IBM, China, and Source Code
November 3, 2015
The Google wanted China to change its stripes. IBM, if I understand the implications of “IBM Gives the Chinese Government Access to Software Code, is taking a more conciliatory approach.
The write up explains:
IBM said it is giving the Chinese government access to some software code, seeking to demonstrate the security of its products as the company tries to expand its business in the country.
The good news is:
Beijing won’t receive client data or “back doors” into the technology, International Business Machines Corp. said Friday in a statement. Technology providers including Microsoft Corp. have reached similar agreements in China, IBM said. Microsoft established a program with China in 2003, giving the government access to some Windows source code.
There you go.
IBM is buttoned up. The write up states:
IBM also reduces the risk that its intellectual property will be copied by granting the government access in a controlled environment on the company’s machinery, Wang said. IBM is probably revealing code for basic features, he said, rather than disclosing proprietary algorithms.
What could possibly go wrong? Perhaps IBM asked Watson, and the smart software suggested this source code thing as a way to generate more business in China. No information is available to me if the code for i2 and Cybertap were part of the deal. That ANB file format is or was a bit of a close hold.
Stephen E Arnold, November 3, 2015
It Is Not a Bird in the Law Firm
November 3, 2015
In science-fiction, artificial intelligence is mostly toyed around with in robots and androids. Machines that bear artificial intelligence either try to destroy humanity for their imperfection or coexist with humanity in a manner that results in comedic situations. In reality, artificial intelligence exists in most everyday objects from a mobile phone to a children’s toy. Artificial intelligence is a much more common occurrence than we give our scientists credit for and it has more practical applications than we could imagine. According to PR Newswire one of the top artificial intelligence developers has made a new deal for their popular product, “RAVN Systems’ Artificial Intelligence Platform Is Deployed At Berwin Leighton Paisner.”
RAVN Systems is known for their top of line software in enterprise search, unstructured big data analytics, knowledge management, and, of course, artificial intelligence. The international law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner recently deployed RAVN Systems’s RAVN Applied Cognitive Engine (RAVN ACE). RAVN ACE will work in the law firm’s real estate practice, not as a realtor, but as the UK’s first contract robot. It will use cutting-edge AI to read and interpret information from documents, converting unstructured data into structured output. RAVN ACE will free up attorneys to complete more complex, less menial tasks.
“Matthew Whalley, Head of Legal Risk Consultancy at BLP commented, ‘The robot has fast become a key member of the team. It delivers perfect results every time we use it. Team morale and productivity has benefited hugely, and I expect us to create a cadre of contract robots throughout the firm. If the reaction to our first application is any indication, we will be leading the implementation of AI in the Law for some time to come.’ ”
RAVN ACE has more applications than writing real estate contracts. It can be deployed for financial services, media, telecommunications, and more. Taking over the menial tasks will save on time , allowing organizations to reinvest time into other projects.
Whitney Grace, November 3, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Google Hacks to Make You Grin
October 30, 2015
Google is run by a bunch of geeks that entertain themselves using the high tech toys at their fingertips. Beyond the insertion of Douglas Adams references in search results, there are other Google hacks that the tech geeks developed to make themselves and you smile. Digital Spy tracked down “Eleven Google Secrets That Will Change The Way You Search, From Playing Pac-Man To Lego Street View.”
“Day after day you hammer out search after search, overlooking not only the hidden gems lurking beneath the surface, but the very thing that makes Google such an anomaly amongst the world’s biggest companies – its sense of humor. Here are a few thinks you might not have known you can do in Google.”
Google can do numerous things just by typing a few simple commands into the search bar. Try typing: “askew” or “tilt,” “do a barrel roll,” and “Zerg rush.” Google is also a time machine and can take you back to the 1998 Google interface or you can spend hours playing Pac-Man on an uploaded Google Doodle from May 2010. The yellow stick figure on Google Street View also likes to play dress-up when he visits certain places.
But our absolute favorite is the six degrees of Kevin Bacon calculator. Based off an old Internet meme that everyone in Hollywood has worked with Kevin Bacon in less than six degrees, type in a famous person and “bacon number” to find out how close their careers are.
Little hacks and fun games like this show the human side to the Google empire. What will they think of next? However, it would be nice if Google added some practical functions, such as a time and date feature.
Whitney Grace, October 30, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Latest Global Internet Report Available
October 30, 2015
The Internet Society has made available its “Global Internet Report 2015,” just the second in its series. World-wide champions of a free and open Internet, the society examines mobile Internet usage patterns around the globe. The report’s Introduction explains:
“We focus this year’s report on the mobile Internet for two reasons. First, as with mobile telephony, the mobile Internet does not just liberate us from the constraints of a wired connection, but it offers hundreds of millions around the world their only, or primary, means of accessing the Internet. Second, the mobile Internet does not just extend the reach of the Internet as used on fixed connections, but it offers new functionality in combination with new portable access devices.”
