Captioning Images with Tensorflow

 Below, Nicely done and instructive piece on captioning using neural methods.   Captioning as a means of multi tagging of images.  Now this we could have used when captioning copy images and documents for retrieval, analysis and re-use.   How accurate in the given context?  How much editing might be required?   In O'Reilly:

Caption this, with TensorFlow
How to build and train an image caption generator using a TensorFlow notebook.  By Raul Puri, Daniel Ricciardelli  March 28, 2017

Image caption generation models combine recent advances in computer vision and machine translation to produce realistic image captions using neural networks. Neural image caption models are trained to maximize the likelihood of producing a caption given an input image, and can be used to generate novel image descriptions. For example, the following are possible captions generated using a neural image caption generator trained on the MS COCO data set.     ... " 

Data Science Encyclopedia

Data Science Central continues to publish a free online data science and machine learning encyclopedia.  Now with over 4000 entries.  Worth a look.   Also, they point to their 'Hitchhikers Guide' of simplified introductions to data science to get started.   Nicely done, DSC.  

Addressing Brand Trust

In Chiefmarketer:  There are increasing examples of eroding brand trust, good ideas about addressing the problem:

How to use Influencers to Improve Eroding brand trust
Posted on April 10, 2017 by Karen Koslow   ....

Location Based Shopping Insights

Via Insights with Google, intriguing and detailed graphs of US shopping behavior and trends.

Weekly Thought-Starter: 
From product trends to city-level insights, make more informed marketing decisions with Shopping Insights from Google. Find insights, now.

Customized Digital Boosting

Assistants are rising,  but we have not yet figured out full how to usefully collaborate with them

How Digital Media Will Bring Out Our Best Selves in the Workplace
by Michael Schrage

Tomorrow’s most effective individuals will combine their personal capabilities with customized digital boosters.

Technology now touches and transforms every aspect of personal productivity in the workplace. Mobile devices, bots, and digital assistants are ubiquitous, while managers increasingly use key performance indicator (KPI) dashboards to monitor and measure employee performance. In industry after global industry, effectively collaborating with technology is as important as effectively collaborating with people.  ... "

Digital Assistants Acting as Phones

I note that in the IFTTT applets there are now ways to have the Amazon Echo dial phone numbers.  See for example this applet, that causes the Echo to dial specific phone number and recite a message.  Previously a skill was announced to send text messages.    This points to more mechanisms for Echo to act as a voice directed phone or intercom.  A powerful extension of the assistant idea.    Other rumors are out that Telephony is a likely future feature for Echo and Google Home.  One barrier may be regulatory issues in the telephony space.

AI In Medicine

Medicine has long been seen as a fruitful area of application for AI, because of its complexity, reliance on extensive and frequently changing data sources,  deep expertise and high costs.  Good to understand the applications, risks and complexity.

 In InfoQ: Podcast:

AI in Medicine
Anthony Chang presents the current status of AI in medicine and the foreseeable future that is before it

Bio:  Anthony Chang is organizing an international meeting, Medical Intelligence: Big Data, Predictive Analytics, Cognitive Computing, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in Medicine. He is also co-founder and CEO of CardioGenomic Intelligence that focuses on artificial intelligence applications such as deep learning in clinical cardiology and genomic medicine.  ... " 

Hololens in the Classroom

With my first closeup view of the Hololens this week I was struck by the educational opportunity, and further how educational progress, and gaming could be integrated as well.  Seeing how it could be inspirational.

Lifeliqe Partner With Microsoft To Bring HoloLens Into The Classroom
New pilot scheme uses Mixed Reality in schools and colleges for science lessons.  ... " 

Disney Aiming at Soft Body Robotics

Starting with audio animatronics, which we saw in the 60s, Disney has always been into interactive realism.  What is the value of the very realistic android?  Now reports indicate they want robotic  characters that act like animation.    " ... A new patent application by the entertainment giant doesn’t name specific characters, but it describes “designing a robot that will move and physically interact like an animated character.” ... '    In the Orlando Sentinel

Knowledge Graph of the Business World

We tried this with just an enterprise, and discovered it was quite hard.  What is the appropriate level of detail?  And how is it changing?  The gaps can make your AI worthless.

Aman Naimat on building a knowlege graph of the entire business world
The O'Reilly Radar Podcast: The maturity of AI in enterprise, bridging the AI gaps, and what the U.S. can do with $4 trillion.   By Jenn Webb March 23, 2017

This week, I sit down with Aman Naimat, senior vice president of technology at Demandbase, and co-founder and CTO of Spiderbook. We talk about his project to build a knowledge graph of the entire business world using natural language processing and deep learning. We also talk about the role AI is playing in those companies today and what’s going to drive AI adoption in the future. ... " 

Intelligence and Analytics Case Studies

A nice set of broad examples that are insightful.

5 Business Intelligence & Analytics Case Studies Across Industry
Last updated on April 4, 2017 by Daniel Faggella

When businesses make investments in new technologies, they usually do so with the intention of  creating value for customers and stakeholders and making smart long-term investments. This is not always an easy thing to do when implementing cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Business intelligence case studies that show how these technologies have been leveraged with results are still scarce, and many companies wonder where to apply machine learning first (a question at the core of one of TechEmergence’s most recent expert consensuses.)

Artificial intelligence and machine learning have certainly increased in capability over the past few years. Predictive analytics can help glean meaningful business insights using both sensor-based and structured data, as well as unstructured data, like unlabeled text and video, for mining customer sentiment. In the last few years, a shift toward “cognitive cloud” analytics has also increased data access, allowing for advances in real-time learning and reduced company costs. This recent shift has made an array of advanced analytics and AI-powered business intelligence services more accessible to mid-sized and small companies.

In this article, we provide five case studies that illustrate how AI and machine learning technologies are being used across industries to help drive more intelligent business decisions. While not meant to be exhaustive, the examples offer a taste for how real companies are reaping real benefits from technologies like advanced analytics and intelligent image recognition.  .... " 

Helpdesk Concierge Experience

I remember using the word 'Concierge' when developing our own experiences.  It helps you think about multiple, focused experiences the way a concierge does.  Helpful the user, and the developer as well.  Plus for future maintenance considerations.  

IBM transforms helpdesk experience with Watson

Workplace Support Services with Watson brings a concierge-like service to the Helpdesk
ARMONK, N.Y., April 7, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that it is bringing the cognitive capabilities of Watson to the service desk for a more intelligent workplace, which will work to anticipate, predict and act to meet current and future tech support requirements.

