Systems Consciousness

Something that has been plaguing my SugarCRM SOAP API implementation: inserting dates into the Leads module.

Just as in any other module, we have at least one date field. In this case, an “Expected Start Date” field for various fee-for-service inquiries is the culprit. Our original insert code for this field looked like this:

array(”name” => ‘expected_start_date_c’,”value” => $POSTdataClean['cf2_field_18']),

This didn’t work though because the date that’s coming in from cForms is of the format MM/DD/YYYY. What Sugar expects though is, “YYYY-MM-DD H:M:S.” So if you are going to insert a date into Sugar via the SOAP API, and you want it to work, you will want to use the following code:

array(”name” => ’start_date_c’,”value” => date(’Y-m-d H:i:s’, strtotime($POSTdataClean['cf2_field_18']))),

If you’re looking for a deeper explanation, check out the PHP manual for strtotime and date.

WikiPedia explains human computation as,

… a computer science technique in which a computational process performs its function by outsourcing certain steps to humans (Kosorukoff, 2001). This approach leverages differences in abilities and alternative costs between humans and computer agents to achieve symbiotic human-computer interaction.

More plainly, human computation is a system that uses human decision making where questions require more or higher reasoning than any computer program can accomplish efficiently. Efficiency is the operative concept here. It’s possible to write programs of infinite complexity that make strategic decisions based on vast amounts of statistical data; but our species hasn’t completely mastered the physical hardware to do this. If-then logic is extremely powerful as applied to reason, but in the programming sense, only when supplemented by scores of data.

The human memory still holds a lot of data that isn’t available online–or that hasn’t yet been entered into a database, at least. We think of companies like Google compulsively hoarding and processing tons of data, but the human brain still holds more and processes more information than this organization could fathom. Facial recognition is a perfect example of this because, while a video camera can record you and a computer can store this data, all that is collected is the series of images making up the video. You can’t, for instance, query a JPG to know the manufacture of the shirt on the news anchor.

In 20th century video surveillance,  the software didn’t yet know who the person was on camera. It still took a human to answer this question because we could do it faster. The relationships and associations human beings connect to bits of data, and the manners we employ to retrieve or “remember” these data are inherently efficient. We’re teaching the internet how to be like this, too.

Cheaper hardware, more advanced programming methodologies, and more efficient database systems are making it possible for our species to record data about physical space that hasn’t before been logged. Take for instance Facebook’s photo tagging and the similar service now offered by flikr. How far off are we from our homes knowing that it’s us at the door? How long before Facebook’s upload tool automatically recognizes everyone in a photo?

I came across the following video some time ago. The idea is actually pretty simple. Use a program to handle mundane tasks. Treat decision making in code where enough data and processing power exist. Use humans when judgment is required. Judgment, unlike logic, implies some deficiency in knowledge of a given occurrence–some degree of faith, character or experience; whereas logic suggests a definite outcome for a definite circumstance. Humans do this far better than any combination of hardware and software. Check out the video below. You might learn something.

Quite an interesting take on Systems Consciousness. Enjoy.

Man is God.

He is everywhere, he is anybody, he knows everything.

This is the Prometeus new world.

All started with the Media Revolution, with Internet, at the end of the last century.

Everything related to the old media vanished: Gutenberg, the copyright, the radio, the television, the publicity.

The old world reacts: more restrictions for the copyright, new laws against non authorized copies. Napster, the music peer to peer company is sued.

At the same time, free internet radio appears; TIVO, the internet television, allows to avoid publicity; the Wall Street Journal goes on line; Google launches Google news.

Millions of people read daily the biggest on line newspaper. Ohmynews written by thousands of journalists; Flickr becomes the biggest repository in the history of photos, YouTube for movies.

The power of the masses.

(more…)

Source: InformationWeek | By J. Nicholas Hoover

Investment arm In-Q-Tel is funding Visible Technologies, making its online brand analysis capabilities available to U.S. intelligence agencies.

Businesses are increasingly looking to social media to monitor and manage their brands online. U.S. intelligence agencies now have similar capabilities as part of their technology portfolios.

In-Q-Tel, the investment firm established by the CIA to support U.S. intelligence agencies, has invested in Visible Technologies, a start-up that monitors social media content on the Web.

U.S. intelligence organizations could use Visible Technologies’ service to monitor and analyze public opinion on the Web, much as private sector companies do.

Visible Technologies’ TruCAST engine “casts a net on whatever the client wants to know more about,” said senior VP Blake Cahill. TruCAST pulls information from blogs, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, news sites, and Web forums, though it can’t reach into places like Facebook and MySpace where users have set privacy controls. Using that information, companies can run sentiment and relevancy analysis, look at a commenter or blogger’s level of influence, and search for posts based on defined criteria.

Visible Technologies has been focusing increasingly on the government sector, and it has done some work through the General Services Administration, according to Cahill. Concepts & Strategies, a consultancy that advises the Department of Defense, is one of its partners.

In-Q-Tel has invested in more than 175 companies, including ArcSight (security information management), Lucid Imagination (open source search), Endeca (search), Adapx (smart pens) and Keyhole, the developer of foundational technology used in Google Maps.

Visible Technologies has raised $23.5 million in funding since its inception in 2005, including $8 million since December. Terms of In-Q-Tel’s investment weren’t disclosed.

InformationWeek Analytics has published a report on the 10 steps to effective data classification. Download the report here (registration required).

By Ryan Singel | Wired.com | September 23, 2009 at 7:00 am

The FBI’s Data-Mining Ore

Composed of government information, commercial databases and records acquired in criminal and terrorism probes, the FBI’s National Security Branch Analysis Center is too broad to be considered mission-focused, but still too patchy to be Orwellian. Here’s the data we know about.

• International travel records of citizens and foreigners

• Financial forms filed with the Treasury by banks and casinos

• 55,000 entries on customers of Wyndham Worldwide, which includes Ramada Inn, Days Inn, Super 8, Howard Johnson and Hawthorn Suites

• 730 records from rental-car company Avis

• 165 credit card transaction histories from Sears

• Nearly 200 million records transferred from private data brokers such Accurint, Acxiom and Choicepoint

• A reverse White Pages with 696 million names and addresses tied to U.S. phone numbers

• Log data on all calls made by federal prison inmates

• A list of all active pilots

• 500,000 names of suspected terrorists from the Unified Terrorist Watch List

• Nearly 3 million records on people cleared to drive hazardous materials on the nation’s highways

• Telephone records and wiretapped conversations captured by FBI investigations

• 17,000 traveler itineraries from the Airlines Reporting Corporation

Read the full article at Wired.com here.