Facebook Adds a New Search Feature

Posted on February 4, 2013 by admin

Facebook finally got around to developing a search feature and the social networking giant named it Graph Search. The new application was launched recently and the technology media has been buzzing about it ever since. TechCrunch adds its own two cents in, “Iterations: Graph Search, In Theory And In Practice.” Some news sources have said Facebook has finally unleashed a search product capable of rivaling Google. While Graph Search does tread in Web areas unavailable to Google, it probably will not topple the Big G.
Here is what TechCrunch weighed in:

I haven’t paid as close attention to Facebook as others, but my initial reaction to the unveiling of Graph Search was that it was less about what individual consumers could do (though that’s cool), and more about how companies, brands, and other institutions could further segment the Facebook audience in order to hyper-target their messages, advertisements, and attention. This is where Open Graph, in theory, could continue to funnel data into Facebook’s data centers and, over time, build all sorts of audiences with a few keyword search terms.

The article makes an astute assumption that people have not been conditioned to search on Facebook and that users are growing more and more hesitant in putting information on the social network. The reason? Facebook keeps changing its privacy settings.

Other Web sites like Pinterest and Quora are already leading users to new information sources without relying on a home-built search application. Graph Search, though, will allow users to search their content along with friends’. For the time being, Graph Search is in Beta mode and has a long, long way to go. If you want to find your own new brand of search, LucidWorks is a place to start.

Whitney Grace, February 4, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

GitHub Proves Open Source is the Way to Go

Posted on January 3, 2013 by admin

Have you ever heard of GitHub? If you are involved in open source project development and you have not, then where have you been? GitHib is only one of the biggest online repositories for open source projects. It already has 2.8 million users with more signing up everyday, according to Network World’s article, “GitHub Growth Points to Open Source’s Enterprise Acceptance.” The 2.8 million users have made 25,000 repositories, which only adds to the 4.6 million that already exist. Open source used to be viewed as a passing fade by free software promoters, but it has proved that it can power billion-dollar companies, i.e. Red Hat. It is believed that this is a new age with open source powering the way.

Projects that prove useful and powerful are snapped up by major tech companies, which then invest capital and innovation. The hope is that the investments will return higher revenue. The well-established companies sponsoring an open source project are more likely to succeed:

Despite all the attention projects like OpenStack and Hadoop are receiving, Alan Shimel says they both still have a long way to go. ‘They’re big on promise, short on real examples,’ he says. If any project has a future, though, it’s likely one that has the backing of such big-name companies as Rackspace, Red Hat, HP, Dell, IBM, Cisco and VMware, like OpenStack does. ‘There’s a lot of smart money invested in those projects.’

The well-established companies that invest in open source projects are also attaching their names and reputation to the projects. It helps place trust in a new endeavor. Much like how Apache, one oldest and well-reputed open source organizations, did with LucidWorks’ search applications.

Whitney Grace, January 3, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

Job Hunters Get Good News

Posted on October 23, 2012 by admin

In such a dismal job market, any news is good news and looks like one particular group of job candidates has something to look forward to. Job candidates with Linux skills have seen more opportunities than many industries but according to the PCWorld article “Good News for Job Hunters in Android, Linux, and Open Source” the market just got a little brighter. The article highlights three reports that have talked about the growing popularity of DevOps and the bright future for people skilled in Android, Linux and open source software.

Jennifer Cloer the author of “Top Five Tech Jobs Point to Opportunity for Linux Pro’s” talks about Robert Half International’s latest salary guide, which lists the tops five most lucrative tech jobs for 2013. According to the guide, next year’s most promising jobs are mobile app developers, wireless network engineers, network engineers, data modelers and portal administrators. Cloer points out that the one thing that all of these jobs have in common is that individuals must have a fundamental understanding of Linux. Another report “Open Source Hobbyists Now in High Demand” by Brian Proffitt talks about the Open Source operating system Contiki. The third report mentioned came from IT careers site Dice and it named several key skills that were experiencing record levels of demand.

Software development and quality assurance lead the list, but among those next in line are Python, Ruby on Rails, Android, and JBoss. In short, ‘technology professionals with these skills and expertise are being sought like never before on Dice. It’s time to take advantage.’

Open source skills are definitely in high demand as companies such as LucidWorks continue to grow and look for the best and brightest employees. Looks like the open source job world is wide open.

April Holmes, October 23, 2012

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.

Scientists But Not Students Will Be Happy About Open Source

Posted on October 15, 2012 by admin

GGA Software Services, a provider of outsourced scientific informatics services to the life sciences industry, has released Indigo ELN—an open source chemistry electronic lab notebook. Pharmbiz.com reported on the story in their article, “GGA Software Introduces Indigo ELN, an Open Source Version of Chemistry Electronic Lab Notebook for Scientific Community.” GGA was selected by one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies to create and distribute the open source version of the notebook.