IBM's Workplace Support Service with Watson will transform how service and support is delivered by integrating IBM's helpdesk services with analytics and Watson's cognitive capabilities, learning from user behavior and improving over time. It can support individuals on any device, any time and at any location, and will offer faster resolution of IT issues, handling the majority of support tickets when integrated with other helpdesk automation functions. ....  " 

Adaptive Machine Learning

Good points in DSC article below on adaptive machine learning.    I often make the case that you should often consider if your modeling should be modeled adaptively.    Data and context can be changing even if we don't expect it.  Time often drives change.  Even if your data is not necessarily streaming.  With an eye towards risk and change management:

Adaptive Machine Learning

Posted by PG Madhavan on May 20, 2016 at 5:30amView Blog
Machine Learning today tends to be “open-loop” – collect tons of data offline, process them in batches and generate insights for eventual action. There is an emerging category of ML business use cases that are called “In-Stream Analytics (ISA)”. Here, the data is processed as soon as it arrives and insights are generated quickly. However, action may be taken offline and the effects of the actions are not immediately incorporated back into the learning process. If we did, it is an example of a “closed-loop” system – we will call this approach “Adaptive Machine Learning” or AML. ISA is a precursor to AML.  .... " 

Data Interaction Experiments in Hololens

Professor David E Rapien of the University of Cincinnati demonstrated his prototype for interacting with data using Microsoft's Hololens.  Great start.    Recall we experimented with this broad idea over the years.  Starting with simple headsets for plant maintenance applications,  then using virtual worlds,  now looking at sophisticated startups like Virtualitics.   We are getting closer to the real thing.  


At the right the operator is interacting with the data, at the left, what he sees and manipulates.  Could include just the data, or some outcome of an analytical transformation.    What is the value of immersing yourself in the data?  Perhaps collaborating along with other colleagues and experts, seeking to make sense of it and its alternative transformations?    That is the insight we seek.  Stay tuned for more.

Document Review Inquiry

In the Gartner Blog, they mention a process called a Document Review Inquiry .    Which like the author , I had never hear of.  Worth a look.  A means towards curation for Gartner, apparently.  The same approach could lead you towards a way to automate the storage and retrieval of accumulated knowledge.   And then add an advisor to help with the curation.

An Accessible Look at Logistic Regression

Logisitic regression is probably the most common analytic method used in industries I have spend the most time in. Like retail and marketing.  Here a very good, largely non-technical description of how it works,  and what you would use it for.  In AnalyticBridge: 

Making data science accessible – Logistic Regression
Posted by Dan Kellett  
What is Logistic Regression?

Regression is a modelling technique for predicting the values of an outcome variable from one or more explanatory variables. Logistic Regression is a specific approach for describing a binary outcome variable (for example yes/no). Let’s assume you are own a new boutique shop. You have a list of potential clients you are thinking of inviting to a special event with the aim of maximizing the number of sales – who should you invite? Data on previous events you have run is a great starting point here, allowing you to predict an individual’s likelihood of buying given the information you have on them.  ... " 

Open AI Gym

Open AI resources for experimenting with reinforcement learning.  Python environment.  Overview document.

Watson Visual Recognition

 Introducing command line tools for Watson Visual Recognition  by Andrew_Trice

The Watson Visual Recognition service is a powerful tool that enables you to leverage cognitive computer vision to extract information from any image library. You can even go beyond standard object classification and use what are called ‘custom classifiers’ to train the Watson service to recognize specific items or conditions of your choosing. For example, you can train Watson to classify breeds of animals, identify rust on metal objects, detect cracks in a pipe, interpret satellite imagery, and much, much more. .... 

Previously you would have used the REST interface to interact with the service directly to train and test your custom classifiers, but things just got a whole lot easier. I’d like to introduce you to the Watson Visual Recognition command line interface utility.  .... " 

Tableau Changes Pricing Structure

Looks good, but seems expensive for the small business.  Though I was a long time user in the enterprise, have not looked at how they structure their pricing for some time.  A popular direction, but I think it gives smaller business pause to get into subscription costs.  There are now many options available for these services.

In Computerworld: Tableau moves to subscription pricing for its BI products. ... The data visualization company will let all businesses pay as they go  ...   "

Facebook M Assistant

Has been some time since the Facebook assistant has been mentioned, but it reemerges as a capability providing suggestions.   Trend continues among IT giants as a way to engage.  No review here, awaiting a closer look.  Notable that is cautiously entitled as 'Suggestions from M', as opposed to a chat or conversation with M.

Facebook's M assistant launches in U.S., will offer chat suggestions
A.I.-powered features can suggest users send money, share location, and more   By Blair Hanley Frank

More than a year after introducing a virtual assistant in its Messenger app, Facebook is launching M to the masses. While it was originally conceived as a bot that users would chat with, M now only offers a set of suggestions that are supposed to help with the conversation being carried out.

For example, when users are chatting about getting together for dinner, M will suggest that they create a shared plan that will remind them of the engagement as it approaches. The assistant will give them suggested stickers to react to conversational turns, along with prompts to transfer money, share location, start a poll, or get a ride from Uber or Lyft.   ... " 

My List of Assistants and link to posts.

Amazon Quicksight

Another simple and cheap business intelligence tool, this on by Amazon.  With links to other related system reviews.

Review: Amazon QuickSight covers the BI basics
A promising data analysis tool in the cloud, QuickSight is easy to use but limited in terms of visualization types         By Martin Heller

When I reviewed self-service exploratory business intelligence (BI) products in 2015, I covered the strengths and weaknesses of Tableau 9.0, Qlik Sense 2.0, and Microsoft Power BI. As I pointed out at the time, these three products offer a range of data access, discovery, and visualization capabilities at a range of prices, with Tableau the most capable and expensive, Qlik Sense in the middle, and Power BI the least capable but a very good value.

A new entry, Amazon QuickSight, runs entirely in the AWS cloud, has good access to Amazon data sources and fair access to other data sources, and offers basic analysis and data manipulation at a basic price. Of the three products I reviewed in 2015, QuickSight most closely resembles Power BI, only without the dependence on a desktop product to create data sets—or the level of analysis power provided by the Power BI Desktop/Service combination.  .... " 

Supply Chains and Augmented Realities

Augmented reality and the supply chain.  In the WSJ.  Also see my recent post on Virtualitics.

Augmented Reality to Revolutionize How Companies Manage Supply Chains, Says MIT Researcher
Augmented reality superimposes digital content including hologram-like images onto a user’s view of the real world    By Sara Castellanos

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Hologram-like images and virtual reality could revolutionize the way corporations solve problems within their supply chains, because data that would otherwise be obscured in databases and complex mathematical models would be easier to visualize, says a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Matthias Winkenbach, an MIT researcher with a Ph.D. […]

Requires sign in for complete article.

What Operating Systems Gather

I was asked a while back what kind of information was being gathered and stored by the modern operating system.   And to what degree can that information be acquired by third parties?  What security issues occur?  I happened on the answer, a quite detailed one, regarding Windows 10.

Consumer Neuroscience

We worked with Sands a number of years ago, they pass this along:

Sands Research is a leader in EEG and Eye-tracking studies in advertising, market research and product design, research & development.  www.sandsresearch.com

University of Memphis Study from the Journal of Advertising Research:
"For decades, USA Today has enjoyed day-after dominance in the community of marketers with its Ad Meter ratings. Using panel-based methodology, the daily newspaper has enjoyed the reputation of being the go-to source of which advertisers made the tightest connection with viewers of America's most-watched television event, the Super Bowl. But neurological measures may be even more effective in predicting consumer engagement with major media events..."

Quantum Search

Quantum search, the ideal demonstration of quantum computing possibilities?  Technical.

Quantum Computing Now Has a Powerful Search Tool
Quantum search algorithms could change the face of computing now that physicists have shown how to execute them on a scalable device.    by Emerging Technology from the arXiv  April 5, 2017

SAP and Accenture Analytics

How SAP and Accenture work together to provide analytical services.   Their overview site.

AI, Information and Analytics

In InFoQ   Asking some useful questions about data and its uses.

