Google Engineer Opines about the Advancement of Search
June 22, 2012
Google has been putting out a lot of PR about search. Is the company worried it is losing its edge? The latest example comes from BBC News in “The Future of Google Search: Thinking Outside the Box.” Like most recent Google-centered articles, this one discusses ways in which the engine is attempting to “become more intelligent.” Maybe they should team up with Watson.
BBC Tech reporter Leo Kelion spoke to Google’s search chief Amit Singhal, and the write up includes a video snippet. I was happy to hear Singhal insist he does believe personalized results can go too far; he maintains that “there’s a lot of value in serendipity.” It is good to know the head of Google search can see that. He also maintains that there is a big division between the company’s search team and its sales team. Google search serves the users first, he says. Could it be true?
Neither of those points directly address the improved IQ issue, though. The Knowledge Graph initiative, announced last month, is the hot topic right now. It is Google’s latest attempt to coax search into understanding real-world things and their relationships. The project got its start with the acquisition of Freebase, which had devised a unique way to represent things in memory. Though that company had categorized only a tiny number of entities by Googley standards, Singhal’s team has been expanding its knowledge and adding interconnectivity.
When asked whether this system is closer to the way humans understand things, Singhal emphasized that we still don’t completely comprehend our own brains. However, he said, this system will feel closer to the way we work. “Feel”? Now we’re getting into some murky territory. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. Do they have a psychologist on the team, I wonder?
On the subject of personalization, Singhal’s team is walking the line between being helpful and being invasive. He cautions us to avoid confusing personalization, which uses harvested information about the user personally, and context, which supplies results based on things like what language you’re using and where you are. I do appreciate being served names of restaurants near me when I’m hungry, for example. It doesn’t help to know there’s a great sandwich joint on the other side of the Earth, at least not in the stomach-growling moment.
Kelion brought up another much-discussed Google issue—those glasses. Ah, the glasses! Specifically, he cited that project as an example of how search may be moving away from typing into a text box toward situational results. Singhal confirmed that situational information will continue to play a growing role, most likely not confined to search functionality. He shares a charming example—he would like it if his technology could remind him to call his son when he has a free block in his schedule. It seems he would like to make an old-school secretary out of his smartphone. Bet it would make a terrible cup of coffee, though.
When asked about the future, Singhal shared this:
“What excites me tremendously these days is the connectivity and the mobility that the future world will have, which we are already seeing emerge through smartphones. I have the power of thousands of computers in my pocket – because when I type a query [into a handset] it really takes thousands of computers to answer that query. So we are sitting at this wonderful junction where various technologies are ripening: mobile technologies, networks, speech recognition, speech interfaces, wearable computing. I really feel that these things put together will give us products five years from now that will change how you interact with computers. The future will be very exciting once you have a wearable computing device. It kind of changes how you experience things.”
It only takes looking back a few years to verify the truth of that statement. All in all, this interview is an interesting perspective from a tip-top insider. A good read for anyone following future of search.
Cynthia Murrell, June 22, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Do Google and Microsoft Really Understand the Web?
June 22, 2012
We humans are difficult for search engines to understand. For example, try this query: “terminal”. Okay, which is it, airplane terminal, bus terminal, computer terminal? You get the idea. Ars Technica explains “How Google and Microsoft Taught Search to Understand the Web.”
Journalist Sean Gallagher and associates picked the brains behind two of the Web’s biggest search engine projects, Google‘s Knowledge Graph and Microsoft‘s Satori. Both are efforts to move search from matching strings of text to connecting the dots of meaning. The result is an in-depth explanation that any search professional should become familiar with. The article informs us:
“The efforts are in part a fruition of ideas put forward by a team from Yahoo Research in a 2009 paper called ‘A Web of Concepts,‘ in which the researchers outlined an approach to extracting conceptual information from the wider Web to create a more knowledge-driven approach to search. They defined three key elements to creating a true ‘web of concepts’:
- Information extraction: pulling structured data (addresses, phone numbers, prices, stock numbers and such) out of Web documents and associating it with an entity
- Linking: mapping the relationships between entities (connecting an actor to films he’s starred in and to other actors he has worked with)
- Analysis: discovering categorizing information about an entity from the content (such as the type of food a restaurant serves) or from sentiment data (such as whether the restaurant has positive reviews).”
