Critics Blast Zuckerbergs Free Internet
January 26, 2016
Mark Zuckerberg is giving the subcontinent India access to free Internet. In some eyes Zuckerberg is being generous, but his critics are saying he’s doing it to gain control of a 1.2 billion untapped market. The New York Post shares Zuckerberg’s magnanimous act in “Mark Zuckerberg Defends His Free Internet Bid In India.”
Zuckerberg’s free Internet in India is dubbed “Free Basics” and it offers full access to Facebook and other affiliated sites, while blocking access to Google, Twitter, and other rivals. Free Basics’s partner Indian telecom partner Reliance Communication was forced to temporarily shut down service.
Critics are angry with Zuckerberg, claiming he is violating net neutrality and it comes as a slap in the face after he defended it within the United States. Free Basics could potentially ruin Internet competition in India and gain an iron grasp on a developing market. An even more intriguing piece to the story is that Free Basics was formerly named Internet.org, but Zuckerberg was forced to change it so new Internet users would not think that Facebook and related Web sites were all that existed.
“The local tech entrepreneur warned that ‘the incentive to invest in better, faster and cheaper access to the entire Internet will be replaced with one of providing better, faster and cheaper access to [Facebook’s] websites and apps’…In his Monday op-ed piece, Zuckerberg at times sounded exasperated as he insisted that the limited access provided by Free Basics was better than no access at all.”
Free Basics has already been deployed in thirty-five countries and provides free Internet for fifteen million people.
What’s the problem with wanting one’s way like blocking our competitors’ services? Absolutely nothing, if you rule the world. If not, there may be push back. I learned this in kindergarten. Zuckerberg can expect lots of push back.
Whitney Grace, January 26, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Myanmar in Mobile: A Reminder of How Easy It Is to Make Assumptions
January 25, 2016
I suggest you read the write up “The Facebook Loving Farmers of Myanmar.” Useful information. You can work through the article and get a sense of the importance of connectivity to farmers in a region which is quite a bit different from Silicon Valley and Route 128.
I want to highlight two points which I noted. My hunch is that these will be different from many other folks’ reaction to the article.
The first point is a reference to the failure of the “one laptop per child” thing cooked up by someone in the US of A’s right coast. Here’s the quote I highlighted:
But the more we probe, the less justifiable the Samsung premium becomes. The Chinese phones are cheap but capable. I wonder if this makes Negroponte happy. His one laptop-per-child dream was never fully realized but one smartphone-per-human—far more capable and sensible than a laptop, in many ways—has most certainly arrived. I take notes.
The point is that traditional desktops and laptops are not what has captured the attention of the farmers of Myanmar. The shift to phones, Chinese phones in particular, can be described as a miss, a big miss for the “one laptop per child” idea. How many other high tech beliefs are going to be shown to be just wrong enough? This, for me, is a reminder that what seems obvious to those on the left and right coasts in the United States are pitching the equivalent of snowshoes to people who live where it does not snow.
The second point I circled was:
I realize then that smartphone tech crossed the Good Enough threshold years ago.
What if the money pumped into improving smartphones by making them bigger, smaller, in different colors, etc. is a living, breathing example of diminishing returns. No mater what the phone designers and manufacturers cook up, the pay back will keep getting smaller. Apple is becoming mobile dependent. Google is becoming mobile dependent. What if these investments creep toward lower and lower returns. In a lousy economic environment, could there be financial trouble ahead for these and allied companies?
My hunch is that there are more farmers in Myanmar type folks than there are those who can get hired at the likes of the sparkling tech citadels on the left and right coast of the US, the silicon fen, and the other confections of techno-wizardry.
The one laptop per child play was not just wrong by a little; it was wrong by a mile unless Google knows something the folks in Myanmar do not. See “Google Donates More Than $5 Million to Give Chromebooks to Refugees.”
Stephen E Arnold, January 25, 2016
Need to Ace Your Alphabet Google Interview?
January 25, 2016
I know some “real” journalists and employees of “real” publishing outfits like Pearson want to work at the Alphabet Google thing? Sounds interesting, doesn’t it.
Navigate to “41 of the Trickiest Questions Google Will Ask You in a Job Interview” to get the inside scoop on landing that perfect gig. Just think. T shirts, mouse pads with the Google logo, maybe a day at Google I/O.
