Click Money from Google: A Digital Dodo?
March 15, 2020
At the beginning of 2020, Google released its 2019 end of year financial report and some amazing surprises were revealed. ZDNet has the details in the article, “The Mysterious Disappearance Of Google’s Click Metric.” For the first time since acquiring YouTube, Google shared revenue for YouTube and its cloud IT business, but they removed information about how much money the company made from clicks or the Cost-per-Click (CPC) plus its growth.
What does this mean for Google? It is even more confusing that the Wall Street analysts did not question the lack of information. The truth is something that Google might not want to admit, but the key to their revenue is dying and they are not happy.
“Google has a rapidly deflating advertising product, sometimes 29% less revenue per click, every quarter, year-on-year, year after year…. Every three months Google has to find faster ways of expanding the total number of paid clicks by as much as 66%. How is this a sustainable business model? There is an upper limit to how much more expansion in paid links can be found especially with the shift to mobile platforms and the constraints of the display. And what does this say about the effectiveness of Google’s ads? They aren’t very good and their value is declining at an astounding and unstoppable pace.”
Google might start placing more ads on its search results and other services. It sounds like, however, Google will place more ineffective ads in more places. Google’s ads have eroded efficiency for years, plus there is the question of whether more bots, less humans are clicking these ads. Clicks do not create brands and most people ignore ads. Don’t you love ads?
Whitney Grace, March 15, 2015
Google Creates a Podcast about Marketing
March 13, 2020
Just a quick note. Google now outputs “Think with Google Podcast.” You can listen to show #2 at this link. the subject is “Captivating Creative.” Not much in terms of technical information, but the Mad Ave types may go ga-ga with the breezy style and fluffy content. One amusing aspect of the show is that Google wants to know more about you. Listeners are enjoined to take a survey about the show. The appeal takes place before the show. Imagine. Google wants to know more about you. What a surprise. Now how about a search engine for podcasts? Oh, right. Google has one. It’s super too.
Stephen E Arnold, March 13, 2020
Google Stadia: Google Wood or Just Recycled Cardboard?
March 12, 2020
DarkCyber does not play games. Sure, there are some young-at-heart DarkCyber games, but I ignore them. One of these hard-working individuals spotted “Google Stadia Hits an All-Time Low With This Embarrassing Tweet.” I am not much of a tweeter.
Apparently someone at Google does read tweets and noted one that contained this high school cheer / acrostic thing:
Note that there is no game for I.
A Googler replied, with a tweet, of course: “Why would you bring attention to this?”
I assume the answer is one of these choices:
a. It’s millennial or Gen X, Y, or Z humor
b. Stadia is not performing
c. Someone actually cares about Stadia to try to spell a word using the first letter of games on the service
d. There is a game on Stadia which uses the “what’s up” emoji instead of words.
The write up states:
Clearly, whoever is in charge of the Google Stadia Twitter account has stopped caring. It’s probably for the best since everyone else stopped caring about it months ago.
Google Stadia seemed doomed from the start, and things haven’t gotten much better. It lacks games, has a terrible monetization system, and generally isn’t all that convenient. It even pales in comparison to other similar systems like GeForce Now and Project xCloud. If the state of their social media is anything to go by, Google is already well on its way to just checking out and letting the system die. It’s hard to blame them. So far, Google Stadia seems like it was just a horrible idea.
DarkCyber has little insight to how things work at Google. I would surmise that whoever worked on Stadia has made an effort to catch on with a hot project team. No, not solving Death. Solving Stadia, however, may be a comparable challenge.
Stephen E Arnold, March 12, 2020
Intel: A Company Seemingly Unable to Move Up the Confidence Curve
March 6, 2020
DarkCyber noted stories about Intel’s quantum computing innovation. We chose to push the story into the “maybe later” file. Now is the time. The write up is “Intel Details ‘Horse Ridge’ Cryogenic Quantum Computing Control Chip.” There are some tough-to-believe quantum computing announcements zipping around the interweb’s tubes. A revolution will be forthcoming from a thermostat and weapons control systems vendor. There was an announcement about a quantum computer that cost less than a $1,000. (No, DarkCyber did not purchase one, nor did any of the team sign up for a multi hour lecture about the wonders of quantum computing. Science fiction is not on the corona virus menu unless one globe trots to advanced technology conferences.) Now quantum computers are going to be — really soon — fast computers, and fast computers need chips and stuff.
