Whither ISYS Search Software?
February 13, 2017
I must admit I don’t think too much about ISYS Search Software. Founded in the 1980s, Lexmark acquired the Australian company in 2012. The former IBM printer unit described ISYS as a “global leader” in search. ISYS performed well, but global leader? Well, that’s verbal fireworks in my opinion. ISYS disappeared and emerged (sort of) as the search system in Lexmark’s health care play. This outfit was called Perceptive Software and performed a wide range of magic for a market sector which would presumably make as much money as printer ink once did. Yep, how’s that for an MBA play? Not the full ball game. But Lexmark did not have enough text processing oomph. The company bought Brainware in 2012, an outfit which held patents for trigram, offered pattern matching search technology, and had a work flow system to do some back office tricks. Busy year 2012 for the horsey printer set.
The answer is that Lexmark is now part of Apex and PAG Asian Capital. Stated another way, Lexmark blew money and, like many other companies, learned that search was a tough business to use as a springboard to untold wealth. Lexmark snagged Kofax in 2015 in an attempt to generate money from the world’s need to federate content.
I thought of Lexmark, ISYS, and the gyrations of Lexmark when I read “Lexmark Cuts 320 Software Jobs; Local Toll Unclear.” What units of Lexmark are affected? My hunch is that the trio of Brainware, ISYS, and Kofax may bear the brunt of the weight of the folks looking for new jobs. (Lexmark bought the ETL outfit Kofax, which does some work for interesting US government agencies, licenses tools to one of my favorite outfits with visions of JRR Tolkien, and does not return telephone calls.) My experience with Chinese executives is that they are pragmatic. The write up told me:
“This action was taken to reduce our costs to be more in line with our revenues and those of comparable enterprise software companies,” Sylvia Chansler, a spokeswoman for Lexmark subsidiary Kofax Inc., said in a statement.
The great pivot of Lexmark from printers to management software seems to have failed. Surprised? I am not. I live in rural Kentucky and know that high technology dreams can be difficult to realize in an area where fast horses and expensive bourbon capture one’s imagination.
Stephen E Arnold, February 13, 2017
Everyone Can Be a Search Expert
February 10, 2017
In the bad old days of SDC Orbit and BRS, one had to learn commands to run queries. I remember a pitch from Dow Jones and its nascent “retrieval” experts baying about graphical interfaces. Yep, how has that worked out for the professional researchers. With each “making it easier to search” movement, the quality of the search experts has gone down. I can’t recall the last time I met a person who said, “I am not very good at finding information online.”
Right, everyone is an expert.
The point of my comment about user friendliness is to create a nice little iron hook on which to hand this hypothesis.
Search is going to disappear.
Don’t believe me. Navigate to “Survey: 60 Percent of Voice Users Want more Answers and Fewer Search Results.” The key word is “voice.” This means more Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and voice recognition. The fewer results is a direct consequence of small screens and diminished attention spans.
Who wants to do research which requires:
- Identifying sources
- Locating information
- Reading the information
- Thinking about the information
- Synthesizing the information
- Creating a foot or end note.
Forget the notion of a reference interview, selecting a database editorially shaped to contain higher value information, and scanning an annotated bibliography.
Nope.
Talk to your phone. The smart software will deliver the answer.
I learned from the write up:
The top three rationales behind voice usage were:
- It’s fast.
- The answer is read back to me.
- I don’t have to type.
About 40 percent of both men and women said that voice made using their smartphones easier. Men were more likely than women to strongly agree. This answer and other data in the survey reflect a mostly positive experience with voice.
Want charts? Want “proof”? Read the source document. My view is that a failure to think about research and go through the intellectual work required to obtain semi reliable, semi accurate information means more time for Facebook and Twitter.
That’s great.
Let’s make it so people will accept the output of a voice search without thinking. There’s absolutely nothing like a great idea with no downside. Wonderful.
