Career Advice from Successful Googlers
November 18, 2015
A few words of wisdom from a Google veteran went from Quora query to Huffington Post article in, “What It Takes to Rise the Ranks at Google: Advice from a Senior Staff Engineer.” The original question was, “How hard is it to make Senior Engineer at Google.” HuffPo senior editor Nico Pitney reproduces the most popular response, that of senior engineer Carlos Pizano. Pizano lists some of his education and pre-Google experience, and gives some credit to plain luck, but here’s the part that makes this good guidance for approaching many jobs:
“I happen to be a believer of specialization, so becoming ‘the person’ on a given subject helped me a lot. Huge swaths of core technology key to Google’s success I know nothing about, of some things I know all there is to know … or at least my answers on the particular subject were the best to be found at Google. Finally, I never focused on my career. I tried to help everybody that needed advice, even fixing their code when they let me and was always ready to spread the knowledge. Coming up with projects but giving them to eager, younger people. Shine the light on other’s accomplishments. All that comes back to you when performance review season comes.”
Knowing your stuff and helping others—yes, that will go a long way indeed. For more engineers’ advice, some of which is more Google-specific, navigate to the list of responses here.
Cynthia Murrell, November 18, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Icann Is an I Won’t
November 16, 2015
Have you ever heard of Icann? You are probably like many people within the United States and have not heard of the non-profit private company. What does Icann do? Icann is responsible for Internet protocol addresses (IP) and coordinating domain names, so basically the company is responsible for a huge portion of the Internet. According to The Guardian in “The Internet Is Run By An Unaccountable Private Company. This Is A Problem,” the US supposedly runs the Icann but its role is mostly clerical and by September 30, 2015 it was supposed to hand the reins over to someone else.
The “else” is the biggest question. The Icann community spent hours trying to figure out who would manage the company, but they ran into a huge brick wall. The biggest issue is that the volunteers want Icann to have more accountability, which does not seem feasible. Icann’s directors cannot be fired, except by each other. Finances are another problem with possible governance risks and corruption.
A supposed solution is to create a membership organization, a common business model for non-profits and will give power to the community. Icann’s directors are not too happy and have been allowed to add their own opinions. Decisions are not being made at Icann and with the new presidential election the entire power shift could be off. It is not the worst that could happen:
“But there’s much more at stake. Icann’s board – as ultimate authority in this little company running global internet resources, and answerable (in fact, and in law) to no one – does have the power to reject the community’s proposals. But not everything that can be done, should be done. If the board blunders on, it will alienate those volunteers who are the beating heart of multi-stakeholder governance. It will also perfectly illustrate why change is required.”
The board has all the power and the do not have anyone to hold them accountable. Icann directors just have to stall long enough to keep things the same and they will be able to give themselves more raises.
Whitney Grace, November 16, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Expect Disruption from Future Technology
November 13, 2015
A dystopian future where technology has made humanity obsolete is a theme older than the Industrial Revolution. History has proven that while some jobs are phased out thanks to technology more jobs are created by it, after all someone needs to monitor and make the machines. As technology grows and makes computing systems capable of reason, startups are making temporary gigs permanent jobs, and 3D printing makes it possible to make any object, the obsolete humanity idea does not seem so far-fetched. Kurzweilai shares a possible future with “The SAP Future Series: Digital Technology’s Exponential Growth Curve Foretells Avalanche Of Business Disruption.”
While technology has improved lives of countless people, it is disrupting industries. These facts prove to be insightful into how disruptive:
- In 2015 Airbnb will become the largest hotel chain in the world, launched in 2008, with more than 850,000 rooms, and without owning any hotels.
- From 2012 to 2014, Uber consumed 65% of San Francisco’s taxi business.
- Advances in artificial intelligence and robotics put 47% of US employment — over 60 million jobs — at high risk of being replaced in the next decade.
- 10 million new autonomous vehicles per year may be entering US highways by 2030.
- Today’s sensors are 1 billion times better — 1000x lighter, 1000x cheaper, 1000x the resolution — than only 40 years ago. By 2030, 100 trillion sensors could be operational worldwide.
- DNA sequencing cost dropped precipitously — from $1 billion to $5,000 — in 15 years. By 2020 could be $0.01.
- In 2000 it took $5,000,000 to launch an internet start-up. Today the cost is less than $5,000.
