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Shannon Perry

The Importance of Compatibility: Microsoft Shifting to Single Operating System

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Net Threats: The Glut of Information

Reflecting the increasing attention paid to information security by many Americans, Pew Research recently conducted a large study, “Net Threats”, to identify important trends among technology experts’ opinions and predictions regarding the future of digital security. The study targeted thousands of Internet experts to measure their thoughts and concerns about the future of the Internet. Researchers at Pew identified four major themes among responses, and this post will discuss the fourth theme – Efforts to fix the TMI (too much information) problem might over-compensate and actually thwart content sharing.

While headlines evidence the previous three trends named by the Pew study, this final theme has not yet grabbed the media’s attention in a dramatic way. Respondent Joel Halpern, an engineer at Ericsson, provides a concise and accessible summary of the problem in the report. “The biggest challenge is likely to be the problem of finding interesting and meaningful content when you want it. While this is particularly important when you are looking for scientific or medical information, it is equally applicable when looking for restaurants, music, or other things that are matters of taste. While big-data analysis has the promise of helping this, there are many limitations and risks (including mismatched incentives) with those tools.” In other words, the overwhelming amount of information to which we are constantly exposed will hinder our ability to filter the good from the bad.

So great will this glut of information be that Jonathan Grudin, a researcher with Microsoft, predicts that an industry of “personal information trainers” will emerge to assist individuals with finding and harnessing useful information.

The Pew study does not say that the majority of respondents felt that the surplus of information will have more drawbacks than benefits – the report simply recognizes the challenges facing algorithm-based filtering systems. Other respondents suggested that analytics will improve and produce a good balance between finding what you want and being exposed to new ideas and materials.

Apple and IBM Announce Partnership

In a move that blurs the line between consumer gadgets and enterprise technology, Apple and IBM announced on July 15th a partnership to transform enterprise mobility. The collaboration intends to develop new business applications that bring IBM’s big data capabilities, security services, and device management to Apple’s popular iPhones and iPads.

The four primary goals of the partnership include developing more than 100 industry-specific enterprise solutions for the iPhone and iPad, creating special IBM cloud features for iOS, providing enterprise-level AppleCare service, and offering device activation, supply, and management.

In an interview on CNBC , Apple CEO Tim Cook expressed his enthusiasm and high expectations for the partnership. “I think it’s absolutely huge. It’s landmarked. It takes the best of Apple and the best of IBM and puts those together. There’s no overlap, there’s no competition, but they’re totally complementary. And more than anything, it focuses on the enterprise customer.” IBM has expressed similar enthusiasm, committing over 100,000 employees to the Apple initiative, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The deal reflects the current tendency of previously separate devices and technologies to converge. Although few tech companies have had real success selling both consumer and enterprise technologies, modern employees increasingly carry their mobile devices to work and their work devices to their homes. It makes sense that Apple and IBM want to take advantage of the blurred line between work and home, as it will likely make many professionals more productive (and it appears a good business opportunity).

Although this partnership’s impacts on security and businesses remain to be seen, it is hard to dispute that IBM and Apple make a formidable – if somewhat unexpected – team.

In the Battle of the Brands, Google Beats Apple

Google, Twitter, Amazon, IBM, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft. Just because they’re all tech companies does not mean they look the same, act the same, or attract the same users. Google sells ads, while Apple sells iProducts, while Amazon sells everything else. But one universal feature of these companies is the value of their brands – and the importance of protecting and enhancing those brands.

A recent report from Millward Brown, a marketing firm specializing in brand valuations, stated that Google has surpassed Apple in terms of brand valuation. According to the report, the value of Google’s brand increased by 40% from 2013 to 2014, while Apple’s brand decreased by 20% in the same period. The report attributes Apple’s decline to several factors: the uncertainty surrounding the company’s future without Steve Jobs at the helm; the “softening” of Apple’s share price; the company’s failure to produce a wearable product; and increasing competition from Samsung and other smartphone producers.

Millward Brown sees Google, on the other hand, as an innovator. With improvements to Gmail, the growing popularity of Google Glass, the development of Android Wearables, and successful marketing methods, Google has flourished in the last year – not to mention its ventures into artificial intelligence, its driverless cars, its numerous (and often surprising) acquisitions, and its year-over-year share increase of more than 20%.

The report explains its methodology, shares its findings, and suggests their implications for the year ahead, but the biggest takeaway from this first-place second-place swap is the importance of innovation and the necessity of flexibility. Tech companies – especially ones that cater to consumers – cannot afford to be perceived as providers of yesterday’s products.

Pew Report: The Internet of Things

The Pew Research Center Internet Project, one of the current initiatives overseen by Pew Research, is attempting to mark the World Wide Web’s 25th anniversary with a thorough look at the Internet’s future. The most recent report is called the Internet of Things, a phrase for modern devices that feed data back and forth – including wearables, smartphones, appliances, vehicles, and computers. The report contains both unequivocally optimistic predictions and very cautious predictions about technology’s future.

