Is Google a New Science Fiction Sub-Genre?
August 5, 2016
Science fiction is a genre that inspires people to seek the impossible and make it a reality. Many modern inventors, scientists, computer programmers, and even artists contribute their success and careers from inspiration they garnered from the genre. Even search engine Google pulled inspiration from science fiction, but one must speculate how much of Google’s ventures are real or mere fiction? Vanity Fair questions whether or not “Is Google’s BioTech Division The Next Theranos?”
Verily Life Sciences is GoogleX’s biotech division and the company has yet to produce any biotechnology that has revolutionized the medical field. They bragged about a contact lens that would measure blood glucose levels and a wristband that could detect cancer. Verily employees have shared their views about Verily’s projects, alluding that they are more in line to fanning the Google fanfare than producing real products. Other experts are saying that Google is displaying a “Silicon Valley arrogance” along the lines of Theranos.
Theranos misled investors about its “state of the art” technology and is now under criminal investigation. Verily is supposedly different than Theranos:
“Verily, however, is not positioning itself as a company with a salable product like Theranos. Verily ‘is not a products company,’ chief medical officer Jessica Mega argued Monday on Bloomberg TV. ‘But it’s a company really focused on trying to shift the needle when it comes to health and disease.’ That’s a distinction, luckily for Google, that could make all the difference.”
There is also a distinction between fantasy and a reality and counting your chickens before they hatch. Google should be investing in experimentation medical technology that could improve treatment and save lives, but they should not promise anything until they have significant research and even a prototype as proof. Google should discuss their ventures, but not brag about them as if they were a sure thing.
Whitney Grace, August 5, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Try the Amazon Brand Computer Chip
July 14, 2016
Amazon offers its clients cloud storage, software development help, and more services via their Amazon Service Works. The global retailer is also taking on electronics and cable TV with the Kindle and Amazon Fire TV, but now, according to Trusted Reviews, “Amazon Now Selling Own-Brand Computer Chips.” Amazon wants to diversify its offerings even more with its own brand of computer chips.
The Amazon brand computer chips are made by Annapurna Labs that the company purchased last year. Amazon recently announced these chips are now available to the open market and the ARM-based processors can be used in home gateways, WiFi routers, and networked attached storage devices. They are meant to be used as cheap alternatives for home smart devices and data centers, nothing that can compete on the scale of Qualcomm.
The purpose of a capitalistic society is to drive competition and Intel has the computer chip marker monopoly:
“However, it does mark a notable challenge to another major chip manufacturer. As Bloomberg points out, Intel currently has the data-centre infrastructure field pretty much to itself, with a whopping 99% share of the server chip market. Amazon’s entry to this one-sided market could start to change that, although it won’t initially be targeting the kind of high-end servers that represent Intel’s stronghold. Amazon appears to be attacking the low-power edges of the market, which could see it powering (or at least helping to power) that hottest of networks, the Internet of Things.”
Great, Amazon is still working on developing other products, but we want to know when they are going to deploy image search.
Whitney Grace, July 14, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Artificial Intelligence Spreading to More Industries
May 10, 2016
According to MIT Technology Review, it has finally happened. No longer is artificial intelligence the purview of data wonks alone— “AI Hits the Mainstream,” they declare. Targeted AI software is now being created for fields from insurance to manufacturing to health care. Reporter Nanette Byrnes is curious to see how commercialization will affect artificial intelligence, as well as how this technology will change different industries.
What about the current state of the AI field? Byrnes writes:
“Today the industry selling AI software and services remains a small one. Dave Schubmehl, research director at IDC, calculates that sales for all companies selling cognitive software platforms —excluding companies like Google and Facebook, which do research for their own use—added up to $1 billion last year. He predicts that by 2020 that number will exceed $10 billion. Other than a few large players like IBM and Palantir Technologies, AI remains a market of startups: 2,600 companies, by Bloomberg’s count. That’s because despite rapid progress in the technologies collectively known as artificial intelligence—pattern recognition, natural language processing, image recognition, and hypothesis generation, among others—there still remains a long way to go.”
The article examines ways some companies are already using artificial intelligence. For example, insurance and financial firm USAA is investigating its use to prevent identity theft, while GE is now using it to detect damage to its airplanes’ engine blades. Byrnes also points to MyFitnessPal, Under Armor’s extremely successful diet and exercise tracking app. Through a deal with IBM, Under Armor is blending data from that site with outside research to help better target potential consumers.
The article wraps up by reassuring us that, despite science fiction assertions to the contrary, machine learning will always require human guidance. If you doubt, consider recent events—Google’s self-driving car’s errant lane change and Microsoft’s racist chatbot. It is clear the kids still need us, at least for now.
