After Five US Patent Office Awards Search Patent To Simplexo
August 16, 2013
Is patenting search, a fundamental tool for users, the same as trying to trademark crust less peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? No, not if you just invent a new technology to improve the common feature. Techzone360 takes a look at the first search patent to be issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in five years in, “SearchYourCloud Awarded US Patent For Improve Search Engine Results.” Simplexo was given a patent for “Improved Search Engine-offers unprecedented search capabilities for users by leveraging Boolean and semantic search technologies to deliver enhanced search results.” Okay, so why is this important? Take apart the technical language and Simplexo offers a product that will search across clouds and its content, a better mobile design and security, improved Boolean search, and repetitive information reduction.
CTO of Simplexo Simon Bain had this to say:
“’The Improved Search Engine patent confirms SearchYourCloud as a leader in the search and application space and puts users in control of their data. SearchYourCloud’s technology enhances users’ productivity and lets users find and secure their data in one, fast step. Unlike other search engines our applications can find emails with a ‘to’ and ‘from’ name, and subject or content body without the user having to type in too many different search boxes. It can also find content from more than one source effortlessly and de-duplicate the results.’”
The demands on search engines are getting bigger and it is about time the expectations are met. It has not been decided how Simplexo will package its software, but expect it to change the way we search.
Whitney Grace, August 16, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Aunt Bertha Helps Us Find Social Service Programs
August 15, 2013
We all know that Google Search is a wonderful tool, especially those of us old enough to remember trekking to the (physical) library to research any little thing. It is not, however, especially good at directing one to government or charitable services. One consultant with a programming background decided to pick up the slack with a tailored search service, we learn from Fast Company‘s piece, “Fixing Google Search’s Social Services Gap.”
Creator Erine Gray was working as a consultant for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission when he was frustrated by existing search engines’ deficiencies in this area. Writer Stan Alcorn explains his approach to the innovative solution:
“Where Aunt Bertha looks more revolutionary–and where it actually makes money–is in its promises for the social service providers themselves. For those that pay to receive applications through Aunt Bertha, search results go straight to an online form that saves the basic, repeated information–80% of most forms, according to Gray–for future use.
“This means less work for the applicant. Bringing up a housing program called the Children’s Home Initiative, Gray says, ‘If I apply to this program in January and then maybe a health insurance program in March, it’s going to remember how I answered that question.’ It also has the potential to provide charities with information they’ve never had about what social services people are asking for and where.”
Upon landing on the comparatively uncluttered site, I am greeted by Aunt Bertha’s friendly visage. I enter my zip code in the prominent box, then proceed to a well-designed page that sports user-friendly, color-coded categories like “food” and “education.” Under each of these icons is displayed the number of programs in that category (that the site knows of) in my zip code. My city seems to have a lot of healthcare and education resources, for example, but is low on food, housing, and legal help. Hmm.
The clean design continues on the results page, where I can easily see what each program provides and whom it is designed for. On tabs for each service, I find details about it as well as (if available) a link to the program’s website. And, of course, if the provider has contracted with Bertha, I can submit an application right there. Handy!
I would highly recommend this site to anyone researching social service options. The only caveat will, I hope, soon be overcome: Aunt Bertha is still in beta, and so far has only attracted a few customers (that is, service providers themselves.) She could also use some more folks to go by and tell her about programs in their areas, especially in rural locations and smaller cities.
I hope readers will spread the word, and programs receive a slew of requests to join. If the site takes off, Aunt Bertha could make life that much easier for millions of Americans.
Cynthia Murrell, August 15, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Long Awaited Updates to Desktop Search Tool Everything
August 15, 2013
Everything has been updated. That may sound like a reductive philosophical stance, but I am actually referring to the desktop search utility named Everything, which has been in beta for the last five years. Betanews informs us of the platform’s sudden leap forward in, “Aging Desktop Search Tool Everything Now Receives Major Update.” Writer Mike Williams informs us about this apparently underappreciated tool:
“Five years have passed since the search tool Everything first appeared, and the program’s amazing speed gets it fans ever since. It’s easy to see why, too — there’s no fuss, no complexity, just enter part of a file or folder name and results appear just as quickly as you can type.
“What is a little more surprising, though, is that the program’s last stable release was back in March 2009. But there’s no need to worry, Everything isn’t dead, just ‘resting’, and a series of betas released this year show that the developer is determined to make up for lost time.”
It is important to note that Everything only runs on NTFS-formatted drives, and that it searches data by name, not by content. Still, if you know the name of what you are looking for, it might be the most efficient choice. A few of the improvements include: increased ease of locating files of a specified type; an expanded search syntax; the option to run the program as a service; a search history and bookmarks; and context menu customizations. See the write-up for more information.
Cynthia Murrell, August 15, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Inter Gator: Federated Search from Germany
August 14, 2013
Short honk: We learned about Industrie Consulting. At this link, the inter:gator enterprise search system is explained briefly. What are the “unique” propositions for this search system? The Web page mentions in German (English translation below):
- A system which searches “all” information. (Isn’t this a categorical affirmative?)