Stephen E Arnold, February 10, 2017
Dark Web Drug Sales Show No Signs of Slowing
February 10, 2017
Business is apparently booming for Dark Web drug sales. Business Insider published an article that reports on this news: An in-depth new study shows that the online market for illegal drugs is skyrocketing. The study conducted by RAND Europe found the number of transactions on illegal drug sites has tripled since 2013, and revenues have almost doubled. Apparently, most of the shipping routes are within North America. The article tells us,
Elsewhere in the study, researchers found that wholesale transactions (which it categorised as sales worth over $1,000 [£770]) generated a quarter of total revenue for drug marketplaces. That figure was unchanged between 2013 and 2016, though. Cannabis was the most popular drug globally, making up 33% of drug marketplace transactions. But the report looked at sales to Holland specifically and found that it only made up 17% of transactions there. That’s likely because the sale of cannabis is legal in the country through licensed venues, reducing the need for people to use illegal online stores.
The year 2013 carries meaning because it was in fall 2013 that the Silk Road was shut down. This study suggests its closure did not eliminate Dark Web drug sales. As the article alludes to, as cannabis laws may or may not change in the United States, it will be interesting to see how this affects Dark web use and marketplace sales.
Megan Feil, February 10, 2017
The Game-Changing Power of Visualization
February 8, 2017
Data visualization may be hitting at just the right time. Data Floq shared an article highlighting the latest, Data Visualisation Can Change How We Think About The World. As the article mentions, we are primed for it biologically: the human eye and brain processes 10 to 12 separate images per second, comfortably. Considering the output, visualization provides the ability to rapidly incorporate new data sets, remove metadata and increase performance. Data visualization is not without challenge. The article explains,
Perhaps the biggest challenge for data visualisation is understanding how to abstract and represent abstraction without compromising one of the two in the process. This challenge is deep rooted in the inherent simplicity of descriptive visual tools, which significantly clashes with the inherent complexity that defines predictive analytics. For the moment, this is a major issue in communicating data; The Chartered Management Institute found that 86% of 2,000 financiers surveyed late 2013, were still struggling to turn volumes of data into valuable insights. There is a need, for people to understand what led to the visualisation, each stage of the process that led to its design. But, as we increasingly adopt more and more data this is becoming increasingly difficult.
Is data visualization changing how we think about the world, or is the existence of big data the culprit? We would argue data visualization is simply a tool to present data; it is a product rather than an impetus for a paradigm shift. This piece is right, however in bringing attention to the conflict between detail and accessibility of information. We can’t help but think the meaning is likely in the balancing of both.
Megan Feil, February 8, 2017
HonkinNews for 7 February 2017 Now Available
February 7, 2017
This week’s program highlights Google’s pre school and K-3 robot innovation from Boston Dynamics. In June 2016 we thought Toyota was purchasing the robot reindeer company. We think Boston Dynamics may still be part of the Alphabet letter set. Also, curious about search vendor pivots. Learn about two shuffles (Composite Software and CopperEye) which underscore why plain old search is a tough market. You will learn about the Alexa Conference and the winner of the Alexathon. Alexa seems to be a semi hot product. When will we move “beyond Alexa”? Social media analysis has strategic value? What vendor seems to have provided “inputs” to the Trump campaign and the Brexit now crowd? HonkinNews reveals the hot outfit making social media data output slick moves. We provide a run down of some semantic “news” which found its way to Harrod’s Creek. SEO, writing tips, and a semantic scorecard illustrate the enthusiasm some have for semantics. We’re not that enthusiastic, however. Google is reducing its losses from its big bets like the Loon balloon. How much? We reveal the savings, and it is a surprising number. And those fun and friendly robots. Yes, the robots. You can view the video at this link. Google Video provides a complete run down of the HonkinNews programs too. Just search for HonkinNews.
Kenny Toth, February 7, 2017
Scanning for the True Underbelly of the Dark Web
February 7, 2017
Some articles about the Dark Web are erring on the side of humor about it’s threat-factor. Metro UK published 12 scary things which happen when you go on the ‘Dark Web’, which points out some less commonly reported happenings on the Dark Web. Amongst the sightings mentioned were: a German man selling pretzels, someone with a 10/10 rating at his carrot (the actual vegetable) marketplace, and a template for creating counterfeit Gucci designs. The article reports,
Reddit users shared their stories about the ‘dark web’ – specifically Tor sites, invisible to normal browsers, and notorious for hosting drug markets and child pornography. Using the free Tor browser, you can access special .onion sites – only accessible using the browser – many of which openly host highly illegal content including pirated music and films, drugs, child pornography and sites where credit card details are bought and sold.