It continues with this important warning:
“The nature of the Internet should remain collaborative and inclusive, regardless of changing means of access. In particular, the mobile Internet should remain open, to enable the permission-less innovation that has driven the continuous growth and evolution of the Internet to date, including the emergence of the mobile Internet itself.”
Through the report’s landing page, above, you can navigate to the above-cited Introduction, the report’s Executive Summary, and Section 2: Trends and Growth. There is even an interactive mobile Internet timeline. Scroll to the bottom to download the full report, in PDF, Kindle, or ePub formats. The download is free, but those interested can donate to the organization here.
Cynthia Murrell, October 30, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
CSI Search Informatics Are Actually Real
October 29, 2015
CSI might stand for a popular TV franchise, but it also stands for “compound structured identification” Phys.org explains in “Bioinformaticians Make The Most Efficient Search Engine For Molecular Structures Available Online.” Sebastian Böcker and his team at the Friedrich Schiller University are researching metabolites, chemical compounds that determine an organism’s metabolism. Metabolites are used to gauge information about the condition of living cells.
While this is amazing science there are some drawbacks:
“This process is highly complex and seldom leads to conclusive results. However, the work of scientists all over the world who are engaged in this kind of fundamental research has now been made much easier: The bioinformatics team led by Prof. Böcker in Jena, together with their collaborators from the Aalto-University in Espoo, Finland, have developed a search engine that significantly simplifies the identification of molecular structures of metabolites.”
The new search works like a regular search engine, but instead of using keywords it searches through molecular structure databases containing information and structural formulae of metabolites. The new search will reduce time in identifying the compound structures, saving on costs and time. The hope is that the new search will further research into metabolites and help researchers spend more time working on possible breakthroughs.
Whitney Grace, October 29, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
The PurePower Geared Turbofan Little Engine That Could
October 29, 2015
The article on Bloomberg Business titled The Little Gear That Could Reshape the Jet Engine conveys the 30 year history of Pratt & Whitney’s new PurePower Geared Turbofan aircraft engines. These are impressive machines, they burn less fuel, pollute less, and produce 75% less noise. But thirty years in the making? The article explains,
“In Pratt’s case, it required the cooperation of hundreds of engineers across the company, a $10 billion investment commitment from management, and, above all, the buy-in of aircraft makers and airlines, which had to be convinced that the engine would be both safe and durable. “It’s the antithesis of a Silicon Valley innovation,” says Alan Epstein, a retired MIT professor who is the company’s vice president for technology and the environment. “The Silicon Valley guys seem to have the attention span of 3-year-olds.”
It is difficult to imagine what, if anything, “Silicon Valley guys” might develop if they spent three decades researching, collaborating, and testing a single project. Even more so because of the planned obsalesence of their typical products seeming to speed up every year. In the case of this engine, the article suggests that the time spent has positives and negatives for the company- certain opportunities with big clients were lost along the way, but the dedicated effort also attracted new clients.
Chelsea Kerwin, October 29, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
University Partners up with Leidos to Investigate How to Cut Costs in Healthcare with Big Data Usage
October 22, 2015
The article on News360 titled Gulu Gambhir: Leidos Virginia Tech to Research Big Data Usage for Healthcare Field explains the partnership based on researching the possible reduction in healthcare costs through big data. Obviously, healthcare costs in this country have gotten out of control, and perhaps that is more clear to students who grew up watching the cost of single pain pill grow larger and larger without regulation. The article doesn’t go into detail on how the application of big data from electronic health records might ease costs, but Leidos CTO Gulu Gambhir sounds optimistic.
“The company said Thursday the team will utilize technical data from healthcare providers to develop methods that address the sector’s challenges in terms of cost and the quality of care. Gulu Gambhir, chief technology officer and a senior vice president at Leidos, said the company entered the partnership to gain knowledge for its commercial and federal healthcare business.”
The partnership also affords excellent opportunities for Virginia Tech students to gain real-world, hands-on knowledge of data research, hopefully while innovating the healthcare industry. Leidos has supplied funding to the university’s Center for Business Intelligence and Analytics as well as a fellowship program for grad students studying advanced information systems related to healthcare research.
Chelsea Kerwin, October 22, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
The Tweet Gross Domestic Product Tool
October 16, 2015
Twitter can be used to figure out your personal income. Twitter was not designed to be a tool to tally a person’s financial wealth, instead it is a communication tool based on a one hundred forty character messages to generate for small, concise delivery. Twitter can be used to chat with friends, stars, business executives, etc, follow news trends, and even advertise products by sent to a tailored audience. According to Red Orbit in the article “People Can Guess Your Income Based On Your Tweets,” Twitter has another application.
