Goggle Missing the Blockchain Boat? Really?
July 10, 2018
I have zero idea if this story is accurate. It is, however, intriguing to think about its key point. I highlighted this statement in “Sergey Brin Claims Google Should Have Been The “Bleeding Edge” Of Blockchain”; to wit:
Google co-founder Sergey Brin said regretfully that his company missed out at being at the forefront of the nascent technology, claiming “we probably already failed to be on the bleeding edge, I’ll be honest.”
I have underlined a couple of words which I found interesting.
I heard a comment from one of my colleagues to the effect that Mr. Brin mines Ethereum with his son. Obviously the notion of digital currency seems to be child’s play.
How has Amazon responded to the digital currency trend? I believe the company supports Ethereum and HyperLedger. The implementation is anything but child’s play.
A few days ago I mentioned that Google invested in baby Segways. Amazon, at about the same time, bought a convenience prescription drug company.
Is this a good question?
Has Google lost its ability to think outside of the online advertising box?
Oh, that’s a bad question. Google is inside the online advertising box, and it appears that Amazon wants to become more aggressive with regards to its online advertising business.
Questions are tricky, just like statements about failure and honesty I suppose. My hunch is that the Googler moon shot wizards are working away on distributed databases which Google has thought about before.
Stephen E Arnold, July 10, 2018
Google: The Bibliophile
July 9, 2018
I love to read. Apparently Google is reading more than I ever could. According to Quartz, Google is officially going to start reading more and turning to books to answer questions: “Google’s Astounding New Search Tool Will Answer Any Question By Reading Thousands of Books.”
Google’s brand new search engine is called “Talk To Books.” The best way to describe Talk To Books is that it is like a huge full text, academic database, but instead of the content being listed individually it is all completely searched. Google described it more eloquently: thousands of writers discussing one question. Talk To Books works like a regular Google search, except the search engine searches for results in 100,000 Google Book entries.
What makes this interesting is that this could potentially be an academic and research worthy search engine. Futurist Randy Kurzweil and TED curator Chris Anderson discussed Talk to Books in a recent TED talk and how it will not take over regular Google search:
“Kurzweil noted that Talk to Books is not meant to replace keyword search. It uses “semantic search,” drawing on the ability of the tool’s AI to understand natural human language. Results range from goofy to profound, but semantic search’s goal is to call up a sentence that sounds like a plausible retort a person might say in a conversation.
The main goal of Talk To Books is to stimulate creativity and generate new ideas. As Google struggles to innovate, perhaps this service can jump start Google Ventures, Google X initiatives, and Google acquisitions. Ideas are one thing. Meaningful innovation is another. Google, it seems, is discovering books as a source of knowledge value.
Whitney Grace, July 9, 2018
Amazon Factoid: Home Speaker Department
July 9, 2018
Short honk: I read “What Cracking Open a Sonos One Tells Us aboiut the Sonos IPO.” In the write up was an interesting to me item of information. Here is what I noted:
Even though both [Sonos and Echo Plus] of these products are different in pretty much every decision that was made surrounding the hardware, they use the same backend Alexa service (where most of the IP is) from Amazon.
Interesting. Amazon’s approach allows it to generate revenue from a customer (maybe partner?) and from its own product line.
This appears to be a double dipping approach of value. What happens if Amazon decides to raise its prices for a customer (partner)? I suppose the Sonos-type outfit can hightail it to IBM’s, Google’s, or Microsoft’s cloud.
That may pose costs, timing challenges, and technical hoops. The time required by a Sonos-type outfit might be enough to allow Amazon to shave a few seconds off its lap time.
With Google slashing prices for its home gizmos, the home data ecosystem may become more interesting in the months ahead.
Stephen E Arnold, July 9, 2018
Google Cloud: Dissipating with a Chance for Unsettled Weather
July 4, 2018
I love Google. It’s relevant. I am not sure the folks at CNBC share my enthusiasm. Navigate to “Google Cloud’s COO Has Left after Less Than a Year.” To be exact, I think Diane Bryant, Google Cloud Chief Operating Officer, was a Googler for about 13 months. In Internet dog years, that a long time, is it not? Maybe not? Here’s a different employment number: Seven months.
I highlighted this passage:
Bryant’s hire was a win for the search giant’s cloud business, which is widely seen as No. 3 in the public cloud market, behind Amazon and Microsoft. As the relative newcomer in the space, Google Cloud’s challenge has been to prove its capabilities to large businesses, though Greene has said that there are no more “deal blockers” in the way of new contracts.
Fact, snark, digital corn beef hash?
I don’t know. I continue to wonder if Alphabet Google’s approach to management is going to allow the company to keep pace with and then surpass the Bezos buck machine.
I will be reviewing my Amazon research at the September Telestrategies ISS LE and intelligence conference in Washington, DC. I will focus on both management and technical tactics.