- Access controls
- Semantic functions
- A navigator results viewer (hyperbolic map)
- A dashboard. Widgets display search results in different forms on the dashboard.
- “Attractive” price.
The company opened its doors about a decade ago it appears. The system appears to be related to TextDog if the Wikipedia entry is accurate. The system may be based on Lucene. You can download white papers and marketing materials which explain the system. Point your browser to a page with a SharePoint-centric url: http://goo.gl/87ULSW
You may want to brush up on your German. I did not spot any English language information on the firm’s Web site. When you search for information about the company, be aware that the spelling “inter:gator” can produce results with the string in quotes changed to “integrator.” The use of special characters and seemingly innocuous misspellings can have an impact on the relevance of the results of the query.
Stephen E Arnold, August 14, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
Russian Mail.ru Drops Google for Homegrown Platform
August 14, 2013
Now, Yandex is not the only web search engine nipping at Google’s heels in Russia. Mail.ru (aka My.com) just ditched their Google contract, relying instead on their own recently completed platform. The Next Web announces the development in, “Russian Internet Giant Mail.ru Drops Google to Power All Search Engine Queries Itself.”
Writer Paul Sawers reminds us that there were some rumors to this effect last November. He also notes:
“Russia is among Europe’s largest Internet markets measured by number of users, with Mail.ru Group’s sites reaching around 86% of Russian Internet users each month, and Search Mail.Ru notching up 39.5 million monthly users. So dropping Google entirely for its own service is a major move not only for the company itself, but for users across the region. . . .
“Mail.ru may be a big player in Russian-language countries, but it has been looking to expand into international markets too, under the name My.com, but no word yet on how these efforts are paying off.”
An interesting shift. Is Russia becoming another lost market (like China) for Google? It may even be that, as enterprises like Mail.ru expand, Google will face more stiff competition around the globe. That would be interesting.
Cynthia Murrell, August 14, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Elasticsearch Brings on Additional Leadership
August 14, 2013
Open source companies are announcing expansions and broadening leadership teams at a rapid pace. Elasticsearch is joining that trend with their latest announcement. Read more in the MarketWatch article, “Elasticsearch Names Kevin Kluge Vice President of Engineering.”
The article begins:
“Elasticsearch, the company behind the popular real-time search and analytics open source project, today announced the appointment of Kevin Kluge as vice president of engineering. Kevin has a history of leading engineering teams for companies that have changed the dynamics of their markets, including Citrix, Cloud.com and Zimbra. He will play a critical role in extending the value of Elasticsearch.”
Elasticsearch has been a bit embattled in the last year but there is not doubt that they are part of the larger trend of a growing open source search market. However, they are not quite up to the standard that LucidWorks and others have set. LucidWorks is considered the industry leader in customer support and training, and they build upon what is arguably the strongest open source search infrastructure and community, Apache Lucene Solr.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 14, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Google Search Explained and Explainedg
August 12, 2013
One of my two or three readers sent me a link to a series of comments on the social networking information aggregation site Reddit. Navigate to http://goo.gl/EJLarJ. The entry is “How does Google search the whole Internet for something in a matter of seconds or even less?”
I found the explanations fascinating.
One person said, ”
Google spends all day every day searching the Web with bots. Web sites and their data are catalogued in a database and when you search, it is the database that is being looked through. It’s also not the whole Internet. Lots of sites have code that prevents them from showing up in the search engine.
Other comments of interest are:
“Amazon has over 2500 sub site maps. ”
“I like that the best way to find out things Google doesn’t know is by using Google.”
“I remember reading somewhere that Google estimated that only 0.02% of the internet is cataloged in the Google database.”
Google’s search index is over 100 million gigabytes big
“I heard an analogy once, that searching the internet with google is like dragging a net through a pond. You’ll get stuff from the surface but there’s a lot of material deeper down you don’t get.”
“Google has only indexed 0.004% of the entire Internet.”
“Imagine there are spiders(web crawlers) going around the web and gathering all the insects(web pages) in stuck there. Then they pile the different insects into cocoons and label them (hash code). Now you can find your favorite insect from the labeled cocoons by keyword and they are brought to you in an order of popularity.”
And my favorite:
“Think of Google like the Index Cards they [librarians] had at the library before computers. The index card system is just an organized collection of where the books (Web sites) exist in the library. All of the actual information is held in the books. A librarian (Web crawler) has to keep the index card system up to date but they [sic] don’t need to do it in realtime every time a book is requested. They keep a database of where everything is instead.”
Yep, librarians with advertising. I am delighted with the explanations of the Google. Delighted, I say.
Stephen E Arnold, August 12, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
eBay Gets New Search Engine
August 10, 2013
An article from Ecommerce Bytes shares information, through the form of an interview, on an update to eBay’s search engine. Cassini is the name of the new search system according to “eBay’s Hugh Williams Explains Cassini Search, Part One.” Many were reported to have questions about why Cassini was rolled out. We enjoyed reading Williams’ framing of the conversation when he stated that most people do not have the same computer that they had ten years ago.
