Weekly Digest #12: Artificial Intelligence Recruited to Search
July 1st, 2016
Facebook made its machine learning framework open-source, Google announced the move from PageRank to RankBrain, and IBM promised $5 million to AI app developers. All this and more in our digest.
IN A NUTSHELL:
Huawei is working on creating its own mobile OS. The company plans to launch an Android and iOS competitor for smartphones. Many analytics have talked about the necessity of a third player on the mobile platform market. Microsoft couldn’t make it, so possibly Huawei can?
Facebook presented Creative Hub, an instrument for advertisers for testing various formats of ads for Facebook and Instagram, including mobile ads.
Google wants to become a medical search engine. If the user asks any medical question, the search engine would in response clarify the symptoms, offer treatment options as well as a doctor. Google is planning to use neural networks and artificial intelligence for this purpose. Looks like Greg House’s quote “Why to study at a medical university if there’s Google” could be prophetic.
SIMPLY FIGURES:
-
25% US Internet users block the ads. In 2016, their number will grow to 34%.
-
IDC forecasts active growth of demand for wearable devices. Users are going to be buying smartwatches, the abilities of which will perform some of the usual smartphones features.
-
In 2017, mobile ads expenses will bypass the desktop ads. The market volume will reach $99.3 billion.
-
This year, over 70% of the online time will be spent using mobile internet and mobile gadgets. Desktop internet use will continue to decline.
Create Business Apps with Cloud App Mobile
SalesForce presented Cloud App Mobile - a platform for app developers for business app creation. App Cloud Mobile unites Force, Heroku, and SalesForce platforms into something the company is calling a new generation of app development platform. The idea is to combine the tools that allow one to create his own mobile apps and accelerate their development. This innovation also provides backend services, including security, data integration, including products that are not a part of SalesForce such as Oracle databases, SQL server, SAP, REST. The scalability of the project is based on agile and multiplayer infrastructure.
SalesForce also launched an open-source Pardot Engagement Studio - an instrument you can use to automate company’s marketing. The creators describe this tool as a “Command Center for Business” that controls all points of contact with your prospects and customers as well as performing tasks that involve lead generation and development as well as marketing return on investment.
Engagement Studio was created to fill in the gap between marketing and sales activities within one company. The technology was available for beta testing since last year.
Big Data Management Tools
BlueData from Santa Clara, California, which specializes in the development of big data management tools, announced that its enterprise version of the BlueData EPIC software will run on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud platform, and other cloud providers. The software platform is the first BlueData’s Big-Data-as-a-service available to both local and public cloud environments.
The future of big data analytics will not be 100% in local networks or the cloud. The solution would be more hybrid with the data located both “on-prem” (locally) and in the cloud. BlueData EPIC platform will be licensed for public cloud services, pay-per-use, or annual subscription. Customers also can get a free trial period to see whether they like the service.
New Couchbase 4.5 Server
Couchbase announced the release of Server 4.5, a tool that integrates SQL, JSON, and NoSQL in a single platform. Couchbase solutions are focused mainly on the NoSQL database market, but the company said that version 4.5 will make the server more flexible and convenient for companies with deep experience in SQL and relational database technologies for implementation of NoSQL for mission-critical applications.
The new generation server is based on the SQL language called Couchbase N1QL requests. The instrument has been improved by adding new features to it, such as graphical tools for visual examination of the data model and custom queries. The Couchbase 4.5 server also offers optimized global storage indexes, arrays indexing, flexible connectivity, as well as fast JSON documents' read / write.
AI Contest - Registration is open!
IBM and X Prize Foundation announced the launch of a competition in the AI field with the prize fund of $5 million. The idea of the competition lies in creating an app that is based on artificial intelligence and solves a problem in health care field. In such a way, this competition is targeted at both digital healthcare as well as artificial intelligence fields. The judges, however, say they will take a look at apps developed for other fields, for example, education, energy, or environmental protection.
The name of the contest - IBM Watson AI X Prize. It will last for quite a while - the finale is scheduled for 2020. The winner gets $3 million, second place takes $1 million, third - $500 thousand, and the rest will be divided between other participants for special achievements. Registration is open and applications will be accepted until December 2016.
Open-Source Torchnet
Facebook made Torchnet - their deep machine learning framework - open-source. It is based on the likewise open-source library called Torch. Written using Lua language, Torchnet can run on 86-bit chips or GPU. The framework allows developers to reuse some code snippets. The company doesn’t admit, however, how exactly the machine learning technology is going to be used. Possibly, it will not simply be about image recognition and photo search, but also about personalization of news for user. Meanwhile, Twitter is also working on Torch tools.
Quality Content Matters
RankBrain machine learning system is used to process every Google search query. A year earlier, only 15% of requests were processed with it, but this algorithm, a successor of PageRank, will become the main one to affect the ranking factor for websites.
Google believes this ranking will be better and more adequate than other because it will also take into account the quality of content on the websites shown in the search results. RankBrain is one of the instruments that combats website optimization.
Customers Want to Buy...
People are willing to spend money on wearable technologies with a panic button. Such information was presented by ConsumerLab division of Ericsson in their report “On Wearable Internet of Things Devices.” And last week, a project has been launched on Kickstarter that fits the category - Nimb, a security ring. In just the first day of its campaign, the project collected over $50 thousand.
The ring is able to send text messages, user’s geolocation, record audio, and make calls. Gadget authors stress the fact that the ring can be used even in case its user is in distress and his hands are busy. The alarm is activated by pressing the panic button and holding it for three seconds.
