Superior Customer Service Promised through the Accenture Virtual Agent Amelia
August 17, 2016
The article titled Accenture Forms New Business Unit Around IPsoft’s Amelia AI Platform on ZDNet introduces Amelia as a virtual agent capable of providing services in industries such as banking, insurance, and travel. Amelia looks an awful lot like Ava from the film Ex Machina, wherein an AI robot manipulates a young programmer by appealing to his empathy. Similarly, Accenture’s Amelia is supposed to be far more expressive and empathetic than her kin in the female AI world such as Siri or Amazon’s Alexa. The article states,
“Accenture said it will develop a suite of go-to-market strategies and consulting services based off of the Amelia platform…the point is to appeal to executives who “are overwhelmed by the plethora of technologies and many products that are advertising AI or Cognitive capabilities”…For Accenture, the formation of the Amelia practice is the latest push by the company to establish a presence in the rapidly expanding AI market, which research firm IDC predicts will reach $9.2 billion by 2019.”
What’s that behind Amelia, you ask? Looks like a parade of consultants ready and willing to advise the hapless executives who are so overwhelmed by their options. The Amelia AI Platform is being positioned as a superior customer service agent who will usher in the era of digital employees.
Chelsea Kerwin, August 17, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
There is a Louisville, Kentucky Hidden /Dark Web meet up on August 23, 2016.
Information is at this link: https://www.meetup.com/Louisville-Hidden-Dark-Web-Meetup/events/233019199/
Salesforce Blackout
July 27, 2016
Salesforce.com is a cloud computing company with the majority of its profits coming from customer relationship management and acquiring commercial social networking apps. According to PC World, Salesforce recently had a blackout and the details were told in: “Salesforce Outage Continues In Some Parts Of The US.” In early May, Salesforce was down for over twelve hours due to a file integrity issue in the NA14 database.
The outage occurred in the morning with limited services restored later in the evening. Salesforce divides its customers into instances. The NA14 instance is located in North America as many of the customers who complained via Twitter are located in the US.
The exact details were:
“The database failure happened after “a successful site switch” of the NA14 instance “to resolve a service disruption that occurred between 00:47 to 02:39 UTC on May 10, 2016 due to a failure in the power distribution in the primary data center,” the company said. Later on Tuesday, Salesforce continued to report that users were still unable to access the service. It said it did not believe “at this point” that it would be able to repair the file integrity issue. Instead, it had shifted its focus to recovering from a prior backup, which had not been affected by the file integrity issues.”
It is to be expected that power outages like this would happen and they will reoccur in the future. Technology is only as reliable as the best circuit breaker and electricity flows. This is why it is recommended to back up your files in more than one place.
Whitney Grace, July 27, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Stepes: Human Translation at Your Fingertips
June 24, 2016
Though today’s machine translation is a convenient way to quickly get the gist of a foreign-language passage, it has its limitations; professionals still turn to human translation services when it counts. A new platform, Stepes Translate, can bridge the gap (at least until algorithms catch up). Its chat-based format makes it as convenient as machine translation, but there is an actual, multi-lingual human at the other end. BusinessWire reports, “Stepes Extends Google Translate Model to Live Human Translation.” The press release explains:
“Stepes Translate uses the familiar side by side interface of machine translation platforms like Google Translate. Anyone requesting translation simply enters their text into the source field. Next, Stepes immediately identifies an appropriate translator from its network of more than 60,000 in-country translators through mobile notification. The translator begins to translate immediately on his/her smartphone while the requesting user can see their progress live. For most requests, the translation is completed within minutes and appears in the target field for the requesting user to see. … Whereas traditional translation software is overly technical and thus not easily accessible to many translators, Stepes’ mobile technology makes translation tools intuitive.”
Stepes can translate more than 100 languages, and offers a 3-tiered pricing based on quality. If you don’t mind a few awkward passages and humorous phrasings, there is the Basic, 10-cents/word plan. If you need to make a good impression, or the document has legal implications, you’ll want to spring for the Premium, 16-cents/word option.
A project of localization firm CSOFT, Stepes Translate is also known as the Social Translation Experiment Project and Eco System. The acronym is also a nod to the European steppes, the region from which sprung hundreds of the world’s major languages. Headquartered in Beijing, CSOFT (or Communications Solutions Of Foreign Trade) was established in 2003. The company attributes their global success to a strong emphasis on customer service.
