Search: Gone and Replaced. A Research Delight
March 17, 2016
The notion of indexing “all the world’s information” is an interesting one. I am amused by the assumption some folks make that Bing, Google, and Yandex index “every” Web site and “all” content.
I read “China Has Unblocked Internet Searches That Refer to Kim Jong Un As a ‘Pig’.” The article is a reminder that finding information can be a very difficult business.
According to the write up from an outfit rumored to be interested in some of the Yahooligans’ online business, I learned:
China appears to have made an exception within its extremely restricted Internet this week, for an unusual search term — a reference to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un as a “third-generation pig.”
What other items are back online? Heck, what books are available in digital form in any country? I do find the animal reference interesting, however. I am baffled by the concept of third-generation.
When you run a query, do you get access to “all” information, or is the entire digital information access environment subject to filtering. Maybe third generation filtering?
Stephen E Arnold, March 17, 2016
A Dead Startup Tally Sheet
March 17, 2016
Startups are the buzzword for companies that are starting up in the tech industry, usually with an innovative idea that garners them several million in investments. Some startups are successful, others plodder along, and many simply fail. CBS Insights makes an interesting (and valid) comparison with tech startups and dot-com bust that fizzled out quicker than a faulty firecracker.
While most starts appear to be run by competent teams that, sometimes they fizzle out or are acquired by a larger company. Many of them are will not make it as a headlining company. As a result, CBS Insights invented, “The Downround Tracker: Which Companies Are Not Living Up To The Expectations?”
CBS Insights named this tech boom, the “unicorn era,” probably from the rare and mythical sightings of some of these companies. The Downround Tracker tracks unicorn era startups that have folded or were purchased. Since 2015, fifty-six total companies have made the Downround Tracker list, including LiveScribe, Fab.com, Yodle, Escrow.com, eMusic, Adesto Technologies, and others.
Browse through the list and some of the names will be familiar and others will make you wonder what some of these companies did in the first place. Companies come and go in a fashion that appears to be quicker than any other generation. At least in shows that human ingenuity is still working, cue Kanas’s “Dust in the Wind.”
Whitney Grace, March 17, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
HP Enterprise: Is Haven Autonomy IDOL after a Project Runway Touch Up?
March 16, 2016
Short honk: I read “HPE Launches Machine-Learning-As-a-Service on Microsoft Azure.” The hook for me was the pricing for a new cloud search and content processing service. I did not understand the approach; for example, what the heck is an “API unit”?
But what caused me to jot down this note was this list of HPE Haven OnDemand functions. Here’s the list I circled:
- Advanced Text Analysis, which pulls concepts and sentiment from text.
- Format conversion, which converts data wherever it lives.
- Search tools across on-premises or cloud data.
- Image recognition and face detection.
- Knowledge graph analysis.
- Pattern and speech recognition.
Based on my sketchy knowledge about Autonomy IDOL, this list seems to be a summary of Autonomy’s integrated data operating features. Most of these were added to the IDOL platform in the years before HP paid $11 billion for the 1998 system which, to be fair, had been upgraded in the intervening years.
The list also reminded me of some of the functions I associated with “augmented intelligence,” a niche currently occupied by outfits like Palantir and IBM i2.
In terms of pricing, the Palantir Hobbits charge for a license, training, support, and some other goodies. But the pricing is not variable. The IBM i2 folks deliver a collection of options and each option has a price tag.
HPE’s pricing is a bit of a mystery. How many API units fit on the head of Big Data project? Whittling down that $11 billion investment suggests that the API units may be more expensive than the monthly fees suggest; for example, the introductory offer offers 50,000 API units and 15 Resource Units for [the] first three months for all paid plans.” What’s a “Resource Unit”?
The write up raises more questions than it answers in my opinion. I wonder how Autonomy IDOL will look in fall fashions?