The upgrades to eBay’s search technology were addressed from many angles. Not only the ranking algorithms were tweaked, but also the search systems that process users queries and the machines and scales it runs on.
Williams offers a metaphorical point of comparison for the upgrade:
“An analogy might be, Voyager is a really nice toolbox. You open up the toolbox and get out a few tools and build. I feel like Cassini is more like a fully featured garage with walls of tools that you can use to get out and build great solutions for our customers. It’s is a stack, if you like, it’s all of those things. It’s really a complete ground up rebuild of the whole search technology stack.”
We had not noticed that eBay rolled out this new search engine, but it is good to know that they are working away at search.
Megan Feil, August 10, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Amazon: Everything But Cost Control
August 9, 2013
Amazon is one of the Internet success stories which generally avoids too much praise and too much criticism. The company offers convenience for shoppers who want to get presents delivered to their door.
I read “Amazon’s Profits”, an analysis which takes a look at the concept of profits. The article points out, “You don’t actually know what the profits are.” I would agree. Figuring out Amazon’s financial statements is a time consuming task. When one tosses in various bits and pieces like Mr. Jeff Bezos’ own investment vehicles, I am not sure who owns what. I have heard at conferences that some promising start ups get an opportunity to have Amazon be like a Big Brother. I turn a deaf ear on chatter which suggests the type of deals which are possible. I assume that gossip is inevitable when a service has so many ways to provide services and products to customers worldwide. My most recent Amazon delivery showed up in the early evening. The delivery car was a standard station wagon. The driver looked like one of the fellows at the local pizza joint. Hey, it worked.
The write up presents a number of graphs. These indicators show revenues rising and net income flat, which has been one of the defining characteristics of Amazon for more than a decade. (“Where does the profit go?,” I ask. Some analysts do not seem concerned about this minimal profit attribute, however.) The Amazon revenue by business unit shows that the building block is eCommerce. The write up points out:
This chart [Amazon revenue by segment] shows the revenue segments that Amazon reports. These are in different industries, at different stages of development, and in different markets. It seems pretty likely that their underlying economics are different too. Not, that is, the FCF or net incomes that Amazon reports after all that re-investment, but the underlying performance of the divisions. Moreover, even this isn’t the full story, since Amazon is actually a lot more atomized. Most separate product lines have their own internal owner and P&L by country or region (with a lot of internal transparency, incidentally). Some of them fail and get killed, some have only just started and some are doing very well.
I am no financial wizard. I just assumed that rolling up revenues and costs allows Amazon to present the best possible picture to investors while hiding some of the details from competitors and inquisitive analysts.
The one point I would add to this interesting write up is that Amazon seems to be fighting an on-going battle with cost control. One quick example, “Selling General and Administrative Expenses, FY 2010, 2011, 2012 look like this:
With the approach Amazon is taking in Web services, I wonder if users of these cloud services are actually subsidizing Amazon’s technology infrastructure. The recent roll out of cloud search raises questions about how much money Amazon will pump into the service. Right now, connectors and other must-have features are not available. The interesting deals which have some competitors using Amazon Web services to deliver their service are offered along with similar or directly competitive Amazon branded services. (See my forthcoming article in Information Today “Amazon: The Search Lazy Susan.”) What are the levers Amazon will pull to get its costs under tighter control? How will Amazon deal with labor dust ups in Germany?
Amazon is an interesting company to try and analyze. Like Google and some other dominant Web operations, the finances of these companies are managed to trigger mystery. Investors seem to love AMZN. As I post this, the stock is in the $300 per share range. Hapless JCPenny is about $13 per share. Will JCPenny and other retail outfits survive? I don’t plan on opening a retail store. Heck, I can’t even go into local shops any longer. The outfits have gone out of business. Rampant mismanagement in the Amazon jungle? Good question.
Stephen E Arnold, August 9, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
Semantic Search for Academic Social Networks
August 9, 2013
Arnetminer is an interesting service from China that we came across recently and feel compelled to share it. It is a tool that offers search and mining capabilities for academic and researcher social networks. Semantic technology is the name of its game.
There are several groups and organizations that have funded this service: Chinese Young Faculty Research Funding, IBM China Research Lab and Minnesota/China Collaborative Research Program among others. It was originally developed by Jie Tang in 2006.
We learned about the focal points of the system:
In this system, we focus on: (1) creating a semantic-based profile for each researcher by extracting information from the distributed Web; (2) integrating academic data (e.g., the bibliographic data and the researcher profiles) from multiple sources; (3) accurately searching the heterogeneous network; (4) analyzing and discovering interesting patterns from the built researcher social network.
It looks like the Introduction page was last updated in 2010, but the search engine itself seems to be going strong into 2013. In the past, the folks at Arnetminer have given talks at Google, the World Wide Web Conference and more. It would be interesting to know where they are currently making their rounds at.
Megan Feil, August 09, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
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