Microsoft pitches Edge on Bing to deflect deserters

Microsoft pitches Edge on Bing to deflect deserters

Microsoft has begun promoting its new Edge browser using its Bing search engine, copying a practice already used by rivals.

Just as Google's Chrome and Mozilla's Firefox have been pushed by the Google and Yahoo search engines, Edge now is both being touted as the better browser when users of Windows 10 search for those two competitors on Bing from Edge, and pitched as a replacement for them when the same users search for "chrome" or "firefox" on Bing as they run either of those browsers.

The first part of the promotion appears when Windows 10 users running Edge use Bing to search for "chrome." At the top of the results, Bing places a small black banner that reads, "Microsoft recommends Microsoft Edge for Windows 10," along with a "Learn why" button that directs the user to a marketing page. The same happens when an Edge user searches for "firefox" on Bing. (A search on Bing from Edge for "opera" does not trigger a similar banner.)

Microsoft also uses the banner when Windows 10 users run Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) -- which is bundled with the new OS alongside Edge -- to search Bing for "chrome" or "firefox."

With the banner, Microsoft appears to making a last-ditch effort to stop Windows 10 users from switching to Chrome or Firefox. While the immediate impact of the plea may be questionable -- presumably those searching for for an alternative had already made the decision to download and install another browser -- Microsoft may simply be planting doubt in the minds of potential switchers, and thus hope to regain Edge users if they're dissatisfied with their new choice.

A second promotion appears when Windows 10 users running either Chrome or Firefox search for one of those two browsers on Bing. In those instances, a message reading, "Try the browser for Bing & Windows 10. Microsoft Edge is here. Go now," displays above the summary snapshot at the right of the Bing results.

Again, the impact of this try-Edge message is questionable, since both Chrome and Firefox default to non-Bing search providers -- Google in the case of Chrome, Yahoo for Firefox in the U.S. -- and so are unlikely to be searching on Bing in the first place.

Interestingly, Microsoft does not further promote Edge with a banner or message when Chrome or Firefox users search Bing using the string "Edge browser."

None of these promotional efforts is out of the ordinary for a search provider with an interest in pushing a particular browser. 

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Special Report: Computerworld's 100 Best Places to Work in IT for 2015

Our 22nd annual report highlights top organizations across the country that offer technology pros challenging projects, robust salaries and flexible work/life options. We identify which employers offer high salaries, superior benefits, and unsurpassed access to training and career advancement opportunities. We also reveal what more than 23,000 IT workers think of their benefits, training, office morale, workplace stress levels and more.

Here are the top organizations for 2015:

No. 1 Large Employer: Quicken Loans

Abundant perks aside, IT team members are drawn in by a culture that values innovation, an entrepreneurial spirit, and the use of technology to drive business goals. 

No. 1 Midsize Employer: Credit Acceptance

Ambitious IT pros are rewarded by this auto financing company with frequent pay raises, substantial bonuses and generous tuition reimbursement. 

No. 1 Small Employer: Noah Consulting

Team-building takes priority at this all-virtual company, which hires top technologists and keeps them happy with compelling assignments and rapid career advancement.

Have the Computerworld Digital Magazine delivered to your inbox each month.

News Analysis

At a crossroads in the automotive technology market, Microsoft is likely to start losing its foothold in the in-vehicle infotainment business, but it may have a future in providing cloud-based services to carmakers.

Shark Tank

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Read CW's new July digital magazine!

Special Report: Computerworld's 100 Best Places to Work in IT for 2015

Our 22nd annual report highlights top organizations across the country that offer technology pros challenging projects, robust salaries and flexible work/life options. We identify which employers offer high salaries, superior benefits, and unsurpassed access to training and career advancement opportunities. We also reveal what more than 23,000 IT workers think of their benefits, training, office morale, workplace stress levels and more.

Here are the top organizations for 2015:

No. 1 Large Employer: Quicken Loans

Abundant perks aside, IT team members are drawn in by a culture that values innovation, an entrepreneurial spirit, and the use of technology to drive business goals. 

No. 1 Midsize Employer: Credit Acceptance

Ambitious IT pros are rewarded by this auto financing company with frequent pay raises, substantial bonuses and generous tuition reimbursement. 

No. 1 Small Employer: Noah Consulting

Team-building takes priority at this all-virtual company, which hires top technologists and keeps them happy with compelling assignments and rapid career advancement.

Have the Computerworld Digital Magazine delivered to your inbox each month.

News Analysis

At a crossroads in the automotive technology market, Microsoft is likely to start losing its foothold in the in-vehicle infotainment business, but it may have a future in providing cloud-based services to carmakers.

Shark Tank

Read the latest exploits of hapless bosses and clueless users.

