Curated for content, computing, and digital experience professionals

Year: 2021 (Page 22 of 44)

Snowflake adds features

Snowflake unveiled new product innovations for the Data Cloud, including data programmability, global data governance, and platform optimizations.

Data programmability:

  • Snowpark. With initial support for Java and Scala, Snowflake’s developer experience, Snowpark, allows data engineers, data scientists, and developers to build using their preferred language and execute these within Snowflake.
  • Java UDFs. With Java user-defined-functions (UDFs), customers can bring their custom code and business logic to Snowflake.
  • Unstructured data. Snowflake’s unstructured data support enables customers to store, govern, process, and share file data alongside their structured and semi-structured data.
  • SQL API. The Snowflake SQL API enables applications to call Snowflake directly through a REST API.

Global governance:

  • Classification. Snowflake’s classification capability automatically detects personally identifiable information (PII) in a given table and leverages the tagging framework to annotate the data.
  • Anonymized views. This can be used to protect privacy and identity in a dataset.

Platform:

  • Improved Storage Economics. Better compression, and reduced storage costs.
  • Improved Support for Interactive Experiences. Updates released for high volume and low latency workload requirements improve query throughput on a single compute cluster.
  • Usage Dashboard. New usage dashboard helps customers better understand usage and costs across the platform.

https://www.snowflake.com

FileCloud releases FileCloud 21.1

FileCloud 21.1, the latest version of the company’s cloud-agnostic enterprise file sync, sharing and data governance platform, places speed and security at the heart of its new update. FileCloud 21.1 is significantly faster than the previous version, with increased efficiency and the ability to handle higher loads. The system software applications have been upgraded for optimal performance on Apache, PHP, MongoDB and SOLR. The customer experience has also been enhanced, with a new, streamlined user interface along with the debut of a log-in wizard that makes setting up and changing the Drive configuration easy.

  • Accessibility improvements mean that FileCloud is now compliant with VPAT Guideline 2.1, which requires that all functionality be available from the keyboard.
  • Seamless integration with Microsoft Office allows users to take advantage of sensitivity labels that users can apply to files. These labels, which travel with the data in FileCloud, ensure security and compliance wherever the file travels.
  • Admins are now tied to roles to make it easier to assign permissions. This gives more control when allowing access to the admin portal.
  • FileCloud Drive will take advantage of Apple’s latest operating system, macOS Big Sur, running Apple silicon.

https://www.getfilecloud.co

GraphDB 9.8 brings text mining and Kafka connectivity

Ontotext announced the realize of GraphDB 9.8, which offers text mining integration, notifications over Kafka, Helm charts, and performance improvements. The text mining plugin comes with out-of-the-box support for text analytic services such as Ontotext’s Tag API, GATE Cloud, and spaCy server, as well as an expressive mapping language, to register new services without coding. The extracted text annotations can be manipulated with SPARQL and either returned to the caller for further processing or stored directly into the repository where they will enrich the existing knowledge graph. This functionality covers a number of use-cases that rely on both RDF and text analytics.

The Kafka connector provides a means to synchronize changes to the RDF model to any downstream system via the Apache Kafka framework. Each Kafka connector instance will stay automatically up-to-date with the GraphDB repository data. The implementation is built on the same framework as the existing Elasticsearch, Solr and Lucene connectors and allows for precise mapping from RDF to JSON, such as defining fields based on property chains, nested document support as well as advanced filtering by type, literal language or a complex expression. GraphDB 9.8 comes with standard Helm charts and instructions that can help you get started with GraphDB Enterprise Edition on Kubernetes.

https://www.ontotext.com/company/news/graphdb-9-8/

Kofax updates Intelligent Automation Platform

Kofax, a supplier of Intelligent Automation software for digital workflow transformation, announced the latest release of its Intelligent Automation Platform. Kofax TotalAgility, the workflow orchestration engine within the company’s Intelligent Automation Platform, has been enhanced with 50 new low-code, document intelligence, process orchestration and connected systems capabilities.

  • Faster development of automation workflows. A new user experience extends low-code to more business users by empowering citizen developers and analysts to easily setup complex workflows. An enhanced business rules engine allows analysts to execute decision strategies by using visual condition rules and setting up custom services without needing to code.
  • Expanded low-code support for cognitive capture. Nearly 90 percent of data generated today is unstructured. Kofax’s cognitive capture functionality enables professional developers to build advanced AI and Capture models, allowing them to train the system and effectively incorporate document intelligence.
  • One-click document classification. Kofax TotalAgility enables citizen developers and business analysts to enhance advanced document classification models, empowering them to rapidly and visually train, identify and classify documents.
  • Additional low-code integration options. Simplified integrations include new support for OpenAPI and grouping of data, enabling data models to be defined manually or using simple JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). Enhanced support for industry-standard OAuth 2.0 provides greater authorization and authentication options.