These ideas are still mostly unrealized, but Google and Microsoft are both beginning to make progress. Entity extraction itself is not new, but the database scale and relationship building of the current approaches are. Both companies’ entity databases are non-traditional. They are graph databases that map relationships between users and activities, much like Facebook’s Open Graph.
“Entities” have become complicated bundles of information. Each contains a unique identifier; a collection of properties based on the attributes of the real-world topic; links representing the topic’s relationship to other entities; and things a user searching for that topic might want to do. The article compares and contrasts how each company collects and manages these dossiers. One difference lies in each system’s UI—Google’s seems more about answering questions, while Bing’s new front end appears to facilitate taking actions.
Both Knowledge Graph and Satori give the user ways to help in the first results list, by narrowing the search or pointing the engine down the correct path. This sort of direction is still essential, since neither company is anywhere close to making seamless and accurate semantic search a reality. Both engines still have holes, and are already fighting lag from their growing data bases. And that’s just while working with just English! The article concludes:
“When other languages are added to the entity extraction language processing of the search engines, the number of entities and relationships they have to manage is bound to explode, both in terms of number and complexity. To truly ‘understand’ the Web, Knowledge Graph and Satori are going to have to get a lot smarter. And they’re bound to push the bounds of semantic processing and computing forward in the process, as bigger and bigger graphs of knowledge are shoved into memory.”
It seems that natural language search worthy of a futurist’s dreams is still years away. This article is a great window into the baby steps being made right now by two of the Web’s biggest crawlers.
Cynthia Murrell, June 22, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Thomson Reuters Touts Its Innovative Knack
June 21, 2012
Here’s an unusual announcement from the giant Thomson Reuters. The Sacramento Bee informs us that “Thomson Reuters Delivers Efficient Enterprise Access to Industry Standards with Advanced Techstreet Subscriptions.” Techstreet, part of Thomson Reuters’ Intellectual Property & Science division, provides industry codes and standards worldwide. The press release emphasizes:
“The Techstreet Subscription service, which provides unlimited access to a controlled set of documents for multiple users in one or more locations, now has faster and more responsive search options to locate documents quickly. These include suggested search, filtered search and the ability to save searches for future use. Users can also learn of newly added, relevant industry standards with a new document notification center for managing content alerts. A redesigned user interface offers a clean and modern look for easy navigation.”
This subscription angle is an interesting marketing approach– standards documents plus traditional search. Perhaps we will see more such methods in the future.
Techstreet emerged to take advantage of advanced Web technologies to rapidly deliver industry codes and standards to engineers and technical professionals. Thomson Reuters leverages their status as the world’s most trusted news source to supply critical information to professionals in financial, legal, accounting, science, and media markets. The company is headquartered in New York city, but also maintains major operations in London and Eagan, Minnesota.
Cynthia Murrell, June 21, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
EU Data Laws Threaten Enterprise on the Cloud
June 21, 2012
Various cultures hold differing opinions on the nature of information and its implications on security. The United States has earned a reputation as increasingly difficult to deal with, as the quest for national security has led to regulations that create hardships for software developers and users alike. However, there is now talk about the implications of new European Union laws on Cloud platforms and enterprise software. IT World gives a full report in, “EU Data Laws are Latest Threat to Cloud.”
Kevin Fogerty, the author, introduces the issue:
European data-sovereignty laws requiring international companies to keep data on customers in the customer’s own country are not only causing headaches for database managers, they’re holding back adoption of cloud computing in many large companies according to a story in GigaOm yesterday. Corporate IT managers have been wary of European data-privacy laws since the early 2000s, when requirements designed to limit the degree to which corporations could move or exploit the personal data of customers came into vogue on the Continent.