While we chose not to summarize several of the more dark happenings mentioned by Redditors, we know the media has given enough of that side to let your imaginations run wild. Of course, as has also been reported by more serious publications, it is a myth that the Dark Web is only filled with cybercriminals. Unless pretzels have qualities that have yet to be understood as malicious.
Megan Feil, February 7, 2017
Search, Intelligence, and the Nobel Prize
February 6, 2017
For me, intelligence requires search. Professional operatives rely on search and retrieval technology. The name of the function is changed because keywords are no longer capable of making one’s heart beat more rapidly. Call search text analytics, cognitive insight, or something similar, and search generates excitement.
I thought about the link between finding information and intelligence. My context is not that of a person looking for a pizza joint using Cortana. The application is the use of tools to make sense of flows of digital information.
I read “Intelligence & the Nobel Peace Prize.” My recommendation is that you read the article as well. The main point is that recognition for those making important contributions has ossified. I would agree.
The most interesting facet of the write up is a recommendation that the Nobel Committee award the Nobel Peace Prize to a former intelligence operative and officer. The write up explains:
the Committee would do well to consider information-era criteria for its nomination this year and going forward into the future. An examination of all Nobel Peace Prizes awarded to date finds that none have been awarded for local to global scale information and intelligence endeavors – for information peacekeeping or peacekeeping intelligence that empowers the peace-loving public while constraining war-mongering banks and governments. It was this final realization that compelled me to recommend one of our authors, Robert David Steele, for nomination by one of our Norwegian Ministers, for the Nobel Peace Prize. We do not expect him to be selected – or even placed on the short list – but in our view as editors, he is qualified both for helping to prevent World War III this past year, publicly confronting the lies being told by his own national intelligence community with respect to the Russians hacking the US election,[5] and for his body of work in the preceding year and over time…
My view is that this is an excellent idea for three reasons:
Robert Steele has been one of the intelligence professionals with whom I have worked who appreciates the value of objective search and retrieval technology. This is unusual in my experience.
Second, Steele’s writings provide a continuing series of insights generated by the blend of experience, thought, and research. Where there is serious reading and research, there is information retrieval.
Third, Steele is a high energy thinker. His ideas cluster around themes which provide thought provoking insights to stabilizing some of the more fractious aspects of an uncertain world.
If you want to get a sense of Steele’s thinking, begin with this link or begin reading his “Public Intelligence Blog” at www.phibetaiota.net. (In the interest of keeping you informed, Steele wrote the preface to my monograph CyberOSINT: Next Generation Information Access.)
Stephen E Arnold, February 6, 2017
Googling on the Google Pixel: Let Us Count the Ways
February 6, 2017
I read “There Are Too Many Ways to Google on Android.” I don’t use a Google Pixel phone. What’s interesting about the write up is that the litany of options underscores one big point about the Alphabet Google thing: Getting organized is not part of the company’s ethos. In the Google quest to offset the erosion of the desktop boat anchor desktop search ad model, Google is putting search in places which seem to have surprised the with-it author of the “There Are Too Many Ways…” article. The options include:
- Allo
- Assistant
- Chrome
- GBoard
- G button
- Google Now thing or whatever it is called
- Screen search
The idea seems to be that putting search as many places as possible will generate clicks. Clicks spawn ads some hope.
Stepping back, Google Pixel is emulating the featuritis I once heard senior Googlers says was a Microsoft disease.
For me, it hints at desperation and a lack of product focus. Hey, where is that Universal Search? Obviously not in the Google Pixel.
Stephen E Arnold, February 6, 2017
Visualizing a Web of Sites
February 6, 2017
While the World Wide Web is clearly a web, it has not traditionally been presented visually as such. Digital Trends published an article centered around a new visualization of Wikipedia, Race through the Wikiverse for your next internet search. This web-based interactive 3D visualization of the open source encyclopedia is at Wikiverse.io. It was created by Owen Cornec, a Harvard data visualization engineer. It pulls about 250,000 articles from Wikipedia and makes connections between articles based on overlapping content. The write-up tells us,
Of course it would be unreasonable to expect all of Wikipedia’s articles to be on Wikiverse, but Cornec made sure to include top categories, super-domains, and the top 25 articles of the week.