I have a copy of the GLAT or Google Labs Aptitude Test. I believe this bit of tomfoolery was retired years ago, and I can say with some confidence that the questions presented by the UK newspaper may not do the trick for unemployed journalists and/or professional publishers riffed by outfits like Pearson.
Here are three questions to land you in your dream cubicle:
Math and probability: A coin was flipped 1000 times and there were 560 heads. Do you think the coin is biased? — Quantitative Analyst, September 2015
Search: How many ways can you think of to find a needle in a haystack? — Business Associate, May 2014
Fortune telling: How do you think the digital advertising world will change in the next 3 years? — Creative Director, January 2016
Those who want the thrill of the Alphabet Google life are now able to begin their preparatory work.
Oh, here’s another question:
Self entertainment for life’s sound track: If you could only choose one song to play every time you walked into a room for the rest of your life, what would it be? — Associate Account Strategist Interview, March 2014
Tip: Don’t choose a track from an Apple service.
Stephen E Arnold, January 25, 2016
Weekly Watson: Smart T Shirts and Maybe Digital Unmentionables
January 25, 2016
IBM’s economic news has been an island of stability for doom sayers. The company’s 15th consecutive quarter of revenue declines does not require an economic Stonehenge to predict.
I was delighted to see a bit of good news about IBM’s continuing effort to publicize Watson. As you know if you read this blog, Watson is a confection of open source, home brew code, and acquired technology. Assembled in a Lego like fashion, Watson does recipes, cures cancer, and performs miracles which would make St. Jerome, the patron saint of librarians, uncomfortable.
The latest medical achievement-to-be of Watson is described in “IBM and Under Armour Look to Transform Healthcare Tech.” I love the use of the words “look” and “transform.” Each is full of promise, hope.
Here’s the passage I highlighted in sunshine yellow:
Backed by IBM Watson, UA Record will serve as a personal health consultant, fitness trainer and assistant by providing athletes with timely, evidence-based coaching around sleep, fitness, activity and nutrition, including outcomes achieved based on others ‘like you’. A future version of the UA Record app powered by IBM Watson could be the first system to assess and combine a variety of factors that affect health and fitness programmes such as physiological and behavioural data, nutrition, expert training and environment.
And what does UA do to make money?
According to the company’s Web site:
These tools…provide the most comprehensive ecosystem of fitness products yet made.”
The tools complement the tops, bottoms, shoes, and accessories for athletes and those who yearn to be athletes.
Watson is a versatile technology it seems. The only hitch in the git along is that the Web site of Watson’s new best pal appears to feature an Apple iPhone app. Well, perhaps Watson is on the job, just not yet front and center.
The IBM PR machine cares not. Watson it appears has a contribution to make in the shoe, undershirt, and unmentionable department. Ah, Watson, you are a frisky sort.
Stephen E Arnold, January 25, 2016
Is Yahoo Going the Way of AOL?
January 25, 2016
Yahoo hired former Googler Marissa Mayer as its new CEO to turn the company around. The company is headed towards stormy waters again, which could leave only the ship’s hull. Yahoo could sell its main operating business and all that would be left is Yahoo Japan, Alibaba shares, and $5 billion in cash. Mayer would then get the boot, says South China Morning Post in the article, “Yahoo Destined For Tech Graveyard Due To Poor Choice In Chief Executive Officer.”
Yahoo has gone through five CEOs in the past decade and its current shares are trading well below value, making the company only worth at an estimated $2 billion.
Yahoo’s current problems began when the company was formed. Founders Jerry Yang and David Filo were great inventors, but they were inexperienced running a company. Yahoo failed to accept Microsoft’s offer and while it floundered, Google stole the search market.
“Determining the right kind of chief executive for a tech company at a particular stage of development represents the most frustrating and critical issue. The weakness of chief executives with a tech start-up or product background like Mayer is that they try to invent and innovate a large corporation out of a problem and into a breakthrough strategy.”
The article explains that Yahoo needed to be knocked down and then rebuilt from the ground up. A huge movement like that requires more from a tech manager who is only used to positive growth, praise, and giving huge benefits to staff.
This points out that people with different talents are needed to manage a company as well as the importance of a diverse team with varied experience. Some people are meant to invent and work in the tech field, others are meant to be business leaders.