https://www.kofax.com/products/totalagility/release-highlights

SNS unveils ShareBrowser plugin for DaVinci Resolve

Studio Network Solutions (SNS), provider of workflow storage servers for professional media teams, announced that their easy-to-use ShareBrowser media asset management (MAM) software is now available as a workflow integration plugin for DaVinci Resolve Studio video editing software by Blackmagic Design. The new workflow integration provides access to the ShareBrowser MAM system from directly inside of DaVinci Resolve, allowing video editors to search, tag, preview, comment, and import media without leaving the Resolve video editing workspace. The ShareBrowser workflow integration plugin for Resolve is available to EVO users working in DaVinci Resolve Studio 17 or later. Both ShareBrowser and its integrated DaVinci Resolve plugin come included with EVO video editing servers at no additional cost.

https://www.studionetworksolutions.com

Docebo adds learning analytics to Multi-product Suite

Docebo, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered learning suite, announced the launch of Docebo Learning Analytics, the newest addition to its multi-product learning suite. Docebo Learning Analytics is a business intelligence tool that allows enterprise customers to retrieve, analyze, and transform the data from their learning programs into useful business insights. With Docebo Learning Analytics, L&D professionals around the world will be able to better tie the results of their training programs back to business outcomes to make the most strategic decisions for their business. In March 2021, the company launched Docebo Learning Suite to address the full enterprise learning lifecycle to give customers the ability to create, manage, deliver, and measure the business impact of learning. Together with products Docebo Learn LMS, Shape, Content, and Learning Impact—Docebo Learning Analytics will allow organizations to close the loop by proving their learning programs are powering their business.

https://www.docebo.com/learning-analytics/

Asana announces Universal Reporting

Asana announced Universal Reporting, offering new ways for leaders to keep track of how work is progressing towards business critical goals. Powered by Asana’s Work Graph data model, Universal Reporting provides complete, fully-connected, accurate reports with real-time information on team activities, workloads, and budget.

Rather than relying on endless check-in meetings and outdated status updates, Universal Reporting enables real-time clarity across any combination of projects. In just a few clicks, a manager can pull together a unique set of projects across multiple departments to showcase progress in a way that’s customizable, flexible and always up-to-date.

  • Get real-time information without manual effort: Because Dashboards are connected to the work in Asana the information is up-to-date.
  • Unblock work with meaningful and actionable insights: Asana’s charts make it easy to quickly diagnose potential issues, navigate to the underlying data and take action on it.
  • Streamline reporting with a single source of truth: When an organization’s work lives in Asana, reporting becomes straightforward and streamlined. Once the reporting direction is set, teams have the flexibility to create charts on any workstream they need to monitor.

https://asana.com

Gilbane Advisor 6-2-21 — cookiepocalypse, query understanding, news

I mentioned last week I would be combining our monthly reading recommendations and weekly news into a single weekly publication, while keeping the size of the email about the same (4 +/- min). The late March-like weekend weather here in Boston inspired me to move quicker than planned.

Our new format includes recommended articles in our Opinion / Analysis section. In our News section we have the full text of some of our edited news stories with links to the original source, and snippets of additional news items with links to our edited version.

This week we suggest articles by Benedict Evans and Daniel Tunkelang, and have news from Elastic, Librestream, Varada, Microsoft, Squirro, Fluree and Lead Semantics, and AtScale.

Always interested in hearing what you think!


Opinion / Analysis

Apple, Fedex and the cookie apocalypse

If you’ve been following the consumer privacy versus advertising discussions, you know that Apple’s and Google’s moves are a big deal, but what will result? What will the three-way push-and-pull between advertisers, publishers, and consumers look like? How will each change their model or behavior? What impact will the reactions of rent seekers and regulators have? Nobody knows. Benedict Evans reviews the current state of affairs, suggests some changes, and helpfully looks at the bigger picture.

As cookie-based ads go away, does the targeting move from the cloud to the client, or from the reader to the content? Does this make the strong stronger? Or does the money go to Fedex instead?

https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2021/5/25/apple-fedex-and-the-cookie-apocalypse

AI for query understanding

We know that Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and others are working hard to determine search intent to create better search results and assistant responses. There is also a lot of interest in replacing inverted indexes with neural information retrieval. Search expert Daniel Tunkelang argues for prioritizing the use AI tools on query understanding before using them to improve retrieval and ranking. He explains more in this short article, and provides useful links for those of us who might need a refresher on search technology terminology.