So what’s with the Horse Ridge thing?
Intel wants to control those very expensive quantum computers. The company has announced a”cryogenic quantum control chip.” Below is a snap of what’s needed for a modest cryogenic set up about the size of an old fashioned school lunch box:
Here’s a more robust set up for a mostly working quantum computer. The installation is about the size of soccer mom’s van.
Intel is going to control these types of units plus other assorted gizmos required to make quantum computing a useful system… sometime.
The Horse Ridge write up chirps:
The semiconductor giant and QuTech — a partnership between TU Delft and the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) — detailed in a research paper that where scalability is concerned, the integrated System-on-a-Chip design can integrate four radiofrequency (RF) channels into a single 4x4mm device. According to Intel, this was achieved by using Intel’s 22nm FFL CMOS technology. The company added that each channel could control up to 32 qubits to leverage “frequency multiplexing” — a technique described by Intel as dividing the total bandwidth available into a series of non-overlapping frequency bands — each of which could be used to carry a separate signal.
If the write up is accurate, Intel did not do this work alone. The development of a control system is not actually a quantum computer. But Intel has a quantum marker in the Web indexes.
Does Horse Ridge work? Sure, under precise lab conditions, DarkCyber is confident the chip does something; otherwise, the PR professionals would not have the green light to tell DarkCyber and the world that Intel, like the thermostat vendor, is “into” quantum computing.
Why comment on this story now?
The answer is that DarkCyber spotted ITPro’s article “Intel Unable to Fix Critical Hardware-Encoded CPU Flaw.” The write up states what is an allegedly accurate statement of the limitations of Intel’s designers and engineers:
Some of the most widely-used Intel chips released over the last five years are embedded with a critical vulnerability at the hardware level, as well as within the firmware. A flaw has been discovered in the Converged Security and Management Engine (CSME) boot ROM on most Intel chipsets and system on a chip (SoC) units available today, apart from 10th-gen CPUs with Ice Point components.
The write up includes this interesting statement:
The range of devices afflicted is very broad, according to Intel. These include CSME-ready chips with SPS firmware for servers, TXE firmware for tablets or low-power devices, DAL software for machines ranging from workstations to IoT devices, and the AMT module used for remote IT management.
Yes, Intel’s credibility seems to be making modest progress. Furthermore, the Horse Ridge announcement makes clear that progress comes by leveraging a non US organization’s innovations as evidence of quantum traction.
Intel needs snow tires, chains, and a four wheel drive to make it up Horse Ridge and pull itself out of the rut of that allows an attacker to conduct arbitrary code execution on lots of personal computers, servers, and other devices.
Net net: Intel seems to face a Boeing Max like challenge.
Stephen E Arnold, March 6, 2020
Honeywell: The Quantum Computing Thermostat Company
March 5, 2020
Yeah, that’s a bit of rural Kentucky humor. Honeywell is in four businesses and a fifth apparently has been added: Quantum computing. If you think Honeywell and recall the user friendly thermostat in your home, you are not thinking about the future, government contracts, breaking computing barriers, and putting technology pretenders like IBM, Google, and dozens of other companies in their place.
The Honeywell he CommercialPRO 7000 Programmable Thermostat is fantastic, according to Honeywell. For an entertaining experience, ask a friend to set the temperature for 4 pm today. This is a TikTok viral video DarkCyber believes.
To refresh your memory, DarkCyber wants to point out that Honeywell was once based in Wabash, Indiana. The firm generates about $40 billion a year from:
- Aerospace
- Building technologies
- Materials
- Safety productivity systems.