Stephen E Arnold, March 16, 2016
PageRank to Blame for the Lousy Web? Nope
March 14, 2016
I read “RIP Google PageRank Score: A Retrospective on How It Ruined the Web.” You can work through the romp yourself. I want to highlight one very, small, almost insignificant point. The death of the relevant Web was a direct consequence of several factors. PageRank was little more than a more usable version of what AltaVista and Jon Kleinberg developed. Here are these very small issues:
- Those responsible for Web sites wanted traffic. The shortest route was finding ways to fool Mother Google.
- Conference organizers and other whiz kid marketers crafted search engine optimization as a business.
Put one and two together and we have the findability problem. Google is not the cause. Google provided a escalator. Humans seeking traffic rode it until the escalator stopped working.
So walk up to the nifty new systems and see if you can get precise, on point, objective results. Those pesky humans have invented content spam.
Stephen E Arnold, March 14, 2016
FireEye Builds Toward a Bigger, Smarter Future
March 14, 2016
Demand for cybersecurity may exist, but one security firm’s first quarter results do not have much to show for it. People are not spending on security published by MyInforms reports this sharing the story of FireEye. Several explanations are offered for the lack of profitability this quarter and next, including their recent purchase of subscription-based iSight Partners and Invotas. The article contextualizes FireEye’s results,
“Security outfit FireEye released some disappointing results and claim it is because firms are skimping on their security budgets. FireEye forecast a bigger than expected loss for the first quarter and said it expected growth in cyber security spending to slow this year. FireEye Chief Executive Dave DeWalt said sales across the industry were boosted by “emergency spending” last year as major hacking attacks prompted some companies to place massive orders.”
Profitability can be looked at in several ways, but that’s another story. What is important to note here is the security concern many businesses have — and notably acted on last year, according to the article. What kind of player with FireEye be in this market with their newly acquired cyber intelligence offerings? We will keep our sights set on them.
Megan Feil, March 14, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Google: The Dutch Do Not Think Much of Fake Reviews
March 13, 2016
I read “Google Ordered to Hand Over Names of Fake Reviewers in Dutch Court Case.” Let’s assume that the story is accurate. For me, the notion of Google providing the names of individuals who created “fake” reviews is interesting. For the affected small business, the victory is not likely to generate a jump to the top 25 sites in traffic. For the Google, the court decision is another indication of the legal hurdles Google may face in the present day European community.
The write up said:
While the case appears to be a landmark ruling — it’s the first time that Google has been required to provide contact details and IP addresses for Google reviewers — it also highlights the challenges for a search platform like Google when navigating questions of freedom of speech and more recent developments that touch on user privacy. The ongoing “right to be forgotten” mandate in Europe, where Google and other search engines are removing links that people request to be removed if “inadequate, irrelevant, no longer relevant or excessive, and not in the public interest,” have proven to be tricky waters for the company amid its default position of making the world a more searchable place.
My thought is that Google is likely to find itself under increasing legal scrutiny to deal with alleged abuses carried out within its content generating functions; for example, people or robots which generate fake reviews.
Sometimes I wonder if the Google we once knew and loved is going to become a much less exciting search and retrieval service.
Stephen E Arnold, March 13, 2016
Google and a New Approach to Search Relevance
March 11, 2016
We know one cannot search for a topic if the words are not in the index. Should we forget about it? Sure, why not?
Quite a few folks perceive Google search results as the equivalent of an overnight visit to the oracle of Delphi.
Google is trying out a new social approach to search: letting businesses and celebrities post directly to search results. This would obviously increase those posts’ visibility and could turn search into a Twitter-like feed, although not quite.
How would this be handled? According to the write up:
When someone makes such a post, it would turn up in Google search results alongside their name.
Sound good. What about the Google method reported in “Google Experimenting with Local Business Cards in Search Results? I learned:
As with the Candidate Cards, the intent is to allow the business to communicate something directly in search results — content or information highlighting the business’ products or services…
When one thinks about relevance, Google is one thought ahead it seems.
Stephen E Arnold, March 11, 2016
Search Vendors Will Thank Forrester for Its Views on Customer Support
March 11, 2016
I read “Your Customers Don’t Want To Call You For Support.” This is a free marketing write up from the good folks at the mid tier consulting outfit Forrester.