Using a series of videos, SAP explains how disruption will change the job market, project management, learning, and even predicting future growth. Rather than continuing the dystopia future projections, SAP positions itself to offer hope and ways to adapt for your success. Humanity will be facing huge changes because of technology in the near future, but our successful ability to adapt always helps us evolve.
3DWhitney Grace, November 13, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Product Hunt Adds Collections to Its Search Results
November 13, 2015
Product Hunt is a website for the cutting-edge consumer, where users share information about the latest and greatest in the tech market. The Next Web tells us, “Product Hunt Now Lets You Follow and Search for Collections.” A “collection” can be established by any user to curate and share groups of products. An example would be a selection of website-building tools, or of the best electronic-device accessories for charging electronic devices. The very brief write-up reveals:
“Product Hunt, the Web’s favorite destination to discover new apps, gadgets and connected services, has updated its Collections feature, allowing users to follow and search for curated lists. You can now follow any collection you find interesting to receive notifications when new products are added to them. Collections will also show up in search results alongside products. In addition, curators can add comments to products in their collections to describe them or note why they’ve included them in their list.”
So now finding the best of the latest is even easier. An important tool for anyone with a need, and the means, to keep in front of the technology curve. Launched in 2013, Product Hunt is based in San Francisco. Their Collections feature was launched last December, and this year the site also added sections specifically for books and for games.
Cynthia Murrell, November 13, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
On the Prevalence of Open Source
November 11, 2015
Who would have thought, two decades ago, that open source code was going to dominate the software field? Vallified’s Philip O’Toole meditates on “The Strange Economics of Open-Source Software.” Though the industry gives so much away for free, it’s doing quite well for itself.
O’Toole notes that closed-source software is still in wide use, largely in banks’ embedded devices and underpinning services. Also, many organizations are still attached to their Microsoft and Oracle products. But the tide has been turning; he writes:
“The increasing dominance of open-source software seems particularly true with respect to infrastructure software. While security software has often been open-source through necessity — no-one would trust it otherwise — infrastructure is becoming the dominant category of open-source. Look at databases — MySQL, MongoDB, RethinkDB, CouchDB, InfluxDB (of which I am part of the development team), or cockroachdb. Is there anyone today that would even consider developing a new closed-source database? Or take search technology — elasticsearch, Solr, and bleve — all open-source. And Linux is so obvious, it is almost pointless to mention it. If you want to create a closed-source infrastructure solution, you better have an enormously compelling story, or be delivering it as part of a bigger package such as a software appliance.”
It has gotten to the point where developers may hesitate to work on a closed-source project because it will do nothing for their reputation. Where do the profits come from, you may ask? Why in the sale of services, of course. It’s all part of today’s cloud-based reality.
Cynthia Murrell, November 11, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Drone and Balloon WiFi Coming to the Sky near You
November 10, 2015
Google and Facebook have put their differences aside to expand Internet access to four billion people. Technology Review explains in “Facebook;s Internet Drone Team Is Collaborating With Google’s Stratospheric Balloons Project” how both companies have filed documented with the US Federal Communications Commission to push international law to make it easier to have aircraft fly 12.5 miles or 20 kilometers above the Earth, placing it in the stratosphere.
Google has been working on balloons that float in the stratosphere that function as aerial cell towers and Facebook is designing drones the size of aircraft that are tethered to the ground that serve the same purpose. While the companies are working together, they will not state how. Both Google and Facebook are working on similar projects, but the aerial cell towers marks a joint effort where they putting aside their difference (for the most part) to improve information access.
“However, even if Google and Facebook work together, corporations alone cannot truly spread Internet access as widely as is needed to promote equitable access to education and other necessities, says Nicholas Negroponte, a professor at MIT’s Media Lab and founder of the One Laptop Per Child Project. ‘I think that connectivity will become a human right,’ said Negroponte, opening the session at which Facebook and Google’s Maguire and DeVaul spoke. Ensuring that everyone gets that right requires the Internet to be operated similar to public roads, and provided by governments, he said.”
Quality Internet access not only could curb poor education, but it could also improve daily living. People in developing countries would be able to browse information to remedy solutions and even combat traditional practices that do more harm than good.
Some of the biggest obstacles will be who will maintain the aerial cell towers and also if they will pose any sort of environmental danger.