‘Indigo ELN represents a leading cost-effective alternative to commercial ELN products: Users can upgrade their existing ELN with a proven and tested open-source platform, and they can do it at no charge,’ said Richard Golob, GGA’s president and chief executive officer. Golob continued, ‘Through our own open-source cheminformatics initiative, GGA has been contributing software tools to the scientific community, and we regard this initiative with one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies as a natural extension of our existing commitment to open-source technologies.’

The new endeavor contributes immensely to the chemistry community. Indigo ELN allows scientists to create, store, retrieve, and share electronic chemistry information records in legal and regulatory manners. Indigo ELN acts like Facebook, minus all the fluff, but containing all the social networking connections. It is a global academic community that maintains its integrity. All the information contained in the notebook, makes me wonder what search application GGA Software is using. Since the notebook is open source, they might consider an application build on open source software from LucidWorks.

Whitney Grace, October 15, 2012

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.

Jaspersoft Shares Big Data Results

Posted on July 9, 2012 by admin

Jaspersoft, an industry leader in the business intelligence software world, recently released the second quarter metrics for the Jaspersoft Big Data Index. According to the MarketWatch article, “Jaspersoft Publishes Second Big Data Index,” this is the industry’s first index and measures the demand of the most popular data sources for storing, analyzing and visualizing Big Data. The Index is based off of the total number of JasperForge’s native connector downloads. JasperForge is Jaspersoft’s open source Web site and it is community-focused.

The Big Data Index studies the activity of NoSQL and Big Data environments including Hadoop Hive, DataStax Cassandra and Riak. Jaspersoft looks at data from January 2011 to May 2012 in order to highlight growth trends for Big Data analytics overall and rank the demand for individual data sources.

Brian Gentile, the CEO of Jaspersoft talks about the popularity of several NoSQL environments when it comes to reporting and analyzing Big Data and the domino effect it has had on the industry as a whole.

Companies now have the opportunity to learn more about their operations and performance by analyzing data streams that were too big or too complex to process even a couple years ago.

The Vice President of Product and Alliances at Jaspersoft, Karl Van den Bergh sums things up with this statement:

The value of Big Data is just being uncovered as data scientists begin to analyze log files, social media feeds, online media, gaming systems, fraud and security monitoring, and a variety of other data-driven applications. Jaspersoft’s native Big Data connectors help BI end-users access large and complex data sets and navigate through them using our industry-leading reporting, analysis and dashboards tools.

Jaspersoft is an industry leader but with competitors such as Lucid Imagination also rolling strong the field is wide open.

April Holmes, July 9, 2012

Smart Cities on the Horizon with Open Source

Posted on June 18, 2012 by admin

As social technologies such as Twitter gather more and more passive information, the question becomes how to harness it and give it meaning. There is a movement in Great Britain to harness that power and help users answer questions about their physical world. Tech World fills in the details in, “Scottish Scientists Build Search Engine for ‘Internet of Things.’”

The article provides an introduction to the project:

Computer scientists at the University of Glasgow [Scotland] are helping to develop an internet search engine that uses sensors located in the physical world to provide answers to search queries. By collating data from sensors such as cameras and microphones, and cross-referencing it with results from social networks such as Twitter, users will be able to receive detailed responses to questions such as ‘What part of the city hosts live music events that my friends have been to recently?’ and ‘How busy is the city centre?’

This technology definitely takes crowd sourcing to the next level, allowing users to survey their peers with the input that has been provided passively. Open source technology is what makes this possible. SMART is the name given to the developing search engine. Voice and Data provides greater detail about the technology in, “SMART to Develop New Internet Search Engine by 2014.”

SMART (Search engine for MultimediA Environment geneRated content), an European-funded project aims to develop and implement a system to allow internet users to search and analyse data from sensors located in physical world by 2014. And Scientists from University of Glasgow are participating in this new project. The research is going on since 2004. This new search engine will be developed on Terrier, an open source search engine technology.

Terrier is no doubt being used because it is being developed at the University of Glasgow as well. This project shows the potential of open source, how it enables creative thinking and problem solving and allows greater mobility without concerns over licensing and payments.

However, some organizations may want all of the benefits of open source search technology, without the feeling that they are on their own to problem solve or troubleshoot any encountered issues. Lucid Imagination is a company that has made a name for itself by providing incomparable customer support and training for its suite of open source search solutions including: Apache Lucene and Solr, LucidWorks Enterprise, and LucidWorks Big Data.

Followers here at Open Search News will appreciate how emerging projects such as this SMART search engine clearly drive the market, pushing innovation in a way that commercial search cannot. Commercial and proprietary systems are contingent upon profit. But projects such as SMART see a need and meet it, without having to consider their profit margin. Creativity comes first with open source.

We are excited about the potential that open source technology provides, but especially supportive of offerings like those at Lucid Imagination, which enable creativity and innovation, while easing the strain on the innovator.

In the current climate of Big Data buzz, the SMART project is certainly one to follow, bridging a search need left by social technologies like Twitter and Facebook.

Emily Rae Aldridge, June 18, 2012