The write up is one answer to the struggle some search vendors have had. As you may know, selling proprietary search and retrieval systems is a slow go these days. Why not use an open source system as plumbing? That’s what IBM and Palantir have done. Shift the costs of the utility function’s maintenance and bug fixing to the “community.” Shift those resources from search to something which sells. For Palantir, Gotham and Metropolitan are moving. For IBM, well, that may be a poor example. The only “moving” at IBM involves the individuals terminated.
Moving on…
The Forrester write up makes clear that “your customers” don’t want to call you on the telephone. No kidding? Has anyone at Forrester tried to call Forrester without a number linked to a specific individual?
The search vendors are struggling to find a market which really needs their search system. The candidate many search firms are chasing is the person in charge of customer support. The reason is that no one in customer support wants to talk to customers.
Put the information on the Web and let the customers “search” for answers. Everyone will be happy. At least, that’s the pitch.
Forrester thinks that self service is the “low friction” way to deal with customers. Right. If there is no human who struggles to speak in an intelligible manner about a subject germane to the called, the support person will not experience some verbal excitement.
Forrester likes the chat thing. That’s a service which opens a box, introduces a delay, and then a message appears, “Hello, I am Ted. How may I help you?” My reaction is to click the close button. Sorry, Ted.
My hunch is that search vendors will print out copies of the Forrester article and use them as proof that a better search engine will create many happy customers.
If only life were that simple.
Stephen E Arnold, March 11, 2016
Open Source Academic Research Hub Resurfaces on the Dark Web
March 11, 2016
Academics are no strangers to the shadowy corners of the Dark Web. In fact, as the The Research Pirates of the Dark Web published by The Atlantic reports, one university student in Kazakhstan populated the Dark Web with free access to academic research after her website, Sci-Hub was shut down in accordance with a legal case brought to court by the publisher Elsevier. Sci-Hub has existed under a few different domain names on the web since then, continuing its service of opening the floodgates to release paywalled papers for free. The article tells us,
“Soon, the service popped up again under a different domain. But even if the new domain gets shut down, too, Sci-Hub will still be accessible on the dark web, a part of the Internet often associated with drugs, weapons, and child porn. Like its seedy dark-web neighbors, the Sci-Hub site is accessible only through Tor, a network of computers that passes web requests through a randomized series of servers in order to preserve visitors’ anonymity.”
The open source philosophy continues to emerge in various sectors: technology, academia, and beyond. And while the Dark Web appears to be a primed for open source proponents to prosper, it will be interesting to see what takes shape. As the article points out, other avenues exist; scholars may make public requests for paywalled research via Twitter and using the hashtag #icanhazpdf.
Megan Feil, March 11, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Celebros Launches Natural Language Processing Ecommerce Extension with Seven Conversions
March 9, 2016
An e-commerce site search company, Celebros, shared a news release touting their new product. Celebros, First to Launch Natural Language Site Search Extension for Magento 2.0 announces their Semantic Site Search extension for Magento 2.0. Magento 2.0 boasts the largest marketplace of e-commerce extensions in the world. This product, along with other Magento extensions, are designed to help online merchants expand their marketing and e-commerce capabilities. Celebros CMO and President of Global Sales Jeffrey Tower states,
“Celebros is proud to add the new Magento 2 extension to our existing and very successful Magento 1 extension. Celebros will offer the new extension free of charge to our entire Magento client base to ensure an easy, fast and pain-free upgrade while providing free integrations to new Celebros clients world-wide. The new extension encompasses our Natural Language Site Search in seven languages along with eight additional features that include our advanced auto-complete, guided navigation, dynamic landing pages and merchandising engine, product recommendations and more.”
For online retailers, extension products like Celebros may make or break the platforms like Magento 2.0, as these products are what add value and drive e-commerce technologies forward. It is intriguing that the Celebros natural language processing technology offers conversions available in seven languages. We live in an increasingly globalized world.
Megan Feil, March 9, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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