Cynthia Murrell, June 24, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Ebay Is Sold Structured Data
January 19, 2016
PayPal and eBay split in 2015 and many people thought it was a poor mistake on eBay’s part. However, eBay has recouped any potential loses by record profits and more than 159 million sellers. Channel Advisor explains that one of the reasons eBay has grown so much is due to its incorporation of structured data and its importance for organic search in the article, “eBay Moves Towards Structured Data-And Why It Matters.”
As an avid eBay buyer and seller, I have been impressed with the new changes in eBay’s demand for structured data. In the past, if you wanted to find anything on eBay you had to go directly to the Web site and dig through results. Sometimes you could find results on Google or another search engine, but these were usually cached auctions. Since the switchover, eBay listings are prominent within Google’s search results. What is even better is how accurate they are!
EBay has turned to structured data as a way to compete with Amazon. While this is beneficial in the long run, it forces sellers to refocus their strategies. The article gives some great tips on how to improve your listings for the best organic search effectiveness. What eBay is demanding now is item specifics so items are placed in the right categories and also helps buyers make more informed decisions. Product identifiers are now very important and mandatory in many categories. These include item specifics such as UPCs, ISBNs, MPNs, GTINs, and more. The goal with all this extra information is to increase visibility in Google and eBay search results.
“In addition to the above benefits, adding identifiers will give you:
- The ability to match your item with a product from the more robust eBay catalogue
- More accurate pricing guidance when you list your items
- Trending price alerts — when your listings are priced lower than the trending price
EBay suggests adding identifiers even if they’re not yet required for your category – doing so will earn you an early competitive edge.”
EBay used to be the one-stop shopping destination online, but Amazon has quickly stolen that title from them. With more detailed listings and visibility in Google, eBay is sure to win back customers.
Whitney Grace, January 19, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Kmart Australia Faces Security Breach
November 30, 2015
Oracle’s Endeca and IBM’s Coremetrics were both caught up in a customer-data hack at Kmart Australia, we learn from “Customer Data Stolen in Kmart Australia Hack” at iTnews. Fortunately, it appears credit card numbers and other payment information were not compromised; just names, contact information, and purchase histories were snagged. It seems Kmart Australia’s choice to use a third party to process payments was a wise decision. The article states:
“The retailer uses ANZ Bank’s CyberSource payments gateway for credit card processing, and does not store the details internally. iTnews understands Kmart’s online ecommerce platform is built on IBM’s WebSphere Commerce software. The ecommerce solution also includes the Oracle Endeca enterprise data discovery platform and Coremetrics (also owned by IBM) digital marketing platform, iTnews understands.
The article goes on to report that Kmart Australia has created a new executive position, “head of online trading and customer experience.” Perhaps that choice will help the company avoid such problems in the future. It also notes that the retailer reported the breach voluntarily. Though such reporting is not yet mandatory in Australia, legislation to make it so is expected to be introduced before the end of the year.
Cynthia Murrell, November 30, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Coveo Announces Growth, Success, and an Internal Promotion
June 8, 2015
The article titled Coveo Announces Another Sequential Best Quarter as Its Intelligent Search Apps Upskill Thousands of People on Digital Journal points to increased market demand for its apps. Coveo’s mission is to aid businesses in improving people’s knowledge and ability with Search. Coveo for Salesforce offers customers a hub to resolve the issues that would typically require a customer service rep. The article explains,
“Coveo for Salesforce saw rapid adoption, particularly within the high tech and financial services industries, where mid-size to Fortune 500 organizations selected Coveo to scale customer service operations. Coveo for Salesforce – Communities Edition helps customers solve their own cases by proactively offering case-resolving knowledge suggestions and Coveo for Salesforce – Service Cloud Edition helps agents upskill as they engage customers by injecting case-resolving content and experts into the Salesforce UI as they work.”
The article also discusses the promotion of Mike Raley, currently senior director of demand generation, to VP of marketing. That makes him accountable for the company’s international marketing. The article seems like good news, what with the reported “record levels of bookings growth,” but it offers no actual revenues or information about the $30 million in venture funding the company has amassed.
Chelsea Kerwin, June 8, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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