There Is No AI Without IA

"  ... Key Takeaways

Learn how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will impact the aspects of our personal and professional lives

Check out the different applications leveraging Artificial Intelligence technology

Decision factors and AI tools with representative applications, limitations, considerations, and data sources

Understand the importance of sponsorship, charter, and governance for AI and cognitive computing initiatives

AI is applied human knowledge. Organizations need to develop strategy and foundational data structures for AI to manage that knowledge.  .... "

Skills Automatically Enabled on Alexa

Never Understood why this was originally not done, but now there is one less step:  In Cnet:

You can now use any Alexa skill without enabling it first
You no longer have to manually enable Alexa skills before you use them. Just tell Alexa to open a new skill and it will find, enable and open it with a single command. .... "

Process for Next Generation Operation

I like the idea of starting with the process.   In McKinsey:

How to start building your next-generation operating model
By Joao Dias, David Hamilton, Christopher Paquette, and Rohit Sood

Each company’s path to a new operating model is unique. But successful transformations are all constructed with the same set of building blocks. .... " 

Polinode Graph Analytics Updates

Been writing about the Polinode system for   "...  networking analysis capability in the cloud .. "   for some time.  They continue to update their offering.  See also, their blog.

" ... We are thrilled to announce that a number of major new features have recently been added to Polinode. In brief they are: 

Layers: You can now stack operations on top of each other (think "Photoshop for Networks");
Roll-up: You can now roll-up any network by any text attribute; 

Themes: With a single click you can change the visual appearance of a network; and
Labels: It's now possible to size, color and filter node labels in any network.

To read more about the above and see some animations demonstrating the new features click here to read our latest blog post.

For more information.
At the same time as introducing the above, we've also simplified our pricing for Networks. There are now four plans - Free, Basic, Standard and Enterprise. Paid plans start at the same low $20 / month. 

You can see a detailed summary of this new simplified pricing structure at www.polinode.com. 

For all the latest news about Polinode, please follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or Google+. And of course, we'd love you to share our latest blog post on social media!   ... " 

Curiosity and Creativity in an AI

Something we worried about when we built logic based AIs.   One executive rejected the effort, saying:  "  .. I want something new, fresh ... not what comes from old expertise, or old data ... ".   In the HBR:

Can AI Ever Be as Curious as Humans?
by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and Ben Taylor

 Curiosity has been hailed as one of the most critical competencies for the modern workplace. It’s been shown to boost people’s employability. Countries with higher curiosity enjoy more economic and political freedom, as well as higher GDPs. It is therefore not surprising that, as future jobs become less predictable, a growing number of organizations will hire individuals based on what they could learn, rather than on what they already know.   ... " 

Thinking Supply Chain

Watson as it might apply to supply chains. Starting to take a closer look.  In IBM's view:

" ... According to the IBM Institute for Business Value research, lack of visibility and transparency is the greatest hurdle in achieving the supply chain organization’s objectives.[3] Most organizations lack transparency into critical links in supply chain processes – as well as the visibility needed to better predict and prevent disruptions and inventory imbalance. This largely stems from an inability to corral and make sense of an overwhelming amount of data, scattered across different processes, sources, and systems.

This is an ideal area to apply supply chain technology. Cognitive technology can:

- Enhance existing systems by understanding, reasoning, and learning about suppliers, partners, and the supply chain

- Analyze data at enormous scale and speed for deeper insights

-Establish comprehensive visibility across the supply chain

- Provide robust capabilities to intelligently monitor and assess threats, disruptions, and risks ... " 

Microsoft Captions in a Camera App

I was involved in a project, and later a startup that looked at the process of 'captioning', or selectively describing what is on an image.  A difficult problem.  Microsoft is providing a camera app to this that would be interesting to test. I previously commented on their work in captioning, see the tag link, which also points to related methods in Open Source TensorFlow.

Microsoft launches Sprinkles, a silly camera app powered by machine learning   by Sarah Perez

Microsoft is getting into the “fun camera app” game with a new iOS application called Sprinkles, which has now earned a featured spot in the “New apps we love” section of the App Store. The gist with Sprinkles, clearly aimed at a teen audience, is to offer a variety of traditional photo decorating tools like stickers, emoji and captions, but leverages Microsoft’s machine learning and A.I. capabilities to do things like detect faces, determine the photo subject’s age and emotion, figure out your celebrity look-a-like, suggest captions, and more. ... " 

Fooling Video Classification

In the Verge ...

Google’s AI video classifiers are easily fooled by subliminal images  by James Vincent   @jjvincent

" ... A recent research paper, published by the University of Washington and spotted by Quartz, makes the problem clear. It tests Google’s Cloud Video Intelligence API, which is designed to be used by clients to automatically classify the content of videos with object recognition. (The system is in private beta and not currently in use on YouTube or any other Google products.) The API, which is powered by deep neural networks, works very well against regular videos, but researchers found it was easily tricked by a determined adversary. ... " 

Internet of Things Driving Data

Via Computerweekly, New analysis points to increasing amounts of data.   Driving new opportunities every day:     " ....  Analytics, internet of things to drive data volumes to 163ZB by 2025 .... ". Interesting to just see the measure  term 'Zetta-byte'  (ZB) used casually.   To use more recent commonly used size terms,  A zettabyte is 1 trillion giga bytes.  More on the term at the Wikipedia. Whats next?  The Yotta-Byte.

Nielsen Launches Everyday Analytics

Another company launching into the power of analytics.     Here focusing on consumer goods applications.  

Nielsen makes science-based decision making more accessible with launch of Everyday Analytics

NEW YORK, March 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Nielsen (NYSE: NLSN) announced the launch of Everyday Analytics. This new suite of analytics will enable fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) manufacturers to keep up with the constantly changing, daily conditions of today's fragmented marketplace. By reducing the time, cost and resource demands of traditional analytics, coupled with simple and intuitive tools, the new offering will make sophisticated analytics more accessible for everyday decisions across all FMCG growth drivers, including price and promotion, advertising and innovation.

"Our clients have always valued advanced analytics to guide their annual strategic planning, but scaling these analytics to the level of everyday decision making has been a challenge," said Jeanne Danubio, Head of Marketing and Sales Effectiveness for Lead Markets at Nielsen. "Through our more scalable models and easier-to-use tools, it's now possible for clients to give more of their people access to high-caliber analytics for their everyday decisions. As a result, they can be more nimble and more adaptive to changing market conditions with the benefit of fact-based decision-making whenever and wherever they need it." .... " 

Artificial Intelligence is more than Machine Learning

These days when you hear about AI,  it turns out to be is machine learning.    While ML and Deep learning are important components,  its like saying automobiles are all about tire technology.  Or Engine performance.  There is lots more to consider.  Like how the systems interact with each other, how they communicate with people, and how they work together to provide value within a process.   And create both value and risk.  This article below provides a good description.   Every project we worked with required deep understanding of the process involved.  A whole book could be written about it, but the  below here a good outline.  ... From the DSC:  More than ML: Guide to the Components of AI , by Precy Kwan

From Natural Language to AI

Reminds me of some of our own investigations of building more perceptive AIs and bots.  We still don't have a workable language model of our world.  Limited, focused models do exist,  and are called Ontologies.