Whitney Grace, January 25, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Hackers Opt for Netflix and Uber over Credit Card Theft on Dark Web
January 25, 2016
It is no surprise that credit cards and other account information is sold on the Dark Web but which accounts are most valuable might surprise. Baiting us to click, the article It turns out THIS is more valuable to hackers than your stolen credit card details on the United Kingdom’s Express offers the scoop on the going rate of various logins cybercriminals are currently chasing. Hacked Uber, Paypal and Netflix logins are the most valuable. The article explains,
“Uber rolled-out multi-factor authentication in some markets last year which decreased the value of stolen account details on the Dark Web, the International Business Times reported. According to the Trend Micro study, the price for credit cards is so comparatively low because banks have advanced techniques to detect fraudulent activity.”
The sales of these accounts are under $10 each, and according to the article, they seem to actually be used by the thief. Products and experiences, as consumable commodities, are easier to steal than cash when organizations fail to properly protect against fraudulent activity. The takeaway seems to be obvious.
Megan Feil, January 25, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Search Unicorns? Nah, Think Search Sasquatches
January 24, 2016
The founder of Salesforce pointed out that some of the stampeding unicorns are going to die. See the frosty thoughts in “Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff Predicts ‘a Lot of Dead Unicorns’ and Cheap Startups to Buy.”
What goes up must come down, right? But the obviousness of the prognostication misses one aspect of the economic snowmageddon.
There are many search sasquatches which have been struggling to survive in the Lucene/Solr landscape. These outfits share some characteristics:
- Histories of low or no profits and revenue challenges
- Fuzzy positioning about what their information access technology does
- Difficulties making clear why proprietary technology is better than open source search technology
- A dependence on venture funding to keep the lights on and the parking lots paved.
Who are some of the proprietary vendors living in the suburbs of unicorn land?
Examples which an intrepid sasquatch hunter might consider fair game are:
- Attivio, a system based on inspirations from Fast Search & Transfer
- BA Insight, a Microsoft centric information access system
- Coveo, a search system once anchored in Microsoft technology
- EasyAsk, proprietary natural language processing. The company has used crowd funding to raise some cash.
- MarkLogic, once considered a unicorn, and now trying to find new revenue as the firm’s original market of publishing faces its own problems
- Sinequa, one of the interesting French search vendors
- X1, a search and discovery outfit with an interesting interface
There are others as well, but few North Americans know about Exabyte, Intrafind, SRCH2, and their ilk.
If Marc Benioff is correct, the information access ecosystem will suffer the type of implosion that occurs when Brazilians chop down the rain forest. Reforestation does occur, but it may deliver a radically different ecological environment. Consultants and installations of Lucene/Solr might be more friendly than the venture capital firms who want their money back.
What is the going rate for the pelt of a search sasquatch?
Stephen E Arnold, January 24, 2016
Which unicorns and search sasquatches will survive? Where is Darwin when one needs him?
Stephen E Arnold, January 24, 2016
Management 101: Sensitivity to Staff
January 24, 2016
I read “Yahoo CEO Cruelly Instills Fear in Her Workforce with Ominous Joke: No Layoffs This Week.”
I love this approach to motivation. I remember hearing Charles Colson, the pre-reformation version, gentle reader, explain to me and others in the meeting the value of fear and intimidation. By golly, I perked up. We may have been contractors to the president’s science advisor, but I got the message. Let’s see. I think that was in the early 1970s. I was useful to my employer because my father and his brother had been fund raisers for Senator Dirksen and Congressman Michel. As a result, I found myself in some darned interesting opportunity spaces when I was in Washington, DC. I saw the “hearts and mind” wall art.
If you are not familiar with the pre reformation Mr. Colson, you might find this obituary helpful. I highlighted this passage:
Charles W. Colson, the Republican political operative who boasted that he would “walk over my own grandmother” to ensure the reelection of President Richard M. Nixon and went on to found a worldwide prison fellowship ministry after his conversion to evangelical Christianity.
The write up about the fascinating Yahoo and its Xoogler leader reported:
The backlash is mounting against Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer for a horrible joke she attempted to make recently at a companywide meeting, and now many in her presumably deflated workforce fear for their jobs. Mayer reportedly told the company that there will be “no layoffs… this week,” and although her comments were intended to be humorous, many who call the tech giant home are left wondering about their employment status within the company. “This is the reason employee morale is so low,” said one employee to the New York Post, who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution.