Whitney Grace, November 10, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Banks Turn to Blockchain Technology
November 9, 2015
Cryptocurrency has come a long way, and now big banks are taking the technology behind Bitcoin very seriously, we learn in “Nine of the World’s Biggest Banks Form Blockchain Partnership” at Re/code. Led by financial technology firm R3, banks are signing on to apply blockchain tech to the financial markets. A few of the banks involved so far include Goldman Sacks, Barclays, JP Morgan, Royal Bank of Scotland, Credit Suisse, and Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The article notes:
“The blockchain works as a huge, decentralized ledger of every bitcoin transaction ever made that is verified and shared by a global network of computers and therefore is virtually tamper-proof. The Bank of England has a team dedicated to it and calls it a ‘key technological innovation.’ The data that can be secured using the technology is not restricted to bitcoin transactions. Two parties could use it to exchange any other information, within minutes and with no need for a third party to verify it. [R3 CEO David] Rutter said the initial focus would be to agree on an underlying architecture, but it had not yet been decided whether that would be underpinned by bitcoin’s blockchain or another one, such as one being built by Ethereum, which offers more features than the original bitcoin technology.”
Rutter did mention he expects this tech to be used post-trade, not directly in exchange or OTC trading, at least not soon. It is hoped the use of blockchain technology will increase security while reducing security and errors.
Cynthia Murrell, November 9, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Data Analytics Is More Than Simple Emotion
November 6, 2015
Hopes and Fears posted the article, “Are You Happy Now? The Uncertain Future Of Emotion Analytics” discusses the possible implications of technology capable of reading emotions. The article opens with a scenario from David Collingridge explaining that the only way to truly gauge technology’s impact is when it has become so ingrained into society that it would be hard to change. Many computing labs are designing software capable of reading emotions using an array of different sensors.
The biggest problem ahead is not how to integrate emotion reading technology into our lives, but what are the ethical concerns associated with it?
Emotion reading technology is also known as affective computing and the possible ethical concerns are more than likely to come from corporation to consumer relationships over consumer-to-consumer relationships. Companies are already able to track a consumer’s spending habits by reading their Internet data and credit cards, then sending targeted ads.
Consumers should be given the option to have their emotions read:
“Affective computing has the potential to intimately affect the inner workings of society and shape individual lives. Access, an international digital rights organization, emphasizes the need for informed consent, and the right for users to choose not to have their data collected. ‘All users should be fully informed about what information a company seeks to collect,’ says Drew Mitnick, Policy Counsel with Access, ‘The invasive nature of emotion analysis means that users should have as much information as possible before being asked to subject [themselves] to it.’”
While the article’s topic touches on fear, it ends on a high note that we should not be afraid of the future of technology. It is important to discuss ethical issues right now, so groundwork will already be in place to handle affective computing.
Whitney Grace, November 6, 2015
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
The Lack of Digital Diversity
October 27, 2015
Tech companies and their products run our lives. Companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft have made it impossible to function in developed nations without them. They have taken over everything from communication to how we entertain ourselves. While these companies offer a variety of different products and services, they are more similar than different. The Verge explains that “Apple, Google, And Microsoft Are All Solving The Same Problem.”
Google, Apple, and Microsoft are offering similar services and products in their present options with zero to little diversity among them. For example, there are the personal assistants Cortana vs. Google Now vs. Siri, options for entertainment in the car like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and seamless accessibility across devices with Chrome browser, Continuity, and Continuum. There are more comparisons between the three tech giants and their business plans for the future, but it is not only them. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are starting to resemble each other more too.
Technology companies have borrowed from each and have had healthy competition for years spurring more innovation, but these companies are operating on such similar principles that it is stifling creativity and startups are taking more risks:
“Without the dual pressures of both the consumer and the stock market, and without a historic reputation to uphold, small startups are now the best engine for generating truly new and groundbreaking innovations. Uber and Airbnb are fundamentally altering the economics of renting things, while hardware designers like Pebble and Oculus are inventing cool new technology that isn’t bound to any particular company’s ecosystem. Startups can see a broader range of problems to address because they don’t have to wear the same economic blinkers as established, monolithic companies.”
The article ends on positive thoughts, however. The present is beating along at a consistent pace, but in order to have more diversity companies should not be copying each other on every little item. Tech companies should borrow ideas from the future to create more original ideas.
Whitney Grace, October 27, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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