I am not sure there will be a reference to Google until I have a sense that it is managed for sustainable innovation, in the cloud and on the ground as it were.
Stephen E Arnold, July 4, 2018
Amazon and Google: Two Different Investment Angles
July 1, 2018
I read “Alphabet Joins $300m Funding Round for Electric Scooter Start-Up.” (You may have to pay to read this because the outfit that thought Endeca was the next big thing in search charges for scooter stories.) I thought about Segways, the allegedly revolutionary personal transportation scooter. Lessons may be needed even though there once was a Segway polo league. Practical and no horsey duties after a match.
I assume that Alphabet Google sees smaller scooters as the next big thing. Is this a strategic investment, a tactical play, or just a nifty idea warranting Google bucks?
I thought about Amazon’s investment in PillPack. You can get some of the business information at this link.
Somewhere in Twitterland, an ink stained wretch may come up with the title for a post called “A Tale of Two Investments.” I would flip to the end of the write up to answer the question:
Which company is making a more strategic play?
From my vantage point in Harrod’s Creek, these two deals illustrate a difference between the GOOG and the Bezos buck machine. Younger people dig scooters. Scooters are fun.
Filling prescriptions and then following the orders of a real live doctor is another. Plus, some ageing American is into prescriptions. Boomers are a here and now market. I for one dislike going to the pharmacy, giving codes, showing IDs, and answering questions to get whatever my cardiologist thinks is good for me.
I assume that if a millennial falls off a scooter or is hit by an autonomous vehicle, that click to buy outfit will be ready to respond. Google will let the Lime rider snag another scooter when he or she is once again ready to move from Point A to Point B as long as it is not raining, snowing, too far, requires a jaunt on an expressway, or a short cut through a field.
Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2018
Google: No, No More Government Work. Sort Of.
June 27, 2018
Google would have us believe it’s rebuffing the military’s advances, but the PR ploy may amount to no more than semantics. Pando tells us, “Google Distances Itself from the Pentagon, Stays in Bed with Mercenaries and Intelligence Contractors.” Reporter Yasha Levine observes:
“Earlier this week, Google made a big show of refusing DARPA funding for two robotics manufacturers it purchased, even though the companies themselves were financed with plenty of DoD cash. It’s a nice gesture, and one that was welcomed by those who want Silicon Valley to be free of government interference. Unfortunately, while a crowd-pleasing announcement is good for Google’s public image, it does nothing to change the company’s long and ongoing history of working closely with US military and surveillance agencies.”
Levine details Google’s extensive history with intelligence agencies around the world and its more recent dealings with military contractors from the likes of Lockheed Martin to much smaller operations. Meanwhile, the company ramped up its lobbying efforts and hired some folks with ties military and intelligence experience into its sales department. See the article for more details, including discussion of the mysterious Blackbird. In his closing, Levine emphasizes:
“It’s important that we — the millions of people who trust our data to Google every day — understand what Google is: It isn’t a traditional Internet service company. It’s not even, as mild cynics are fond of saying, an advertising company. Google is a whole new type of beast: a global for-profit surveillance company with a mission to funnel as much of our daily life in the real and online world through its servers. The purpose: to track, analyze and profile us as deeply as possible — who we are, what we do, where we go, who we talk to, what we think about — and then constantly figure out ways to monetize that intelligence.”
We wonder if the “real” journalists pay any attention to Google’s teaming with In-Q-Tel. Probably not important.
Cynthia Murrell, June 27, 2018
Google: Office Pix
June 27, 2018
A brief write-up at the Android Police supplies a bit of PR for Google— “Tip: Google Photos Can Find All the Photos You’ve Taken at ‘Work’.” We like that “work” angle. Writer Rita El Khoury observes that one of Google’s finest products, as she sees it, has added several features since it came out, including a function that auto-groups users’ photos. It seems she and her colleagues stumbled upon one apparently unheralded feature. She writes:
“But did you know that you can search Photos for ‘work’ and get all the images you’ve snapped at work? I didn’t. We’re not sure how new or old the functionality is, but we just ran across it and it seems very helpful. If your work requires you keep tab of documents or items, or if you make creative products that you catalog, or if you snap pics at work for any other miscellaneous reason, you may want an easy way to filter those photos. You can quickly do that by typing ‘work’ in the Google Photos search field. Photos is probably using your Google location setting for home and work to quickly sift and find pictures taken at work. However, doing a search for ‘Home’ doesn’t yield results of pictures taken at home — instead it shows me all photos of houses and homes that I’ve taken.”
Perhaps Google recognizes there could be more security issues behind automatically grouping photos taken at “home” than there would be for those taken at “work.” That’s a welcome bit of common sense, but it still seems problematic to assign a “work” grouping unbidden. I suppose I’m just old-fashioned that way.