Upon a visit to the site, users are greeted with three options, each of course having different CPU and load-time implications for your computer: “Light,” with 50,000 articles, 1 percent of Wikipedia, “Medium,” 100,000 articles, 2 percent of Wikipedia, and “Complete,” 250,000 articles, 5 percent of Wikipedia.
Will this pave the way for web-visualized search? Or, as the article suggests, become an even more exciting playing field for The Wikipedia Game? Regardless, this advance makes it clear the importance of semantic search. Oh, right — perhaps this would be a better link to locate semantic search (it made the 1 percent “Light” cut).
Megan Feil, February 6, 2017
JustOne: When a Pivot Is Not Possible
February 4, 2017
CopperEye hit my radar when I did a project for the now-forgotten Speed of Mind search system. CopperEye delivered high speed search in a patented hierarchical data management system. The company snagged some In-Q-Tel interest in 2007, but by 2009, I lost track of the company. Several of the CopperEye senior managers teamed to create the JustOne database, search and analytic system. One of the new company’s inventions is documented in “Apparatus, Systems, and Methods for Data Storage and/or Retrieval Based on a Database Model-agnostic, Schema-Agnostic, and Workload-Agnostic Data Storage and Access Models.” If you are into patent documents about making sense of Big Data, you will find US20140317115 interesting. I will leave it to you to determine if there is any overlap between this system and method and those of the now low profile CopperEye.
Why would In-Q-Tel get interested in another database? From my point of view, CopperEye was interesting because:
- The system and method was idea for finding information from large collections of intercept information
- The tech whiz behind the JustOne system wanted to avoid “band-aid” architectures; that is, software shims, wrappers, and workarounds that other data management and information access systems generated like rabbits
- The method of finding information achieved or exceeded the performance of the very, very snappy Speed of Mind system
- The system sidestepped a number of the problems which plague Oracle-style databases trying to deal with floods of real time information from telecommunication traffic, surveillance, and Internet of Things transmissions or “emissions.”
How import6ant is JustOne? I think the company is one of those outfits which has a better mousetrap. Unlike the champions of XML, JustOne uses JSON and other “open” technologies. In fact, a useful version of the JustOne system is available for download from the JustOne Web site. Be aware that the name “JustOne” is in use by other vendors.
The fragmented world of database and information access. Source: Duncan Pauly
A good, but older, write up explains some of the strengths of the JustOne approach to search and retrieval couched in the lingo of the database world. The key points from “The Evolution of Data Management” strikes me as helpful in understanding why Jerry Yang and Scott McNealy invested in the CopperEye veterans’ start up. I highlighted these points:
- Databases have to be operational and analytical; that is, storing information is not enough
- Transaction rates are high; that is, real time flows from telecommunications activity
- Transaction size varies from the very small to hefty; that is, the opposite of the old school records associated with old school IBM IMS system
- High concurrency; that is, more than one “thing” at a time
- Dynamic schema and query definition
I highlighted this statement as suggestive:
In scaled-out environments, transactions need to be able to choose what guarantees they require – rather than enforcing or relaxing ACID constraints across a whole database. Each transaction should be able to decide how synchronous, atomic or durable it needs to be and how it must interact with other transactions. For example, must a transaction be applied in chronological order or can it be allowed out of time order with other transactions providing the cumulative result remains the same? Not all transactions need be rigorously ACID and likewise not all transactions can afford to be non-atomic or potentially inconsistent.
My take on this CopperEye wind down and JustOne wind up is that CopperEye, for whatever management reason, was not able to pivot from where CopperEye was to where CopperEye had to be to grow. More information is available from the JustOne Database Web site at www.justonedb.com.
Is Duncan Pauly one of the most innovative engineers laboring in the database search sector? Could be.
Stephen E Arnold, February 4, 2017
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