Now Honeywell is in the quantum computing business, according to the Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2020, edition. You may be able to locate the story behind a paywall at this link.
Honeywell has enjoyed a number of government contracts, and the firm is one of the leaders in smart controls and weapons management technology. In 1955, Honeywell teamed with Raytheon in order to compete with IBM. By the mid 1960s, Honeywell was one of the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs of Computing. (Unfamiliar with this bit of digital history, Bing or Google may turn up some relevant hits, but I would recommend microfilm of the Minneapolis newspapers from this era. Don’t let your Bermuda shorts get in a bunch as you explore the innovations of Burroughs, Control Data Corp., GE, NCR, RCA, and my personal fave Univac.
Honeywell does a significant amount of computing and software/systems development. The firms owns a number of high technology business; for example, a radiation detection firm and has a stake in Zapata Computing.
Zapata says here:
We are the deepest bench of quantum scientists in the industry. Our founders helped create the field of near-term quantum algorithms including the invention of VQE, the progenitor of variational quantum algorithms.
The company’s approach relies on quantum charge coupled device (QCCD) architecture. The approach uses a technology called “trapped ions.” The idea is that useful work can be done due to leveraging mid circuit measurement. The idea is to insert a dynamic “if” based on the state of the calculation at a point in time. IonQ and Alpine Quantum Technologies also use the method. For some details, do a patent search for “trapped ion”. The background of US5793091A (assigned to IBM) provides some helpful information.
What business opportunities does Honeywell envision for its quantum computer? Here’s a selection gleaned from the PR blitz Honeywell launched a short time ago:
- Landing more customers like JPMorgan, Chase, and Company
- Speeding up financial calculations
- Creating new trading strategies (high speed trading?)
- Materials science applications (heat shields, stealth coatings?)
- Run Monte Carlo simulations (nuclear fuel analyses, risk and fraud analyses?)
The Honeywell quantum computer will be bigger than IBM’s quantum computer.
Interesting business play because Honeywell has a deal with Microsoft to plug the Honeywell technology into the Azure cloud.
The coverage of Honeywell’s announcement reveals the hyperbole associated with quantum computing. DarkCyber interprets the assertions as the equivalent of an athlete’s pre-season exercise routine. Progress may be made, but the effort can only be judged when the “star” is on the field and in the game.
Until then, the buzzword sells expectations, not a solution to a here-and-now problem. One has to admire Honeywell’s PR generating capability.
Stephen E Arnold, March 5, 2020
AI SLIDE: A Breakthrough or a Shaped Insight
March 4, 2020
DarkCyber noted an interesting, although sketchy summary, of a CPU and hash table approach to machine learning. “Deep Learning Rethink Overcomes Major Obstacle in AI Industry” suggests that Amazon and Google are barking up the wrong artificial intelligence method.
The innovation is the use of hash tables for deep learning. The idea is that one looks up an item, perfect for Intel CPUs. The “old” way relies on matrix mathematics, perfect for nVidia graphics chips. In fact, the solution is a search problem, a point in the write up which may annoy the Googlers; to wit:
“You don’t need to train all the neurons on every case,” Medini [a Rice wizard] said. “We thought, ‘If we only want to pick the neurons that are relevant, then it’s a search problem.’ So, algorithmically, the idea was to use locality-sensitive hashing to get away from matrix multiplication.”
The reason this insight is important is that if it proves useful and can flip the opinions of those innovators with tens of thousands of GPUs generating heat is that machine learning becomes less expensive. (How much does it cost to cool lots of GPUs doing math? Answer: A lot.)
The approach is dubbed SLIDE. The acronym is about as slick as relying on an Intel processor: Sub-Linear Deep Learning Engine. Too bad AMD. You have Linus, the YouTube star, as your cheerleader.
Advantages include:
- Cheaper
- Faster
- More efficient training.
Disadvantages revealed include:
- Memory is needed, lots of memory
- Unexpected cache thrashing (data are here, oops, data are not hear, rinse and repeat)
- Access to Intel engineers reduced the inefficiency by 50 percent, but 50 percent of what? Misses, latency, halts, other?