Yep, humor works really well as a management mechanism. Nothing relaxes an individual like a reminder that the mortgage may go unpaid, one’s home life is disrupted, and one’s professional standing is decimated.
Good stuff. Mr. Colson would have approved. My recollection is that he liked to be a bit more colorful. You know. The grandmother thing was a nice rhetorical touch. Xoogler management 101, gentle reader. Think what one does in management 102.
Stephen E Arnold, January 23, 2016
Experts Team for Complex Data Infographic
January 23, 2016
I wish to point out that experts are able to make the complex easy to understand. For an outstanding infographic about the state of complex data, you will want to navigate to “The State of Complex Data in January 2016.” Because this is the 23 of January 2016 as I write this, you must click tout de suite.
The explanation of the state of complex data is the work of the experts at Ventana Research and the Aberdeen Group. Believe me, these outfits are on top of the data thing.
I noted this statement in the write up:
As for the diversity of the data – 71% of organizations analyze more than 6 data sources, and an astonishing 23% use more than 20. Doubtless, today’s data comes in many shapes and forms, posing new challenges and presenting new opportunities.
Astonishing results? Absolutely.
I am, however, not exactly certain what “complex” data mean. But help is at hand, according to the article:
This guide covers the topic of data complexity and presents the distinction between Big, Simple, Diversified and Complex data, and will enable you to understand the complexity of your own data and how to determine the best tools and techniques you’ll need to use in order to prepare, analyze and visualize this data.
Thank goodness there are keen intellects able to explain the differences among the big, simple, diversified, and complex. At the back of my mind is this reminder from one of the glossaries I prepared: Data are facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis.
Obviously I was too stupid to realize that data can be big, simple, diversified, or complex. Now I know. My life is better.
Stephen E Arnold, January 23, 2017
Alphabet Google Justifies Its R&D Science Club Methods
January 23, 2016
In the midst of the snowmageddon craziness in rural Kentucky, I noted a couple of Alphabet Google write ups. Unlike the sale of shares, the article tackle the conceptual value of the Alphabet Google’s approach to research and development. I view most of Google’s post 2006 research as an advanced version of my high school science club projects.
Our tasks in 1960 included doing a moon measurement from central Illinois. Don’t laugh, Don and Bernard Jackson published their follow on to the science club musing in 1962. In Don’s first University of Illinois astronomy class, the paper was mentioned by the professor. The prof raised a question about the method. Don raised his hand and explained how the data were gathered. The prof was not impressed. Like many mavens, the notion that a college freshman and his brother wrote a paper, got it published, and then explained the method in front of a class of indifferent freshman was too much for the expert. I think the prof shifted to social science or economics, both less rigorous disciplines in my view.
Google’s research interests.
The point is that youth can get some things right. As folks age, the view of what’s right and what’s a little off the beam differ.
Let’s look at the first write up called “How Larry Page’s Obsessions Became Google’s Business.” Note that if the link is dead, you may have to subscribe to the newspaper or hit the library in search of a dead tree copy. The New York Times have an on again and off again approach to the Google. It’s not that the reporters don’t ask the right questions. I think that the “real” journalists get distracted with the free mouse pads and folks like Tony Bennett crooning in the cafeteria to think about what the Google was, is, and has become.
The article points out:
Mr. Page is hardly the first Silicon Valley chief with a case of intellectual wanderlust, but unlike most of his peers, he has invested far beyond his company’s core business and in many ways has made it a reflection of his personal fascinations.
I then learned:
Another question he likes to ask: “Why can’t this be bigger?”
The suggestion that bigger is better is interesting. Stakeholders assume the “bigger” means more revenue and profit. Let’s hope.
Then this insight:
When Mr. Page does talk in public, he tends to focus on optimistic pronouncements about the future and Google’s desire to help humanity.
Optimism is good.
I then worked through “Google Alphabet and Four times the Research Budget of Darpa and Larger Moonshot Ambitions than Darpa.”
The bigger, I thought, may not be revenue. The bigger may be the budget of the science club. If Don and Bernie Jackson could build on the moon data, Google can too. Right?
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