The Two Paths from Natural Language Processing to Artificial Intelligence  By Jonathan Mugan
Robot psychologist. Co-founder and CEO at DeepGrammar, a startup specializing in NLP and deep learning. Author of The Curiosity Cycle.

Why isn’t Siri smarter? AI has accelerated in recent years, especially with deep learning, but current chatbots are an embarrassment. Computers still can’t read or converse intelligently. Their deficiency is disappointing because we want to interact with our world using natural language, and we want computers to read all of those documents out there so they can retrieve the best ones, answer our questions, and summarize what is new.

To understand our language, computers need to know our world. They need to be able to answer questions like “Why does it only rain outside?” and “If a book is on a table, and you push the table, what happens?” .... " 

SAS Visual Analytics

Just saw a demonstration of SAS Visual Analytics.  Nicely done:    " ... See the big picture – and underlying connections. ... Visually explore critical drivers for making better decisions. Find out why something happened. Examine all options and uncover opportunities hidden deep in your data. Automatically highlight key relationships, outliers, clusters and more, revealing vital insights that inspire action.   ... " .    An automation direction addressing other competitors in the space.

Microsoft Updates Deep Learning Toolkit

Good to see these advances, demonstrating the tools that will be needed for Cortana.  

Cortana Intelligence and Machine Learning Blog
Microsoft Updates its Deep Learning Toolkit   ... " 

Amazon Dash

We tested the Amazon at-home instant replenishment system called the 'Dash Button'.  I have a half dozen on my refrigerator.   The idea implemented the common desire of any CPG company, put the ability to buy right next to where it is used.   It shows up in a few hours.  Makes it very easy to buy. Guessing that the idea has been successful, they are now offering to pay you to take a button.  The one-product button is available for hundreds of products.  The same order capability is also available via Echo voice order, but pushing a button is yet easier.

An Initial Look at Samsung Bixby

The plan is to include the assistant they call Bixby on other Samsung appliances.  Also its not the same thing as 'S Voice', which had been announced earlier.  Notable capabilities are translation, image recognition,  learning about users, voice commands ....  Another move towards universally available advisors.  ...  "

5 things the Samsung Galaxy S8's Bixby artificial intelligence service will do

When you press the dedicated Bixby button on the Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphones, there will be a handful of cool features you can access.  .... By Agam Shah

Links to all my posts on intelligent personal assistants. 

Amazon Shuts Down Diapers.com

Does this mean that Amazon cannot compete with directly with certain kinds of CPG plays?   In Recode: 

Amazon is shutting down Diapers.com — whose founder is now at war with Amazon
The site was part of Amazon’s fourth-largest acquisition back in 2011.   By Jason Del Rey   @Delrey

Amazon said on Wednesday that it is shutting down Quidsi, one of its largest-ever acquisitions, which runs six shopping sites, including Diapers.com, Soap.com and Wag.com. ... " 

Consumer Neuroscience at Nielsen

Had reason to look at what Nielsen was now doing in the area,  and revisited their site.  They have assembled an impressive  number of technologies to gather biometric data  and map it to decisions. .  No mention of  the term 'neuromarketing', the term seems to have been abandoned, but they generalize the abilities possible.   I worked with an enterprise and a startup in this area.   Good details at link below

"  ... Consumer Neuroscience at Nielsen ...
Capture a more comprehensive view of the non-conscious aspects of consumer decision-making with the most complete set of neuroscience tools at a global scale. ... 

Our brains react to our world in milliseconds—faster than we’re consciously aware. And much of what drives our everyday decisions, including what we’ll watch, talk about and buy, are the emotional responses that can’t be measured through traditional self-report methods. ... 

By using the latest neuroscience technologies in combination with traditional survey methods, we help brands understand consumers’ non-conscious and conscious emotional responses, memory activations and attentional patterns, empowering them to better navigate the increasing complexity of modern consumer behavior. Our insights provide actionable results and an unprecedented understanding of consumer related decision-making, allowing our clients to build deep, lasting connections with their target audiences.  ... ." 

Neuroscience, Buying and Selling

New thoughts from Neuroscience and Zaltman.  Obvious? :    In Customerthink:

Neuroscience Confirms We Buy on Emotion & Justify with Logic & yet We Sell to Mr. Rational & Ignore Mr. Intuitive     by Michael Harris  

Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman[i] says that 95% of our purchase decision making takes place subconsciously (aka System 1).[ii] Despite widespread agreement amongst neuroscientists that our conscious rational mind plays a minor role in decision making, why do our sales messages to buyers focus almost exclusively on facts and figures? Doesn’t all of this data flood customers with too much information, and result in paralysis for analysis? Why do we largely ignore the emotional subconscious, the real star of decision making? If we really want to reduce the number of sales opportunities lost to no decision, shouldn’t we also be directing our sales message to Mr. Intuitive, and not just Mr. Rational?    ....  " 

Guide to Blending Bots

Good thoughts about all the different options for delivering and sharing information.  I like the fact that it includes thinking about how this 'AI' stuff can be integrated with people and crowd-style knowledge. Ultimately we blend this anyway, so why not do that well?    But I repeat, it also means we have to vet, maintain, and re-test  all of this knowledge.   All those details are little discussed.

In CustomerThink:
A practical guide to blending bots, the crowd and live agents in your contact centre of the future  
by Paul Weald |  

Synopsis: 

There is much hype around the notion that robots will be taking over contact centre jobs within the next five years. But for those of us who have been in the industry since the 1990s then there is a more measured response. We expect the digital channel to overtake voice based interactions within this time period, but the requirement for an emotional connection between a customer and the organisation will remain. Plotting a path that blends live support – either provided by contact centre agents or by crowdsourced brand advocates – with cognitive based tools will become a key requirement in any future roadmap, taking these employee and customer groups with you on that business change journey.   .... " 

Retiree Discovers Elusive Math Proof

I like this because is shows that retirees make real discoveries.  And recall hearing about this challenge long ago, it has real use.  Problem is well described in the paper, but is math-technical.  In Wired: 

A Retiree Discovers an Elusive Math Proof—And Nobody Notices
As he was brushing his teeth on the morning of July 17, 2014, Thomas Royen, a little-known retired German statistician, suddenly lit upon the proof of a famous conjecture at the intersection of geometry, probability theory, and statistics that had eluded top experts for decades.

Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine .... 

Known as the Gaussian correlation inequality (GCI), the conjecture originated in the 1950s, was posed in its most elegant form in 1972 and has held mathematicians in its thrall ever since. “I know of people who worked on it for 40 years,” said Donald Richards, a statistician at Pennsylvania State University. “I myself worked on it for 30 years.”  ....  "

Flying-Rolling Drone

Makes perfect sense,  and has been mentioned before.  Would make delivery of things more point to point.   But things rolling about will get even more in the way than flying things.   In Engadget: An example being tested.  Specifications are interesting.

CPG Manufacturing

Excellent points made.  Lots of legacy, lack of complete standards.  Where are the ontologies?

CPG manufacturers need a comprehensive strategy for digitization
By Luis Benavides, Marnix Hollander, Frédéric Lefort, and Julian Salguero

Increasingly competitive CPG markets are making consumer-centered innovation—and the successful adoption of digital technologies—essential as the CPG landscape evolves through 2030.