The point of the announcement is to make clear that Amazon and Google are going about machine learning the wrong way. Does anyone at either firm care? Sure, and it will be fun for the researchers to check out their approach, look up what was investigated in the past, and figure out if it is better to switch than fight.
Net net: Seems interesting and definitely a rah rah for Intel. The write up makes no reference to IBM or other machine learning outfits. Marketing or shaped insight? It is too soon to answer this question definitively.
Stephen E Arnold, March 4, 2020
BA Insight: Interesting Spin for Enterprise Search
March 4, 2020
DarkCyber noted BA Insight’s blog post “Make Federation A Part Of Your Single Pane Of Glass.” What’s interesting in the write up are the assertions about enterprise search. Note that the BA Insight Web site include search along with a number of other terms, including “knowledge,” “seekers,” “connectors”, “smart hub”, and “auto classification.”
Let’s look at the assertions which attracted DarkCyber’s attention.
- “Many have considered enterprise search to be too complex.” Interesting but a number of companies have failed because what people want a search system to deliver is inherently tricky. The Google Search Appliance was “easier” to implement than a local install of Entopia, for example, but the GSA failed because meeting information needs is difficult in many cases.
- Users want a “single pane of glass.” Plus “This improved unified view will dramatically improve the search experience.” The problem remains is that information is not equal. Lawyers have to guard litigation information. Drug researchers have to keep pharma research under wraps. Human resources, what some millennials call “people” jobs have to guard employee health data, salary information, data related to hiring distributions. The “single pane of glass” is an interesting assertion, but federation is more difficult to achieve than some believe… until the services and consulting fees are tallied.
- “And, you go live quickly, instantly adding value (you don’t wait six months for crawling to complete).” The speed with which a customer can go live depends upon a number of factors; for example, dealing with security levels, processing content so that it is “findable” by a user, and latencies which creep into distributed systems. Instantly is an appealing term like new. But instantly?
Several observations:
- BA Insight is a vendor of search and retrieval services for organizations. The company has worked very hard to explain that search is more than search.
- The benefits of the BA Insight approach reads like a checklist of the types of problems which once plagued most enterprise search vendors from Autonomy and Verity. Unfortunately many of these challenges remain today.
- BA Insight has moved from its SharePoint centric approach to a wider range of platforms. T
The marketing is interesting. Data backing the assertions would be helpful.
Stephen E Arnold, March 4, 2020
Quantum Computing Dust Up: Is the Spirit of Jeffrey Influencing Some Academics?
March 2, 2020
If you are into quantum computing and the magic it will deliver… any minute now, you won’t bother reading the MIT Technology Review article “Inside the Race to Build the Best Quantum Computer on Earth.” Please, keep in mind that MIT allegedly accepted funds from the science loving Jeffrey Epstein and then seemed to forget about that money.
Here’s the key sentence in the write up:
None of these devices—or any other quantum computer in the world, except for Google’s Sycamore—has yet shown it can beat a classical machine at anything.
One minor point: MIT’s experts appear to have overlooked China, Israel, and Russia Is it really ignoring quantum computing?), to name three nation states with reasonably competent researchers.
The focus on IBM and Google is understandable. Did DarkCyber mention that IBM is contributing to MIT’s funding; for example, the IBM Watson Lab?
What’s the point of the MIT Magazine research? Let’s try to see if there are quantum-sized clues?
First, Google asserted in 2019 that the fun loving folks in Mountain View had achieved “quantum supremacy.” IBM responded, “Nope.” This write up expands on IBM’s viewpoint; specifically, Google’s quantum magic was meaningless. Okay, maybe from IBM’s point of view, but from Google’s, the announcement was super duper click bait.
Second, IBM is doing research and business development in parallel. Google sells ads; IBM sells … what? Consulting, mainframes, managed facilities, and Watson? Google sells ads. Ads generate money for Google moon shots and quantum PR. IBM spends its money on ads. Okay, that’s a heck of a point.
