces—is necessary. If the Valley truly prides itself on moving fast and breaking things, it ought to start here.
We are curious to see how the industry will respond to such escalating criticisms.
Cynthia Murrell, September 13, 2017
Support for Open Source AI from Financial Firms
August 31, 2017
Financial tech reporter Ian Allison at the International Business Times finds it interesting that financial services firms are joining tech companies like Google and Microsoft in supporting open source AI solutions. In his piece, “Finance and Artificial Intelligence Are Going ‘Fintech’ and Open Source,” Allison points to one corporate software engineer as instrumental to the trend:
QR Capital Management was probably patient zero when it came to opening up their code around data storage – and this move, shepherded by software engineer Wes McKinney, kickstarted the popular Pandas libraries project. Now he has returned to open source work at Two Sigma. We have also seen open source data storage offerings coming out of Man AHL in the form of Arctic. Taking part in a panel on open source infrastructure, McKinney said investment in an open source project yields dividends later: data storage underlies other verticals, and when other people use the software and build libraries on top of it, that makes in-house systems more compatible.
See this link for more about the panda’s library. In the same panel Allison cites above, participants were asked how best to sustain the open source community. McKinney gave this advice:
I feel a compulsion not to let open source projects die. But without sponsorship it can become hard to sustain. So when commercials ask me how they can help, I say sponsor an individual – to triage issues, do patches; that goes a long way.
So, what industry will be next to throw its weight behind open source projects?
Cynthia Murrell, August 31, 2017
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