The relentless hype around digital in consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) manufacturing has left many leaders disoriented and paralyzed by the many buzzwords and the promised benefits of digital tools. At the same time, their efforts to gain traction with digital are hindered by legacy systems, processes, and capabilities. A recent McKinsey survey of senior CPG leaders found that most consider digital technologies to be a priority, but few have defined a clear strategic vision linked to actions. The major obstacles cited were a lack of skilled resources, out-of-date software models and an inadequate IT infrastructure, the absence of data standards, and obsolete data-management ... "

PC Mag Rates Watson Analytics

A good fairly technical review of the Watson Analytics package.  I was a beta user a couple of years ago.    I concur its not everything, but can see it as an 75% autonomous solution.  Still requires some statistical, data and contextual  help, but so would any solution method.

Target Ignores the Obvious

Former colleague Bob Herbold writes about Target in his intriguing blog about gutsy retail readership.

Fract for Geospatial Patterns

Intriguing concept have not heard of this being used.  More at the link.

What is Fract?

We provide actionable prescriptive geospatial intelligence to businesses and help them make all the right choices based on their data.

Fract is inspired by fractals – countless geometric figures that have the exact same characteristics as the whole. Fractals can be found everywhere in nature – snowflakes, clouds and even our own hearts – and are used to describe various complex, recurring natural events like crystal growth and galaxy formation.

This is what we do for you. We predict and help businesses to maximize their potential based on the tiny patterns found inside the data. We believe in continuous data analysis and uncovering patterns to make use of the infinite amounts of data that increases every single hour, of every single day ... " 

Top Algorithms

Nice piece in KDNuggets.  Good starting place for inquisitive managers and decision places.  Nice statements too about the nature of algorithms.  I have found  widespread misunderstanding of the term in industry.

In KDNuggets:
" ... We've put together a brief summary of the top algorithms used in predictive analysis, which you can see just below. Read to learn more about Linear Regression, Logistic Regression, Decision Trees, Random Forests, Gradient Boosting, and more. .... 

Getting Up Close and Personal with Algorithms
We hear the term “machine learning” a lot these days, usually in the context of predictive analysis and artificial intelligence. Machine learning is, more or less, a way for computers to learn things without being specifically programmed. But how does that actually happen?

The answer is, in one word, algorithms. Algorithms are sets of rules that a computer is able to follow. Think about how you learned to do long division -- maybe you learned to take the denominator and divide it into the first digits of the numerator, then subtracting the subtotal and continuing with the next digits until you were left with a remainder. Well, that’s an algorithm, and it’s the sort of thing we can program into a computer, which can perform these sorts of calculations much, much faster than we can.

We've put together a brief summary of the top algorithms used in predictive analysis, which you can see just below. Read on for more detail on these algorithms. .... " 

Aristotle and the Computer

In my earliest day working with computer science we were taught about logic and constructing circuits that could add, and that lead ultimately lead to today's devices.    It was influenced by some very early philosophers.

Automation and Selling Floor Jobs

In Retailwire:  Will automation like robotics replace selling floor jobs? An interesting question.  Despite experiments by companies like Lowes, am still not seeing much out there.  If a consumer goes to a store, they still prefer a knowledgeable associate to help them.  Whats the difference between robotics, an interactive sign, and knowledgeable human help?  In stores where actual on floor selling is important, this may be different.

Neural Network Zoo

The Asimov Institute has put out a library/ontology of neural networks.   Interesting, showed many kinds of nodes I had never heard of, but also many I have.  Does not really specify how all the methods work, or what they are for.   Does show you the potential complexity.  Good thing to put away away for reference,  and bring out when you need it. Worth an initial browse to understand the zoo's breadth.

( I see I reported on this previously last year, I assume it has been updated)

Health Screening with Hololens

Health Screening with Microsoft Hololens Technologies .... First I have heard of this direction, interesting.

Democratization of Machine Learning

This topic came up in the talk I gave on advances in AI and analytics yesterday.   Via Data science Central a white paper by IBM:

The Democratization of Machine Learning
Machine learning automates the development of analytic models that can learn and make predictions on data. It has been one of the fastest growing disciplines within the world of statistics and data science. However, the barrier to entry has been high, not only in cost, but also in the need for specialized talent.

In the past, data science professionals were intimidated by the words "algorithms" and "machine learning statistics". For many years, these capabilities were delegated to people with PhDs, but Apache Spark is changing the perception of these key functions and democratizing computer learning at the same time.

The demand for machine learning keeps growing. Download this complimentary white paper and learn how machine learning will both support and drive today’s data scientists and advanced analytics leaders to the future.

Content provided by IBM Analytics 

AI, Robotics and Jobs

Short piece that puts it quite well.   Jobs will change, we will adapt.  GE's Jeff Immelt: Robots won't kill human jobs ...

Reminder of the Need for Data Quality

Am often reminded in visits to the enterprise that data quality is not often enough considered carefully.  You don't have much if you don't have quality.  Consider also the quality and nature of meta data involved.  It is even more important as you move beyond BI to heavily leveraged analytics. Bigger risks emerge.  Having a process model of your data can alert you to issues about quality and change.

Data Quality in BI: It’s More Than Putting Lipstick on a Pig!   Published by Pat Hennel
 Data Quality and BIData quality is one of the biggest challenges that enterprises face when it comes to business intelligence. If the data isn’t accurate, inferior reporting and poor business decisions that can have potentially serious consequences on the entire organization can occur.

When first examining the quality of data as you implement a business intelligence (or BI) solution, there are a number of things that need to be considered and several questions that you need to ask yourself. For example, as Paul Dorsett shared in one of his blog posts, Self-Service BI: Fill It Up!: 
... " 

Group Editing Photos as Collaboration Example

Nice idea ... Collaborative work is a kind of inteligence enhancement.  You could further see collaboration between multiple people and advisory machines.  Group collaboration of new kinds has power.  The most important thing I want when solving a tough problem is the collaboration of a domain expert.

Google is working on a new social app for small groups to edit photos together by Ingrid Lunden

While Google continues to add more features to its two social communication apps Allo and Duo, TechCrunch has learned that it has quietly been working on least one more social app. Google has been developing a new social app that lets small groups edit photos together and then organise them for future enjoyment: think Path meets Snapchat-style filters and edits meets Google’s imaging smarts.

Google confirmed the existence of the app after we asked about it, and told us that (for now) is an experiment, one of many it’s running.

But it sounds like Google may be downplaying this a bit.  According to our sources, one plan had been to launch the app during its I/O event in May — much as it did last year with Duo and Allo — although from what we understand right now there is no specific date set. ... " 

Streamlined Text Mining

A  time ago we used relatively simplistic methods of context analysis to understand the meaning of gathered text.  Now with focused methods and increasing amounts of text data,  new results are now possible.  In Datanami: 

Biomedical Text Mining Tool Gets the Lead Out   by George Leopold

Approximately 100 lines of Python code serve as the basis of a new predictive text-mining tool designed to accelerate the scanning online biomedical research papers for clues on everything from repurposing existing drugs to advancing stem cell treatment.

Coders from the Morgridge Institute for Research working in partnership with the University of Wisconsin at Madison reported on their “KinderMiner” algorithm during a bioinformatics conference in San Francisco this week. The researchers said the 100-line algorithm was “within hours” able to scan more than 30 million online papers to provide ranked and relevant associations based on key words and phrases.