Europe is clearly still struggling with the idea of national sovereignty versus sovereignty of the union. It is bleeding over into IT development and causing headaches. However, we are also told that the United States is driving some of these regulations and subsequent frustrations:
More recently, fears of U.S. prosecutors subpoenaing private data on European customers in European countries has accelerated the priority of data sovereignty laws as well.
So for multi-national companies who truly need an enterprise solution that will allow the transfer and access of data across country borders, what is to be done? For now, it may be that some of the legalities of the new regulations need time to be vetted and moderated. In the meantime, it would be wise for organizations to choose a smart third-party solution that can increase the efficiency of their SharePoint platform without running up against these regulations.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze is a great solution for organizations on either side of the Atlantic. For customers in the United States, Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise guarantees the highest level of security. For European users, Mindbreeze was truly written with EU standards in mind; therefore insuring compliance without added stress or workload.
Daniel Fallmann addresses some of the concerns surrounding the use of the US Patriot Act to access international data:
During the development of Fabasoft Mindbreeze we focused 100% exclusively on European values – not one single bit of American software product is to be found. The US Patriot Act doesn’t apply. Not using US American manufactured software ensures that US authorities have no right to access European Cloud data.
While most users need not be concerned with the Patriot Act and its potential implications for unauthorized access of data, some European customers will rest assured knowing that Fabasoft Mindbreeze engineers products with EU standards in mind, ensuring fewer headaches.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 21, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Center of Excellence to Benefit Japanese Enterprises
June 21, 2012
In an effort to introduce product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions to a larger Japanese market Geometric Limited, a PLM provider with a strong foothold in Asia, and DIPRO, a Japanese, a CAD/CAM/CAE solutions provider located in Japan, have joined forced to create a Center of Excellence (CoE). According to the article, “Geometric and DIPRO Partner to Tap the Japanese Market”, on MCAD Café, the CoE is the fruition of a long partnership with a lot of promise and possibility.
According to the article,
“Under the agreement, the two companies would jointly offer PLM, CAD/CAM/CAE, and engineering services. To further strengthen the quality of services to customers, the companies have agreed upon an exchange of human resources, whereby Geometric’s employees will take technology expertise to Japan, while DIPRO’s employees will bring in automotive domain knowledge in context of Japanese culture to the offshore centre.”
PLM providers are not only moving into new countries which traditionally have not fully utilized PLM solutions; they are also moving into non-traditional industry. Previous to the economic bust of only a few years ago PLM was reserved for a few select industries (automotive, manufacturing, etc…) and the wealthiest enterprises among the select. Thanks to economic challenges and the advent of the cloud PLM has moved to more industries, most notably healthcare and finance, and to smaller enterprises. Companies like Inforbix work hard to ensure that small and midsized enterprises are able to receive the same PLM services that once were financially impossible. Through cloud technology and a shift in expectations PLM is now available to most companies around the world.
Catherine Lamsfuss, June 21, 2012
Yippy and MuseGlobal Get Hitched. Yippy. Er, Hooray.
June 21, 2012
Take a unified search company known for its clustering technology (Yippy) and mix with a leading provider of content integration and data virtualization services (MuseGlobal). The results, according to a recent press release, will be a powerful unified access to a huge data cloud of curated content.
Carnegie Mellon University developed the award-winning deep research engine now known as Yippy.com. Yippy acquired the software in 2010, along with a perpetual license for advanced enterprise software solution Velocity. That’s where Yippy’s patented clustering methods come from.
MuseGlobal claims to maintain the largest and most versatile library of content connections in the world. The company has built a fully documented source factory that monitors, maintains, and updates connectors constantly, boosting sustainability and scalability. Muse Smart Connectors are available out-of-the-box for content federation and harvesting, in any format and across any location.