1,606 technology experts were asked, “The evolution of embedded devices and the Internet/Cloud of Things—As billions of devices, artifacts, and accessories are networked, will the Internet of Things have widespread and beneficial effects on the everyday lives of the public by 2025?” 83% answered “Yes”; 17% answered “No.” After asking the experts to elaborate, Pew identified several common trends among the responses.

These themes include: the use of wearable devices will grow significantly; the digitalization and datafication of nearly every human action will pose immense challenges to privacy; brain-to-network connectivity will probably not exist by 2025; the ballooning dependence on technology will have unintended and complex consequences; individuals outside the digitalized world will be seriously disadvantaged – separated by “digital divides”, and the nature of interpersonal relationships will likely undergo significant changes. The report provides long quotes elaborating on these trends from the surveyed experts, which include a research scientist at MIT and a vice president at Google.

The quotes offer interesting – and sometimes frightening – predictions about the future of information technology and the Internet of Things. The report is lengthy but worth the read for individuals interested in what connectivity might mean ten years from now.

 

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Report: The Political Potential for Manipulating Search Engine Results

Google’s ability to influence consumers has been discussed for a while. With millions of people routinely searching the Internet for restaurant suggestions and product reviews, the difference between appearing on the first page or the second page of a search could mean the difference between financial success and losing your business. Thanks to digitalization, a free and fair search algorithm is clearly an important piece of a free and fair market.

In a recent political opinion study conducted by the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology – a nonprofit based in Vista, California, researchers found that search rankings could significantly influence election results as well, without voters even noticing the manipulation. Researchers targeted undecided voters in the national Lok Sabha election in India from April 2nd to May 12th. Each undecided voter was randomly assigned to a group in which search results favored Gandhi, Kejriwal, or Modi – the election’s three favorites. The study’s results are surprising and significant.

The percentage increase in voters who favored their prescribed candidate was 12.2%; over 99% of the study’s participants did not appear to have any awareness that they were receiving highly biased search results, and 2.9% was the threshold win margin below which control of an election might be guaranteed, according to the study. In other words, if a national, two-candidate election would be won by a margin of less than 2.9% without manipulating search rankings, then the election’s outcome could be controlled through manipulating search results. Further, nearly everyone in the study did not even recognize the manipulation of their Internet feeds.

If economic consequences of biased search results are important, political consequences are equally so. This study only targeted 2,096 people. What if the entire American voting population was exposed to this type of bias? Manipulation to that extent is nigh impossible, but the political possibilities of this bias must be taken seriously. The study’s authors suggest the establishment of an “equal-time” equivalent for the Internet – similar to the rule for radio and television broadcasters that guarantees equal opportunities for both political candidates to promote themselves on American airwaves.

Read the brief report and decide for yourself, but the research will hopefully spark some conversation over how to protect our electorate from undue manipulation.

General Alexander Interview Yields Refreshing Insights into the NSA

Edward Snowden. WikiLeaks. The National Security Agency.

Media around the world has targeted the NSA for years now, and nearly all of the coverage has been negative. Newspapers and headlines tout data monitoring and privacy violations as the American manifestation of a surveillance-state, with critics crying “Big Brother” quicker than you can say national security.

But the Australian Financial Review recently interviewed Keith Alexander – the retired four-star general who served as the Director of the NSA for almost a decade before leaving in April, and his testimony regarding the NSA and its duty to the American people is a must-read for anyone participating in our nation’s current security/privacy debate.

General Alexander’s reason for providing the interview? “… because I fundamentally believe that what the nation has asked the NSA to do – to defend our country, our allies, and our forces abroad while also protecting our civil liberties and privacy under the most comprehensive intelligence oversight regime in the world – is something that, contrary to much reporting, the NSA and all our people have faithfully executed.”

The interview provides rich insights into the Director’s feelings and thoughts regarding many cybersecurity trends. General Alexander argues that surveillance of the American public pales in comparison to surveillance in Asian and European countries, and he maintains that objective analysis corroborates his claims regarding the NSA’s respect for American privacy. He recognizes the significance of Stuxnet as the harbinger of a future increasingly shaped by cyber attacks and counterattacks, and he defends NSA counter-encryption efforts – “NSA is a cryptographic agency that has had a responsibility for making and breaking codes since WWII. This is what NSA does.”

Recognizing the growing importance of information technology security, General Alexander acknowledges cybersecurity vulnerabilities as the biggest threat facing Western allies. “What concerns me the most are the terrorist and cyber-attacks. Those are the two threats where adversaries can reach far into the homeland and really hurt populations.” In a society of digitalization, digitalized attacks present the biggest threat to the United States.

I strongly recommend reading the interview in its entirety. The media’s vilification of the National Security Agency has proceeded largely without obstruction, but General Alexander provides a strong defense of the actions of the NSA. His interview suggests that the people of the NSA take their responsibilities to the American people seriously, and all Americans would benefit from reading the General’s testimony – for its insights regarding both our technology and our country.

 

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