“Most often, researchers are running manual Google searches and combing through millions of hits to find, for example, certain genes that are important to a biological process or disease,” explained Ron Stewart, associate director of bioinformatics at the Morgridge Institute. “It’s often based on hunches and intuition. We’re trying to automate and formalize that process.”

Alternative techniques require much data wrangling, added Finn Kuusisto, a postdoctoral researcher at the Morgridge Institute. “We write about 100 lines of Python code, and our users can be given answers that may significantly speed up their scientific process.”

GigaOM AI Videos

Just pointed out to me, a set of video interviews about AI and forward looking technologies.  Here an interview with Auren Hoffman.   \ by GigaOm.  This example looks at data and how it is used for AI.

Google Launches Open Source Site

Worth taking a look at.  Description in Techcrunch:

Google launches new site to showcase its open source projects and processes   by Frederic Lardinois (@fredericl) ... "

" ... 2,000 Projects and Counting

At Google, we’ve always used open source to innovate. We want to give something back; we enjoy being a part of the community. We often release code to push the industry forward or share best practices we developed. But sometimes, it's just fun and interesting code. The list of projects we've released and contribute to is long and continues to grow. ... " 

https://opensource.google.com/

Microsoft on Enterprise AI

Interesting question on the 'adaptability' of AI.    It can certainly be used today by focusing it to specific problems.  It is being done.  Can it be used to cognitively control large sections of industry that require by their nature differing kinds of learning, logic and analytics?   That is harder.  Risk analysis along needs to be adapted carefully.   Process needs to be integrated.   Data needs to be well organized to make sure we are systematically using the right data and measuring the right results.       All remain challenges.

Microsoft: AI Isn’t Yet Adaptable Enough to Help Businesses
Microsoft’s top research executive says it’s too difficult to customize powerful machine-learning systems to an individual company’s needs.   by Tom Simonite  In Technology Review.  .... 

Analytics Revolution?

This relates to the talk I gave yesterday.  Interview In SiliconAngle:

An analytics revolution: the shift to deep learning and cognitive computing   by Tim Hawkins

 With the position of Chief Data Officer being a relatively new concept that corporations are only recently beginning to incorporate into their business models, it comes as no surprise that the role has not yet been universally characterized as a set of defined job functions and responsibilities.

In fact, the analytics tools used to do the job are also evolving, even as industry is trying to agree on the definition of the CDO post itself, according to Joe Selle  ... global operational analytics solution lead at IBM.

Selle spoke with Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick) and Peter Burris (@plburris), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio, at the IBM Chief Data Officer Strategy Summit in San Francisco, California.  ... 

Selle discussed the lead IBM has taken in guiding and shaping the development of deep learning and cognitive analytics to create the roadmap that will best serve its customers, as well as the marketplace as a whole.  .... " 

Ikea Does Smart Light Bulbs

Found this intriguing because it gave some evidence for a fringe-standardness of some basic components of the smart home.  Been doing some very incremental updating of my smart home.   This stuff is still too expensive for the average household.  And the value proposition is still unclear for most situations.   But think of yourself as part of a big experiment.  In SiliconAngle: 

Smart home light bulbs set to go mainstream as Ikea enters the market    By Duncan Riley

Taking Risks

 None of us do this well.  Here a Poker Players view,  not perhaps always the best context, from Inc:

How to Get Better At Taking Risks. According to a Former Pro-Poker Player
It's time to start playing to win, instead of playing to not lose.     By Sonia Thompson

Whats needed for AI

Good general piece in InfoQ about how you need to get the information right to do something that looks like AI.  I add that you also need to get the structure of process you are claiming to do intelligently.  Process assurance counts too.   Note also the mention of Ontology, which adds to the integrated coherence of data and process.

Open Data Science in the Enterprise

From O'Reilly:

5 tips for embracing open data science in the enterprise

Transform the way you approach analytics. By Alice LaPlante

 Download the free ebook Breaking Data Science Open, a new ebook by leading figures at Continuum Analytics that discusses the open data science ecosystem in depth. ... "

Blockchain for Supply Chain Management

More on Supply chain management and blockchain.  " .... U.S. retail giant, Walmart, is about to start a major test of blockchain technology for supply chain management, The Wall Street Journal reports. A pilot project, which will start in the first quarter of 2017 and run for four months, plans to leverage distributed ledger technology to track and trace pork in China and produce in the U.S. — two high-volume product categories with large markets.

This will be one of the first major tests of blockchain distributed ledgers outside the financial services industry. According to the WSJ, blockchain technology can help in overcoming delays and errors, resulting in more streamlined and efficient supply chain management. In fact, the supply chain management sector is a prime target for advanced applications of blockchain technology. Among companies in consumer goods and manufacturing, 42 percent plan to spend at least $5 million on blockchain technology in the next year, according to a Deloitte survey.  ... " 

VRFocus Redesigns

The VrFocus web site is redesigned, does good coverage of the topic of Virtual Reality.  Commercial and otherwise.

Putting AI into Devices

Putting the AI on the edge, that is in the device itself rather than the cloud.  In IEEE Spectrum:

Nvidia wants AI to Get Out of the Cloud and Into a Camera, Drone, or Other Gadget Near You  By Tekla S. Perry ...   Makes sense.

Free 700 Page eBook on Deep Learning

Via Data Science Central.

An MIT Press book  by Ian Goodfellow and Yoshua Bengio and Aaron Courville

The Deep Learning textbook is a resource intended to help students and practitioners enter the field of machine learning in general and deep learning in particular. The online version of the book is now complete and will remain available online for free. .... 

The deep learning textbook can now be pre-ordered on Amazon. Pre-orders should ship on December 16, 2016.   ... For up to date announcements, join our mailing list.  ...  " 

IFTTT Open Platform

I was reminded of IFTTT  new Open Platform. and also now with analytics.

Integrate quickly with hundreds of services
It’s easy to put familiar brands and new experiences in front of your users, from the latest bots and IoT, to the world’s most famous voice-activated assistant. You can build Applets and embed them directly in your app or website. And, as a platform partner, other companies can build Applets that work with your service, introducing you to new audiences. .... 

Inform your roadmap with in-depth analytics
As people use your Applets, you’ll gain a better understanding of how your service fits into their lives. Use those insights to improve your product, build partnerships, and craft marketing campaigns. ... " 

Why Deep Work Matters

A look in the Evernote blog at how work can be done in an increasingly distracted world.  I like the term 'deep work' that they use.  How should it be measured?

Associated Twitter Feed

Posts in this blog are selectively mentioned in my twitter feed: @FranzD.  That feed also contains retweets of related material that deals with analytics, data issues, problem solving, AI, process, retail, marketing, advisory systems and other topics mentioned in this blog.

Classic Analytics Compared to What is now called Data Science

I think I mentioned this before.  Quite useful for those who have been trained and practiced in past eras.   For those people this is a must read. To me it sometimes evokes the question:  Is there a difference?  And my answer is, often not.   But if rethinking the problem differently, integrating it with new kinds of data, or even surfing on the 'science'  hype gets it solved, that's all good.   Worth while piece that I mostly agree with:

16 analytic disciplines compared to data science   Posted by Vincent Granville 

What are the differences between data science, data mining, machine learning, statistics, operations research, and so on?