The press release declares:
“The merger of Yippy and MuseGlobal combines two wholly synergistic companies that bring together an exclusive and vast range of resources and abilities that no other search or information-based company in the world possesses including majors such as Google, Microsoft and HP/Autonomy. The combined companies will create an information cloud that will represent a significant shift in the business of enterprise, vertical and consumer search with unlimited consumer and commercial uses. The Companies’ registered trademark ‘Welcome to the Cloud’ embodies its combined data virtualization initiatives.”
The merger will increase the number of issued and outstanding common shares from 53 million to approximately 67 million. MuseGlobal was founded in the UK in 1998, and became a commercial entity in 2001. The company is now based in San Francisco, CA. Yippy makes its home in Fort Meyers, FL, and prides itself on its strong Web search privacy stance—it neither tracks nor save users’ information, including search history. The merged company will employ about 50 workers in four countries.
Cynthia Murrell, June 21, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Understanding Search Features Available in Out of the Box SharePoint
June 20, 2012
In “SharePoint 2010 Search: Relevance, Refinement, People,” Jennifer Mason takes a closer look at powerful search features available in SharePoint to help you locate and access the data and content you’ve added to the farm. Mason explains her approach to the topic:
Search is everywhere, and SharePoint is no exception. By providing your users with a way to easily find their content you are able to greatly increase the usability and user adoption within your organization. This article will highlight the specific ways that SharePoint search enhances your environment.
She also explains basic content and people search options in out-of-the-box SharePoint that can be a big help to many users. But she also points out that any advanced and higher level search functionality that can make the search and navigation experience better for your users lies in the type of licensing you have and if you choose to invest in implementing FAST Search Server for SharePoint.
Mason goes on to comment on search strategies:
In most organizations a Search strategy is developed that includes information on what content sources need to be created as well as what scopes should be implemented. A good practice is to also have a primary resource that is responsible for reviewing the Search Analytics reports and taking steps to provide continuous improvements to the overall search experience. Search is an area in SharePoint that can potentially cross many teams and require multiple resources so it is a good idea to spend some time planning to ensure that your environment is scoped appropriately.
We agree that search is always deserving of improvement and attention as it is users’ means to access and reuse valuable business knowledge. Depending on your organization, you may not want to devote the time and effort for extensive configurations and training to develop a powerful search feature. We think it would be easier to go with a simple third-party solution like Mindbreeze, cutting down on the costly man hours.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise provides consistent and comprehensive information access to both corporate and Cloud sources and . . .
finds every scrap of information within a very short time, whether document, contract, note, e-mail or calendar entry, in intranet or internet, person- or text-related. The software solution finds all required information, regardless of source, for its users. Get a comprehensive overview of corporate knowledge in seconds without redundancy or loss of data.
The seamless Cloud solution makes sure you find the right information you need at any time. Check out the full suite of solutions at Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Philip West, June 20, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
New Markets Thrive Thanks to Global Economic Downturn
June 20, 2012
Traditionally, product lifecycle management (PLM) providers have focused on industries such as aerospace, automobile and manufacturing for customers. With the global economic meltdown in 2008 PLM providers were forced to think outside the box and sell their wares elsewhere or cease to exist. The Control Engineering Asia article, “New Industries Driving PLM Market Growth”, explains how PLM has reinvented itself to include just about every industry imaginable.
The article goes into detail about how PLM providers turned their attentions beyond their traditional customers:
“These mainstay discrete industries that retreated during the economic downturn of ‘08 and ‘09 gave more impetus to PLM suppliers to look to non-traditional industries. Solutions are now being readily adopted by a set of industrial verticals such as medical devices, CPG, consumer goods, retail, ship building, energy generation & utilities, and AEC; and the adoption growth rates in these sectors reflect this trend. PLM suppliers are looking for growth in these sectors to fuel revenues as their business growth in the discrete industries matures.”
Smart PLM providers quickly understood that expanding PLM to new markets was necessary for survival. Now that a few years have passed affordable cloud based PLM solutions are readily available for every size enterprise. Some of our favorites, like Inforbix, focus on new data management solutions to help companies derive the most meaning from their data and as a result reduce waste and duplication.