Other research done on Twitter has revealed that your age, location, political preferences, and disposition to insomnia, but your tweet history also reveals your income. Apparently, if you tweet less, you make more money. The controls and variables for the experiment were discussed, including that 5,191 Twitter accounts with over ten million tweets were analyzed and accounts with a user’s identifiable profession were used.
Users with a high follower and following ratio had the most income and they tended to post the least. Posting throughout the day and cursing indicated a user with a lower income. The content of tweets also displayed a plethora of “wealth” information:
“It isn’t just the topics of your tweets that’s giving you away either. Researchers found that “users with higher income post less emotional (positive and negative) but more neutral content, exhibiting more anger and fear, but less surprise, sadness and disgust.” It was also apparent that those who swore more frequently in their tweets had lower income.”
Twitter uses the information to tailor ads for users, if you share neutral posts get targeted ads advertising expensive items, while the cursers get less expensive ad campaigns. The study also proves that it is important to monitor your Twitter profile, so you are posting the best side of yourself rather than shooting yourself in the foot.
Whitney Grace, October 16, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Technology Fear News Flash: Search Not in the Top 10
October 15, 2015
I read one of those out-of-the-blue research study summaries. The information appears in Network World, a corporate family member of my favorite mid tier consulting firm IDC. The write up is titled with a zippy angle: Fear; to wit, “Technology Scares the Hell Out of People, University Survey Finds.”
I found the article a fiesta of take-it-to-the-bank information.
The snappy graphic caught my eye. Each of the Top 10 fears warrants a cartoon treatment. Here’s an example for running out of money in the future Fear Number Nine.
Source: Network World which used a cartoon from Chapman University. Academia and cartoons. Interesting.
I like the human carrying a weight (at first glance it looks like a debt bomb) up the pile of what appears to be back issues of unsold copies of print version of IDC reports. Adult Swim may do a feature based on this fear. That will be a winner.
On to another gem from the article. I highlighted this passage in the write up:
Technology-related concerns account for 3 of the top 5 biggest fears among Americans surveyed recently by Chapman University of Orange, Calif. — and a couple of the other concerns on the top 10 list could be considered tech-related worries as well.
And the tech fears are:
- Cyber terrorism
- Corporate tracking of personal information
- Government tracking of personal information
The write up adds:
Numbers 7 (Identity theft) and #10 (Credit card fraud) could also be classified as tech-related worries.
Quite a payload of fear. The write up does not include any details about the sample size, the methodology, or the folks doing the work which could be undergraduates or adjuncts for all I know.
Stepping back, let’s think about technology and analytics. On the surface, those in the sample are not exactly comfortable with what I call the Silicon Valley way. Thinking more deeply, the fears suggest that the survey suggests trust is not part of the warp and woof of the lives of the lucky folks in the sample.
My hunch is that if we polled some government officials, big time technology company CEOs, a couple of hundred top one percenters, and 20 somethings looking for a job in Palo Alto, the results might be different. I look forward to a report from IDC on this topic. I hope the author is my favorite IDC expert Dave Schubmehl. He is not afraid of technology based on my experience.
Stephen E Arnold, October 15, 2015
Predictive Search Tries to Work with Videos
October 14, 2015
Predictive search is a common feature in search engines such as Google. It is more well-known as auto-complete, where based on spelling and keyword content the search engine predicts what a user is searching for. Predictive search speeds up the act of searching, but ever since YouTube became the second biggest search engine after Google one has to wonder if “Does Video Enhance Predictive Search?” asks Search Engine Watch.
Search engine and publisher of travel deals Travelzoo created a video series called “#zootips” that was designed to answer travel questions people might search for on Google. The idea behind the video series was that the videos would act as a type of predictive feature anticipating a traveler’s needs.
“‘There’s always push and pull with information,’ says Justin Soffer, vice president of marketing at Travelzoo. ‘A lot of what search is, is people pulling – meaning they’re looking for something specific. What videos are doing is more of a push, telling people what to look for and showing them things.’ ”
Along with Travelzoo, representatives from SEO-PR and Imagination Publishing also agree that video will enhance video search. Travelzoo says that video makes Web content more personal, because an actual person is delivering it. SEO-PR recommends researching keywords with Google Trends and creating videos centered on those words. Imagination Publishing believes that video content will increase a Web site’s Google ranking as it ranks media rich pages higher and there is an increase in voice search and demand for how-to videos.
It is predicted that YouTube’s demand as a search engine will increase more content will be created for video. If you understand how video and predictive analytics work, you will have an edge in future Google rankings.
Whitney Grace, October 14, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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