Cynthia Murrell, June 27, 2018
Google Exam Fail
June 26, 2018
On one of my jaunts to the world’s largest “search” engine, I picked up a copy of the GLAT. The Google Labs’ Aptitude Test is an interesting document. In fact, I have emailed selected questions to individuals who told me they were really good at problem solving. Here’s a representative question:
Question 10: On an infinite, two-dimensional, rectangular lattice of 1-ohm resistors, what is the resistance between two nodes that are a knight’s move away?
When I reviewed these “questions,” I realized that a computer science major with a desire to work as a comedy writer was at work. Now a “real” online news service has gathered information about Google’s “test” and “interview” questions.
“Google Admits Those Infamous Brainteasers Were Completely Useless for Hiring” states:
Google has admitted that the head scratching questions it once used to quiz job applicants (How many piano tuners are there in the entire world? Why are manhole covers round?) were utterly useless as a predictor of who will be a good employee.
Instead of a sense of humor, an expert in hiring allegedly says:
They [the questions] don’t predict anything. They serve primarily to make the interviewer feel smart.”
My observations about Google’s hiring process are uninformed. I live in rural Kentucky, which explains quite a bit about my intellectual capabilities.
I look at what’s going on in what seems to be my real world. Right now, Google’s hiring has created factions within the company. Employees who are paid to work on tasks Google gives them are demanding that the company abandon government contracts. Others are protesting social issues.
I have been out of my office since June 3, venturing into the wilds of Central Europe and the backwoods of North Carolina. I have noticed that Google has decided that some MIT videos are not suitable for distribution by YouTube. There are statements from the Google SEO expert that Google delivers great search experiences. And there are the dust ups between Google and the EU as well as a back door play to make Google a player in the Chinese market.
Judging from Google’s singular dependence on a business model artfully inspired by GoTo.com, Overture.com, and Yahoo advertising, Google’s hiring has been interesting and consistent.
Google management manifests itself via its hiring, its employees, and their actions. Tests and questions are, it seems, not particularly useful when it comes to assembling a bright, hard working, dedicated workforce.
Stephen E Arnold, June 26, 2018
Video Filtering: You Can Do It and for Free
June 26, 2018
YouTube has long been perceived as the crown jewel of almost anything goes online video streaming. Sure, there have been some minor problems; for example, blocking MIT instructional videos. Google is not standing still.
We learned more from a recent Vice piece, “Are You Batman? How YouTube’s Volunteer Army Gets Channels Un-Deleted.”
According to the story:
“These super-users volunteer for YouTube through a company initiative that used to be called “YouTube Heroes” but is now known as two separate programs, Trusted Flaggers and YouTube Contributors. They patrol the official YouTube Help Forum and social media, where many of them use TweetDeck to sift for keywords that signal distressed YouTubers.”
This effort for helping others via crowdsourcing is really stretching its limits in interesting ways. Another example is how coders are helping crowdsource stem cell research. Whether it is helping the unjust get reinstated to YouTube or to save lives, crowdsourcing has become a massive way for do-gooders to do good.
A large company can make good use of work from its customers. Are these Googley programs working? Instagram’s new extended video service may help answer this question.
Patrick Roland, June 25, 2018
Google: A Good Digital Neighbor
June 20, 2018
Amazon’s retail and technology power daily grows. The only way to compete with Amazon is to have products, power, money, and exposure. Other companies have the money and products, while Google has the power and exposure. With their powers combined, Amazon might start to quack…just a little. Engadget reports on, “Google Plans To Boost Amazon Competitors In Search Shopping Ads.”
Target, Home Depot, Walmart, Costco, Ulta and other retailers are allowing Google to index their catalogs and will appear in search results. Instead of getting an ad fee, Google will get a cut from the sale. The immediate concern is that this will pollute organic search results, but Google will separate the targeted sale searches in a sidebar
Google is selling this package as an anti-Amazon tool:
“The report claims that Google is selling its new anti-Amazon tools on the basis that it is utterly dominant in the search world. Not to mention that, as voice becomes a more important component of people’s lives, Google’s reach here will help beat back Alexa. The project’s genesis was reportedly down to the company noticing that people were image searching products, or asking where they could buy an item. And it wasn’t small numbers of folks, either, but tens of million of people, a big enough market to make anyone excited.”
The brick and mortar retailers can steal back some of their customers by embedding their results in Google searches. According to the research, most searches start with Google, but they end up on Amazon. Google has seen a modest 30 percent increase retailer sales in another shopping project, Google Express, and those results could increase with this new endeavor. Google anti-Amazon sales kit is made for the changing world, where shopping is easier with your voice or from a computer.
Amazon has a reasonable position in the retail market, which could be seen as a positive or a negative, depending on one’s point of view. Google is just trying to be a good digital neighbor. Fences, digital fences.
Whitney Grace, June 20, 2018
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