Here I compare several analytic disciplines that overlap, to explain the differences and common denominators. Sometimes differences exist for nothing else other than historical reasons. Sometimes the differences are real and subtle. I also provide typical job titles, types of analyses, and industries traditionally attached to each discipline. Underlined domains are main sub-domains. It would be great if someone can add an historical perspective to my article.   ..... " 

Towards Machines that Improve with Experience

Consider that experience is different from learning.  It means that there is a structure that can embed learning and apply it to multiple contexts.

Toward Machines that Improve with Experience
New program seeks to develop the foundations for systems that might someday “learn” in much the way biological organisms do ...

Self-driving taxis. Cell phones that react appropriately to spoken requests. Computers that outcompete world-class chess and Go players. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming part and parcel of the technological landscape—not only in the civilian and commercial worlds but also within the Defense Department, where AI is finding application in such arenas as cybersecurity and dynamic logistics planning. .... 

But even the smartest of the current crop of AI systems can’t stack up against adaptive biological intelligence. These high-profile examples of AI all rely on clever programming and extensive training datasets—a framework referred to as Machine Learning (ML)—to accomplish seemingly intelligent tasks. Unless their programming or training sets have specifically accounted for a particular element, situation, or circumstance, these ML systems are stymied, unable to determine what to do. ... " 

Lowes and Innovation

Robotics, virtual reality and more.  Always interesting to follow.  Why are they doing this, and how does management integrate innovation  into business process?   How do they see value in their innovation labs?

Lowe’s innovates because it has to  by Al McClain  (And discussion) 

At last week’s Shoptalk conference, Kyle Nel, the executive director of Lowe’s Innovation Labs, detailed why innovation is so important for retailers, primarily because the current pace of change is exponential. And yet, survival on incremental technological change alone may be impossible.

Mr. Nel said that when a new and different technology comes out (speaking not just of Lowe’s), it inevitably disappoints, investment falls off, but then a core group continues to work on it. At that point, it’s hard to figure out exactly what to work on during the “deceptive disappointment” phase, before the new and different tech comes back to market in a better form and more successfully. .... " 

Open Versus Closed Innovation

Irving Wladawsky-Berger  on closed versus open innovation.  Very nicely described.    He Writes:

Open Innovation 2.0

I recently read Twelve Principles for Open Innovation 2.0, an article published last year in Nature by Martin Curley.  Curley, - who’s long been involved with innovation in both his business and academic positions, - nicely summarized its evolution over the past several decades, first from closed to open innovation, and now to what he calls open innovation 2.0.  Let me discuss each of these phases of innovation.     .... " 

Marketing Led Growth

Article - McKinsey Quarterly - February 2017
The new battleground for marketing-led growth    By David Court, Dave Elzinga, Bo Finneman, and Jesko Perrey

" ... In the digital age, consumers are always shopping around. New research shows that hooking them early is the strongest path to growth. . ... Since 2009, McKinsey has studied the emergence of consumer decision journeys (CDJs)—the often irregular paths consumers take as they move from brand awareness through to purchase and loyalty—as a critical lever to driving top-line growth (Exhibit 1). Like the apparel company described above, many have responded to nonlinear consumer behavior by doubling down on customer-retention and loyalty programs. Selling more to consumers who are already buying seems a dependable, low-risk, and potentially quick way to boost sales growth. Recent research shows a 26 percent increase in loyalty-program memberships between 2013 and 2015.   ... " 

Shoe Recognition less Invasive?

As opposed to facial recognition and analysis.  Taking images of shoes and deriving information from the images, without the same privacy implications.  In BBC Technology:

Tomorrow's cities: Are your shoes giving away data?    By Jane Wakefield

' ... "Online retailers gather all kinds of information about shoppers and physical stores also want to understand how people behave in a shop," he said.  But, he admits: "A lot of these technologies are kind of invasive."

Hoxton has come up with a novel way of measuring footfall - literally by filming people's shoes.
Sherlock Holmes-like, its system can deduce a remarkable amount of information such as age, gender and social class of shoppers from their footwear.

"We have cameras at about 50cm off the ground and it points down so it is less invasive than facial recognition," he explains.

It is surprisingly accurate. It spots the correct gender 80% of the time, better than some facial recognition technologies, according to Mr Mann.  ....  ' 

Using Lighting for More Generalized Sensing

Like the idea of re-purposing systems like lighting for sensing.

GE, AT&T ink smart city deal around Current's CityIQ sensors
GE plans to install Current's CityIQ sensor nodes on 3,200 street light poles across San Diego, with AT&T handling data connectivity.   By Natalie Gagliordi 

AT&T has signed a deal with GE to install its Current CityIQ sensors onto streetlights in various US cities, beginning with San Diego, Calif. The two corporations say smart street lighting will help cities monitor things like traffic patterns, parking, air quality, weather emergencies, and even gun violence on city streets.

As part of the agreement, GE plans to install Current's CityIQ sensor nodes on 3,200 street light poles across San Diego as the city upgrades 14,000 light fixtures to Current's Evolve LED luminaires. AT&T will act as the data carrier and provide "highly secure connectivity" for the San Diego deployment, according to a press release. ... " 

Watson and the Supply Chain

Frtom the recent Watson conference on related topics.  Insightful.

Supply Chain Trends Report
Supply chain report highlighting top 2017 trends from the POV of IBMers and business partners such as blockchain, cognitive, and analytics.  ... "

The Progress of Marketing Leveraging AI

 Below,  a reasonable journalistic look at AI and marketing.   Not doubt there will be pieces of the puzzle solved by pattern matching AI, (See Predicting Campaign Response) but the understanding of underlying process and context requires more effort.

5-year trends in artificially intelligent marketing
How will artificial intelligence transform marketing over the coming years? Columnist Daniel Faggella dives into the results from a survey exploring the major trends and opportunities in AI for marketers.   .... " 

Adobe Sees Hololens in Retail

Always looking for ways to augment experience, thus improve retail.   This experience can be that of the customer, the analyst or the designer of retail.  We used Adobe software for these kinds of experience understanding questions.  It is a natural fit.

Adobe puts the HoloLens to work in retail

An emerging technology group at Adobe has shown off a trio of retail enablement apps that use augmented reality to visualize analytics.
By Ross Rubin 

Over the past few years, Adobe has moved aggressively from a developer of creative applications to address business needs of its media-creating customers. The result has been the Adobe Experience Cloud, a roll-up of app suites designed to address marketing, advertising and analytics.

Those products, of course, are all available to Adobe's customers. But the company also has an internal group -- Adobe@Adobe -- charged with dog-fooding its own products as well as incubating new experiences.

The group has recently developed a trio of HoloLens demonstrations that show the kind of visualizations augmented reality can achieve in a retail setting.  .... " 

A Look at Google's AI Explosion

 Somewhat simplified, but based on measures like papers generated, and providing capabilities publicly, very impressive.   Note that this not only about publishing papers, but also writing fundamental code that can be reused.   The apparent openness impresses me most.  Still waiting to see more of it in forms we can use, like in Google Assistant.  In TechnologyReview:

" ...  The publication explosion is no accident. Google has more than tripled the number of machine learning researchers working for the company over the last few years, according to Yoshua Bengio, a deep-learning specialist at the University of Montreal. “They have recruited like crazy,” he says.

