How to Use Watson
August 17, 2015
While there are many possibilities for cognitive computing, what makes an idea a reality is its feasibility and real life application. The Platform explores “The Real Trouble With Cognitive Computing” and the troubles IBM had (has) trying to figure out what they are going to do with the supercomputer they made. The article explains that before Watson became a Jeopardy celebrity, the IBM folks came up 8,000 potential experiments for Watson to do, but only 20 percent of them.
The range is small due to many factors, including bug testing, gauging progress with fuzzy outputs, playing around with algorithmic interactions, testing in isolation, and more. This leads to the “messy” way to develop the experiments. Ideally, developers would have a big knowledge model and be able to query it, but that option does not exist. The messy way involves keeping data sources intact, natural language processing, machine learning, and knowledge representation, and then distributed on an infrastructure.
Here is another key point that makes clear sense:
“The big issue with the Watson development cycle too is that teams are not just solving problems for one particular area. Rather, they have to create generalizable applications, which means what might be good for healthcare, for instance, might not be a good fit—and in fact even be damaging to—an area like financial services. The push and pull and tradeoff of the development cycle is therefore always hindered by this—and is the key barrier for companies any smaller than an IBM, Google, Microsoft, and other giants.”
This is exactly correct! Engineering is not the same as healthcare and it not all computer algorithms transfer over to different industries. One thing to keep in mind is that you can apply different methods from other industries and come up with new methods or solutions.
Whitney Grace, August 18, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Bing Is Very Important, I Mean VERY Important
July 31, 2015
The online magazine eWeek published, “What The Bing Search Engine Brings To Microsoft’s Web Strategy” and it explains how Bing spurs a lot of debate:
“Some who don’t like the direction in which Google is going say that Bing is the search engine they prefer, especially since Microsoft has honed Bing’s ability to deliver relevant results. Others, however, look at Bing as one of many products from Microsoft, which is still seen as the “Evil Empire” in some quarters and a search platform that’s incapable of delivering the results that compare favorably with Google. Bing, introduced six years ago in 2009, is still a remarkably controversial product in Microsoft’s lineup. But it’s one that plays an important role in so many of the company’s Internet services.”
Microsoft is ramping up Bing to become a valuable part of its software services, it continues its partnership with Yahoo and Apple, and it will also power AOL’s web advertising and search. Bing is becoming a more respected search engine, but what does it have to offer?
Bing has many features it is using to entice people to stop using Google. When searching a person’s name, search results display a bio of the person (only if they are affluent, however). Bing has a loyalty program, seriously, called Bing Rewards, the more you search on Bing it rewards points that are redeemable for gift cards, movie rentals, and other items.
Bing is already a big component in Microsoft software, including Windows 10 and Office 365. It serves as the backbone for not only a system search, but searching the entire Internet. Think Apple’s Spotlight, except for Windows. It also supports a bevy of useful applications and do not forget about Cortana, which is Microsoft’s answer to Siri.
Bing is very important to Microsoft because of the ad revenue. It is just a guess, but you can always ask Cortana for the answer.
Whitney Grace, July 31, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
An Obscure Infographic About London Coffee Shops
July 29, 2015
Here’s a unique pair of graphics, particularly of interest for anyone who can see themselves enjoying a cup of joe in London. Gizmodo presents “A Taxonomy of Hip Coffee Shop Names.” The infographic from Information is Beautiful lays out London’s hipster coffee shops by both naming convention and location. Both charts size their entries by popularity– the more popular a shop the bigger disk (coaster?) its name sits upon. The brief write-up sets the scene:
“As you walk down the sidewalk, you see a chalkboard in the distance. As you step a little closer, you smell the deep musk of coffee emanating from an artfully distressed front door. Out steps a man with a beard, a Mac slung under his arm, sipping from small re-useable flat white-sized cup. You’ve stumbled across another hip coffee shop. Now, what’s it called?
“Information is Beautiful … breaks the naming structure down by type: there are ones themed around drugs, chatter, beans, brewing, socialism and more. But they all share one thing in common: they sound just like they could be hand-painted above that scene you just saw.”
So, if you like coffee, London, hipsters, or taxonomy-graphics, take a gander. From Alchemy to Maison d’être to Window, a shop or two are sure to peak the curiosity.
Cynthia Murrell, July 29, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Lexalytics: GUI and Wizard
June 12, 2015
What is one way to improve a user’s software navigational experience? One of the best ways is to add a graphical user interface (GUI). Software Development @ IT Business Net shares a press release about “Lexalytics Unveils Industry’s First Wizard For Text Mining And Sentiment Analysis.” Lexalytics is one of the leading companies that provides sentiment and analytics solutions and as the article’s title explains it has made an industry first by releasing a GUI and wizard for Semantria SaaS platform and Excel plug-in. The wizard and GUI (SWIZ) are part of the Semantria Online Configurator, SWEB 1.3, which also included functionality updates and layout changes.
” ‘In order to get the most value out of text and sentiment analysis technologies, customers need to be able to tune the service to match their content and business needs,’ said Jeff Catlin, CEO, Lexalytics. ‘Just like Apple changed the game for consumers with its first Macintosh in 1984, making personal computing easy and fun through an innovative GUI, we want to improve the job of data analysts by making it just as fun, easy and intuitive with SWIZ.’”
Lexalytics is dedicated to helping its clients enjoy an easier experience when it comes to data analytics. The company wants its clients to get the answers they by providing the tools they need to get them without having to over think the retrieval process. While Lexalytics already provides robust and flexible solutions, the SWIZ release continues to prove it has the most tunable and configurable text mining technology.
Whitney Grace, June 12, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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