Catherine Lamsfuss, June 20, 2012
Richard Paterson Assesses Mobile Access Options for your SharePoint Site
June 19, 2012
Mobile access is no doubt becoming the ubiquitous and a go-to source for users as the office extends well beyond physical office walls. In “SharePoint on Mobile Devices: The Options,” Richard Paterson takes a look at ways to expose SharePoint portals on mobile devices, including out-of-the-box mobile SharePoint views, Responsive Design, Mobile Web Apps, and native apps.
Paterson points out that mobile views are not ‘one size fits all,’ rather the delivery style you choose depends on your target audience, target device, and site content. While an out-of-the-box SharePoint mobile view is simple to implement, it gives you only basic navigation around sites, lists, and document libraries.
Paterson has this to say about a framework solution:
A framework such as Mobile Entrée can provide a richer experience than the out of the box views and will normally provide an API to code against, making extensibility and customization of the functionality intuitive. They will normally operate on templates which allows for powerful front end customization. Views can be made available for different devices, e.g. you might want a two column layout on a tablet, whereas on a phone you would want just one. Frameworks will make form building simpler and also presenting back graphs and tables often used in Business Intelligence easy and more cost effective to implement.
If your site is geared toward news, marketing, or communication, Paterson suggests that a Responsive Design may be best, but it is lacking if you need forms or functional parts. A native device app can give you big results for the user experience, but Paterson explains it also requires the largest investment.
Paterson’s reviews are not comprehensive, but definitely provide a good introduction to mobile options. You may consider the read if you’re looking to beef up your site’s mobile experience. You may also consider adding a third party solution as a means to expand mobile offerings while also saving valuable time and investment resources. We like the feedback we’ve seen about Fabasoft Mindbreeze Mobile.
Here you can read about the Mobile Search solution from Mindbreeze:
Smartphones and tablets are constant companions, indispensable in the business world. Information needs to be able to be exchanged at all times and wherever you are. Easily. Quickly. Securely. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Mobile makes company data available on all mobile devices. Regardless of whether you have a BlackBerry®, iPhone®, Windows Phone or Android™ Smartphone or a tablet such as the Apple iPad, Samsung Chromebook/GalaxyTab or Blackberry Playbook, you can act independently and freely – yet always securely. Irrespective of what format the data is in. Full functionality: the display of the search results is homogenous to the tried and tested web client in terms of clear design and intuitive navigation.
Read more about the Fabasoft Mindbreeze Search Solutions that easily integrate into your SharePoint farm at http://www.mindbreeze.com/.
Philip West, June 19, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Quixey Snags $20 Million in B Round Funding
June 19, 2012
Quixey, who says their cross-platform app search engine is one-of-a-kind, has just raised $20 million in Series B funding bringing total capital raised to $24.2 million, according to TNW Insider’s “Smart App Search Engine Quixey Raises $20m from Eric Schmidt’s VC Firm and Others.” Google Executive Chairman Schmidt’s investment firm Innovation Endeavors was joined by Chinese firm WI Harper Group; US Venture Partners; Atlantic Bridge; SK Planet; and TransLink Capital in supporting the young company.
Quixey has found a potentially profitable search niche—they address the problem of finding, out of millions of existing apps across numerous platforms, the app you need when you need it. Writer Robin Wauters describes the company:
“Quixey says it has invented a ‘new type of search’ that allows users to find mobile, desktop and Web apps ‘that do what they want’ based on natural language-based technology. The Palo Alto, California-based company teams up with phone makers, carriers, browser and online search companies to power app search for them, and encourages app publishers and developers to ‘claim’ their apps.”
Wauters points out that several companies do offer similar services: AppsFire, Apple’s acquisition Chomp, Mimvi and Appolicious, to name a few. Does Quixey offer something special?
Founded in 2009 specifically to fill this niche, Quixey has trademarked the term “Functional Search” to describe their app-finding engine. The company is located in Palo Alto, CA.
Cynthia Murrell, June 19, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
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