Third, IBM wants to build a quantum business that does business things. Google wants to build a cloud computer to [a] sell ads, [b] beat Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft in the cloud, [c] accomplish a goal like climbing a mountain, [d] it is just Googley, [e] two of the four choices.
Net net: The write up walks a fine line. On one side is IBM and its checkbook and on the other is the Google. Is the write up objective? From DarkCyber’s point of view, like artificial intelligence, quantum computing is just around the corner.
DarkCyber is checking to make sure that when NewEgg.com offers quantum components, the team can buy one. For now, we will stick with the Ryzen 3900x: It works, is stable, and does jobs without too much fiddling.
Quantum computers require a bit more work. But when deciding between funding and ads, maybe fancy dancing around quantum computing is the tune the MIT band is playing?
Stephen E Arnold, March 2, 2020
Facebook PR: Lean In, Reframe, and Output Word Salad
February 28, 2020
“Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg Defends Her Company and Her Reputation in Wide-Ranging Interview” is an interesting example of corporate PR, “running for office” preparation, and really heartfelt, super sincere explanations.
A techno journalist of significant stature wrote a book about Facebook. Allegedly the effort involved hundreds of interviews with Facebookers past and present. DarkCyber has not read Facebook: The Inside Story. DarkCyber does not use Facebook to locate “friends”—although one of our deceased dogs has a Facebook page.
This interview with an NBC journalist appears to be a little bit about the book, a little bit about Facebook; for example:
“I wish so much that the world could see the Mark I know,” Sandberg said. “Mark is an enormously, enormously talented guy. He has a great product sense. … People think he doesn’t understand people. That’s just clearly wrong.
Right, clearly wrong. Facebook is suing NSO Group. Facebook is suing a partner OneAudience. Facebook is using legal weapons to demonstrate how Facebook “understands people.” Right. DarkCyber thinks it recalls a bit of an issue with Cambridge Analytica, a zippy researcher, and a whistle blower with a keen fashion sense. But maybe that was a hallucination. People do have them. People also reshape facts into confections of delight.
We noted this statement from the NBC story:
Sandberg also offered her most robust defense to date of Facebook’s business model and its vast collection of personal data, which she said was necessary to offer users a better content and advertising experience. “There is growing concern, which is based on a lack of understanding, that we are using people’s information in a bad way. We are selling it. We are giving it away. We are violating it. None of that’s true. We do not sell data,” she said. “Here’s what we do: We take your information and we show you personalized ads … [to give you] a much better experience.”
Yep, experience.
Lean in. Be sincere. Deliver factoids. Let the lawyers do their work.
Mr. Zuckerberg understands people. Right.
Stephen E Arnold, February 28, 2020
Publishing Desperation 101: Dark and Crafty Methods
February 27, 2020
DarkCyber noted a “dark” post on Ycombinator news. Here’s the zippy part: “I cannot cancel my NYTimes subscription online?” Options: Call or text. Yeah, those customer retention folks are available instantly… you wish.
No surprise. Dead tree publications want to attract and retain subscribers. Remember those magazines with the renewal notices which arrived a month after your first issue? Yeah, same thinking.
But the interesting part of the statement is that it is not as annoying as buying a print subscription and then having to call and obtain the online service as well. There is nothing like halving my support for the dead tree crowd and doubling the costs of “customer support.” Which wizardly outfit uses this method? Why the New York Times.
Navigate to the link above and read the comments. There are more examples of the dark arts of the dead tree brigade; for example:
This is a dark pattern that’s all too common on slightly sketchy small businesses. Slightly disappointed, but not terribly surprised, to see that it’s also common in “mainstream” newspapers.
or
If you actually want the subscription and are slightly stingy, this is also a good way to get a vastly reduced price. The people they make you phone to try get you to stay offer very different deals to what they display on pricing page. Definitely a really dark pattern though, and should be regulated against.
Does the dead tree world care? Not a whit. Desperation causes interesting behaviors.
Stephen E Arnold, February 27, 2020
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