And to capture the first-round picks from computation labs, companies can’t only offer a Silicon Valley-sized salary.  “It’s hard to hire people just for money,” says Konrad Kording, a computational neuroscientist at Northwestern University. “The top people care about advancing the world, and that means writing papers the world can use, and write code the world can use.” ... " 

Google’s AI Explosion in One Chart
Surging investment in machine learning is vaulting Google into the scientific stratosphere. by Antonio Regalado  ... " 

IBM on the Business of IOT Technology

From the recent conference.   IBM on the business of the internet of things.  Its cognitive and complex.   I would add to the below, that its about analytics designed to better understand this new wealth of data, and the algorithms that are ultimately derived.

" ... There are three critical elements to IBM’s investment, according to Harriet Green ... , general manager of IoT, commerce and education at IBM.

“The first, the whole proliferation of sensors … the amount of data and information being created is suited for Watson,” she said.

The second element is that IBM considers its clients’ data to be their DNA. “So people know that when you are doing IoT with IBM that a deep level of security is imbued within our capability,” she added.

Security and governance of data is the last element. “Those three elements,  I think of as fundamental, the cognitive, the protection of the data and who owns the data,” Green explained. ... " 

Predicting Marketing Campaign Response

The holy grail is accurately predicting response.  Here a step by step approach using Amazon methods.   But do we know all the context involved?  Amazon has the data to tailor this kind of model to alternative contexts.

Predicting Marketing Campaign Response Using Amazon Machine Learning   by Chris Mohritz

Blockchain and Utilities

Blockchain in Power industry.

How Utilities Are Using Blockchain to Modernize the Grid

James Basden, Michael Cottrell

" .... Blockchain has grabbed the attention of the heavily regulated power industry as it braces for an energy revolution in which both utilities and consumers will produce and sell electricity. Blockchain could offer a reliable, low-cost way for financial or operational transactions to be recorded and validated across a distributed network with no central point of authority. As in the financial services industry, this capability has prompted some people to explore whether blockchain may one day replace a portion of utilities’ businesses by doing away with the need for intermediaries altogether. But that view is too extreme and simplistic. ... "

Is Intelligence Built Up from Basic Skills?

Which virtual assistant will ultimately win the race?   Will it be a matter of having third party vendors building the best  'intelligent skills'  to make them most useful?  Amazon Alexa claims some 10K +skills, though most are still quite trivial.  Is the number even relevant, or is it how they are best leveraged with cognitive tools.?  And thus evolve to more value.   It is reported that the Microsoft Cortana kit for developers has been delayed.   Will this put Cortana behind?   CWorld Discusses: 

Microsoft delays tools for third-party Cortana integrations
Cortana Skills Kit was expected out in February, but it hasn’t materialized
By Blair Hanley Frank  U.S. Correspondent, IDG News Service  ... 

My list and survey of virtual assistants.

Data Issues and Analytics

Seen it now many times, sometimes to where the results would be irrelevant if we waited for perfect data.    But to me this still does not mean we should ignore thinking about how the results will fit into, or would alter business process. In the SAS Com blog: 

Don't let data issues delay analytics    By David Pope on SAS Voices  

In a recent presentation, Jill Dyche, VP of SAS Best Practices gave two great quotes: "Map strategy to data" and "strategy drives analytics drives data." In other words, don't wait for your data to be perfect before you invest in analytics.  ... " 

New Scale in City Advertising

In the BBC:

How giant digital adverts could soon be in our cities   By Mark Smith
Technology of Business reporter

Passers-by on a London street were recently amazed to see a fleeting image of a pink tongue protruding from fruitily plump lips, seemingly suspended in mid-air.  It was the famous logo for the Rolling Stones and was part of an experiment by tech start-up Lightvert.

Its technology can produce images that appear to be 200m (656ft) high, but which only exist in the eye of the viewer for a fraction of a second.  So could we be on the verge of seeing giant digital ads in our cities, similar to those featured in the seminal 1982 sci-fi film Blade Runner?

Lightvert certainly hopes so.
Its tech, called Echo, works by employing a narrow - no more than 200mm - strip of reflective material fixed to the side of a building. A high-power projector mounted below or above the strip beams light off the reflector directly into the viewer's eye.  .... " 

More WalMart and Amazon by the Numbers

Insightful numbers and visuals:

Supply Chain News: Walmart and Amazon by the Numbers 2017 Part 2
More Analysis from Our Annual Review of the World's Two Most Important Retailers    By Dan Gilmore ...  " 

On Embedded Blog Links

I was reminded by a recent query that links that are embedded in posts in this blog may not always work. The history of this blog goes back to 2005, and so especially older post links may have gone stale.  Sometimes I fix these if informed of them, sometimes not.  Sometimes you can search based on the original link title.   I also can't ensure that a link has not since gone behind a paywall.  My apologies.  I use this blog as a personal resource,  so its useful to have selective research area links up to date.  

Miller Tries Voice/Push Button Beer Ordering

Voice and push-button ordering expands ... expectation of frictionless shopping increases.

In Adage:  Push-Button Beer Ordering? Miller Lite Gives It a Try   By E.J. Schultz.

" ....  MillerCoors is giving lazy beer drinkers another excuse to stay put: The option to order beer with the touch of a button or a simple voice command.

The brewer and IPG Mediabrands today announced a new suite of connected home services called "Miller Lite On-Demand" that will allow consumers to stock their fridge using a voice-activated Amazon Alexa command, or by using a programmable button known as AWS IoT that is based on the Amazon Dash Button hardware. The delivery requests will be fulfilled within one hour by Drizly, an online alcohol ordering platform, according to the agency and brewer, which have partnered on an incubator program aimed at testing such technologies.

Drizly currently serves more than 40 cities, according to MillerCoors.  ... " 

How Machine Learning is Used at Google

Video via O'Reilly:

Machine learning at Google
Rob Craft shares some of the ways machine learning is being used inside of Google. ...  

Nest Protect Expands on IFTTT

Today an update of IFTTT capabilities for interacting with Nest-Protect sensor devices in the home. IFTTT lets you add layers of simple intelligence to the smart home (or business) based on streams of information from the an IOT.  As a simple example you could have all the lights in a home blink when Smoke or Carbon Monoxide is detected by a sensor.   Or notifications sent to an address.

Plan to experiment with these in our Smart Home.    More examples of this kind here.  It is recommended to understand the capabilities of IFTTT.  I have a number of applets in operation.

Retail Implications for Alexa on iPhone

Seems it just increases choice and lets competition play out. May well drive Siri to more shopping options as well.  Asking for trivia does not pay out.   I would bet that Amazon knows more now about how to make voice channel shopping work.

What happens now that Alexa is on the iPhone?    by Tom Ryan   In Retailwire: 
In a move onto Siri’s turf, Amazon has added Alexa to its iOS shopping app, letting users chat with the virtual assistant through an iPhone or iPad.

Alexa users will need to open the Amazon app and then press a microphone icon to converse with Alexa. Previously, the microphone icon allowed voice commands to be used to search for products and check up on orders, but the update provides access to almost all of the capabilities of Amazon’s speaker devices such as the Echo, Dot and Tap.  .... "   (Discussion) 

My List and survey of virtual shopping assistants.