Cynthia Murrell, April 10, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
RankBrain, the Latest AI from Google, Improves Search Through Understanding and Learning
December 23, 2015
The article on Entrepreneur titled Meet RankBrain, the New AI Behind Google’s Search Results introduces the AI that Google believes will aid the search engine in better understanding the queries it receives. RankBrain is capable of connecting related words to the search terms based on context and relevance. The article explains,
“The real intention of this AI wasn’t to change visitors’ search engine results pages (SERPs) — rather, it was to predict them. As a machine-learning system, RankBrain actually teaches itself how to do something instead of needing a human to program it…According to Jack Clark, writing for Bloomberg on the topic: “[Rankbrain] uses artificial intelligence to embed vast amounts of written language into mathematical entities — called vectors — that the computer can understand.”
Google scientist Greg Corrado spoke of RankBrain actually exceeding his expectations. In one experiment, RankBrain beat a team of search engineers in predicting which pages would rank highest. (The engineers were right 70% of the time, RankBrain 80%.) The article also addresses concerns that many vulnerable brands relying on SEOs may have. The article ventures to guess that it will be mainly newer brands and services that will see a ranking shift. But of course, with impending updates, that may change.
Chelsea Kerwin, December 23, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Apple May Open up on Open Source
October 27, 2015
Is Apple ready to openly embrace open source? MacRumors reports, “Apple Building Unified Cloud Platform for iCloud, iTunes, Siri and More.” Writer Joe Rossignol cites a new report from the Information that indicates the famously secret company may be opening up to keep up with the cloudy times. He writes:
“The new platform is based on Siri, which itself is powered by open source infrastructure software called Mesos on the backend, according to the report. Apple is reportedly placing more emphasis on open source software in an attempt to attract open source engineers that can help improve its web services, but it remains to be seen how far the company shifts away from its deep culture of secrecy.
“The paywalled report explains how Apple is slowly embracing the open source community and becoming more transparent about its open source projects. It also lists some of the open source technologies that Apple uses, including Hadoop, HBase, Elasticsearch, Reak, Kafka, Azkaban and Voldemort.”
Rossignol goes on to note that, according to Bloomberg, Apple is working on a high-speed content delivery network and upgrading data centers to better compete with its rivals in the cloud, like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Will adjusting its stance on open-source allow it to keep up?
Cynthia Murrell, October 27, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Wall Street Sees Challengers to the Bloomberg Terminal
September 25, 2015
Few industries rely on timely data quite like Wall Street, and the trading platform that has long been the industry favorite has been enjoying that revenue stream for almost 30 years. However, the New York Times now reports that “The Bloomberg Terminal, a Wall Street Fixture, Faces Upstarts.” Writer Nathaniel Popper notes that funds from the popular terminal enable the company’s news endeavors: BusinessWeek and the Bloomberg Business website, it seems, “cost more than they earn.” Will all that fall away if the Bloomberg terminal loses ground to the competition?
The article relates:
“Bloomberg has sustained several challenges to its dominant market position, fending off smaller competitors hoping to bite off a corner of its business. And it has the cash reservoirs to wage a vigorous defense this time around. But Bloomberg’s own history shows that it is not easy to maintain a profitable market position like the one it has held for more than two decades. Bloomberg rose to prominence in the 1990s by nimbly replacing earlier Wall Street data companies — like Quotron and Telerate — that failed to change quickly enough to protect their longtime market dominance. Morgan Downey, the former Bloomberg executive who is building Money.Net, said he decided to leave Bloomberg in late 2013 and create a low-cost challenger after seeing how slowly Bloomberg was changing and how many of the company’s clients wanted a cheaper alternative.”
Cheaper, it seems, is the key word here. Firms are under pressure to cut costs amid new regulations and shifting markets; they are now eyeing lower-cost alternatives to the Bloomberg terminals, which run about $25,000 per year each. See the article for more on the competition, like Money.Net and chat provider Symphony.
What of Thomson Reuters? According to the article, that company’s terminal sales in the U.S. continue to disappoint, though they have done well in certain niche markets. Their terminals, we’re told, are “not notably cheaper than Bloomberg’s.” Will the upstarts topple both venerable firms?
Popper reports stockbrokers have been complaining about Bloomberg’s terminal pricing and lack of innovative product design. Then again, retired New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is said to be taking a more active role in the company. Perhaps with his efforts, it will manage to fend off the challengers. For now.
Cynthia Murrell, September 25, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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