https://dtunkelang.medium.com/ai-for-query-understanding-d8c073095fff


Content technology news

Elastic adds features in Elastic Enterprise Search 7.13

May 27, 2021 – Elastic announced new Dropbox integrations, the beta release of the Elastic App Search precision tuning API, and enhanced custom source APIs across the Elastic Enterprise Search solution in the 7.13 release. Elastic Enterprise Search includes expanded content sources for Elastic Workplace Search, now supporting Dropbox Paper and complete document-level permission synchronization across all Dropbox content. Teams that rely on Dropbox to collaborate, create, and coordinate can use Workplace Search to find the content they need alongside relevant chat messages, wiki pages, PDFs, and other content.The new Elastic App Search precision tuning API, now available in beta, allows customers to adjust the recall and precision of their websites or application search results. Through a single API call or parameter at query time, search admins can easily unlock granular search optimization by configuring how broad or narrow their search results should be to suit the exact needs of their users.New custom source management APIs, also introduced in Workplace Search 7.13, simplify data ingestion and enable users to manage content from any source, including legacy and custom applications. The new APIs allow for programmatic, on-the-fly creation and operation of sources without the need for manual setup. Users can create high-quality ingestion pipelines for any source alongside other day-to-day tools, all with unified relevance.

https://www.elastic.co/blog/whats-new-elastic-enterprise-search-7-13-0

Librestream enhances knowledge-sharing with AI Connected Expert

May 27, 2021 – Librestream, provider of augmented reality (AR) and remote collaboration solutions, launched new capabilities for its Artificial Intelligence (AI) Connected Expert vision giving industrial workers access to the content, people, smart data and guidance needed to efficiently and safely perform their work.

The new components to the Onsight platform include natural language processing (NLP) with real-time translation capabilities to bridge language barriers amongst global workers, and an industrial-first AR experience for the Microsoft HoloLens 2 platform. The advancements build on the AI Connected Expert workforce vertically-trained computer vision, reducing human cognitive load, and enabling faster time to competency for employees, as well as IoT sensor data visualizations within the Onsight experience.

Onsight Translator, Librestream’s NLP capability, enables users to simply and securely translate “speech to text,” including live transcription (captions) displayed on-screen and live translation of calls from one language to another. Whether a field technician works with a subject matter expert on an asset repair task, communicates with a supplier in a different country or assists with a remote inspection, Onsight Translator’s speech recognition and machine translation bridges language gaps.

Onsight Connect for HoloLens 2 provides hands-free experience across collaborators, incorporating the mixed reality features of the HoloLens 2 such as holographic visual interface and support for gestures, voice-driven commands, and 3D audio experience.

https://librestream.com/press-releases/librestream-unveils-workforce-collaboration-and-knowledge-sharing-enhancements-as-part-of-ai-connected-expert-vision/

Varada delivers text analytics on the Data Lake for SQL Consumers

May 27, 2021 – Varada, a data lake query acceleration provider, announced its platform now supports text analytics workloads and helps data teams deliver faster time-to-insights on exabytes of string-based data. Varada’s solution for interactive text analytics, integrated with open source search engine Apache Lucene, works directly on the customer’s data lake and serves SQL data consumers out-of-the-box. Varada’s text analytics feature is deployed in the organization’s own environment, so the data is not duplicated and never leaves. Plus, it incorporates all data from any source without modeling with results that are both thorough and precise. Varada’s dynamic and adaptive indexing technology enables text analytics workloads to run at close to zero latency response time.

Varada’s adaptive and autonomous indexing technology leverages machine learning capabilities to dynamically accelerate queries to meet evolving business requirements. Varada indexes data directly from the data lake across any columns. Based on the data type, structure, and distribution of data, Varada automatically creates an optimal index from a set of indexing algorithms including text-optimized search and index (based on Apache Lucene) as well as bitmap, dictionary, trees, etc. Indexes also adapt to changes in data over time.

https://varada.io/

More recent news…

Microsoft Build — selected news

Lots of news this week at the annual Microsoft Build developer conference. They did produce a very helpful “Book of News” (at about 8,800 words) with a table of contents to cover it all. Below is a selection of announcements our readers are most likely to be interested in, followed by a link to the …

https://gilbane.com/2021/05/microsoft-build-selected-news/

Squirro launches new Squirro App Studio

Squirro, an Augmented Intelligence solutions provider, has announced the launch of its new Squirro App Studio, a no code / low code platform to build and set up AI-powered apps such as Cognitive Search quickly and easily. The platform enables users with no background in data science to build a Cognitive Search app, leveraging Artificial …

https://gilbane.com/2021/05/squirro-launches-new-squirro-app-studio/

Fluree and Lead Semantics announce TextDistil

Fluree, provider of an immutable semantic graph data platform, announced a technical partnership with Lead Semantics to provide an integrated solution, TextDistil, for enterprise data management teams building semantic-capable, secure data fabrics. A focus for the integrated solution includes regulated industries, with a greater magnitude and scope of requirements needed to prove compliance, including fintech, …

https://gilbane.com/2021/05/fluree-and-lead-semantics-announce-textdistil/

AtScale announces AtScale CloudStart

Semantic layer eliminates the friction of moving BI, artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads to the cloud. …

https://gilbane.com/2021/05/atscale-announces-atscale-cloudstart/


The Gilbane Advisor is curated by Frank Gilbane for content technology, computing, and digital experience professionals. The focus is on strategic technologies. We publish recommended articles and content technology news weekly. We do not sell or share personal data.

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