Download the Computerworld Digital Magazine.

After clicking the link above, find the download button that's specific to the browser you're using, click it, then check the folder you have designated for downloads. Please note that this extra-large issue, jam-packed with information on Computerworld’s 100 Best Places to Work in IT, might take slightly longer than usual to download.

4 news apps that will change everything

I'm a huge fan of newspapers. I've been subscribing to the print edition of The New York Times since I was in college.

Newspapers always had an edge over alternative sources for news, which is that they're run by editors. That's why I also use the individual news apps from the Times, as well as The Wall Street Journal and others.

Software is great, but computers are decades away from being able to even approximate a human editor's ability to combine reason, experience, intuition, taste, judgment and other qualities in developing and presenting stories for human readers.

But I'm also a fan of socially or algorithmically curated sources of news. These have an advantage over newspapers because they can cherry pick the best stories from thousands of sources, including newspapers, magazines, blogs and social networks.

One recent example of a good socially curated news app is Kite, which is currently for iOS only. It's been called the "Instagram of News" because you follow people and get your news based on what they share. Plus you can share to other social networks, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Another interesting advancement is Facebook's Instant Articles, which (like all content on Facebook) uses a combination of socially and algorithmically curated news stories.

Facebook's Instant Articles enable select publications (only nine at present) to build their stories directly into Facebook's iOS app. An Android version is expected this summer.

Anything Facebook does with news is, well, big news because, according to a recent Pew Research study, some 61 percent of "millennials" get their political news from Facebook.

When you tap on a news story that uses Facebook Instant Articles, the fully formatted story -- pictures, videos and all -- load instantly in the app. The reason is that they are actually pre-loaded, and also because they're not a link that switches to a browser app. In other words, you don't have to wait for the content to load or the app to switch.

Best of all for publishers, the formatting tools enable each publication's signature look, including typefaces, logos, colors and other design elements. Another benefit for publishers is that they can sell ads that will be delivered through the app, and Facebook isn't demanding a cut.

While Kite and Facebook's Instant Articles are improvements over what existed before, they still aren't likely to transform how the wider public gets their news.

No technological replacement exists for bulk data collection

No software-based technique can fully replace the bulk collection of signals intelligence, but methods can be developed to more effectively conduct targeted collection and to control the usage of collected data, says a new report from the National Research Council. Automated systems for isolating collected data, restricting queries that can be made against those data, and auditing usage of the data can help to enforce privacy protections and allay some civil liberty concerns, the unclassified report says.

The study was a result of an activity called for in Presidential Policy Directive 28, issued by President Obama in January 2014, to evaluate U.S. signals intelligence practices. The directive instructed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to produce a report within one year "assessing the feasibility of creating software that would allow the intelligence community more easily to conduct targeted information acquisition rather than bulk collection." ODNI asked the Research Council -- the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering -- to conduct a study, which began in June 2014, to assist in preparing a response to the President. Over the ensuing months, a committee of experts appointed by the Research Council produced the report.
"From a technological standpoint, curtailing bulk data collection means analysts will be deprived of some information," said committee chairman Robert F. Sproull, former director of Oracle's Sun Labs. "It does not necessarily mean that current bulk collection must continue. A reduction in bulk collection can be partially mitigated by improving targeted collection, and technologies can improve oversight and transparency and help reduce the conflict between collection and privacy."
The report defines "collection" as the process of extracting data from a source, filtering it according to some criteria, and storing the results. If a significant portion of the collected data is not associated with current targets or subjects of interest in an investigation, it is considered bulk; otherwise, it is targeted.
A key value of bulk collection is its record of past signals intelligence that may be relevant to subsequent investigations, the report notes. The committee was not asked to and did not consider whether the loss of effectiveness from reducing bulk collection would be too great, or whether the potential gain in privacy from adopting an alternative collection method is worth the potential loss of intelligence information. It did observe that other sources of information -- for example, data held by third parties such as communications providers -- might provide a partial substitute for bulk collection in some circumstances.
Improving the relevance of collected information to future investigations could also be achieved with new approaches to targeting, the report says. Rapidly updating filtering criteria to include new targets as they are discovered will help collect data that would otherwise be lost, and if done quickly enough and well enough, bulk information about past events may not be needed. However, targeted collection cannot substitute for bulk collection if past events were unique or if the delay in collecting the new information is too long.
As an alternative to controlling the collection of data, automated controls on the use of collected data can help to protect the privacy of people who are not subjects of investigation, the committee found. The report describes three key technical elements required to control and automate usage: isolating bulk data so that it can be accessed only in specific ways; restricting the types of queries that can be made against stored data; and auditing the queries that have been done. The way these controls work can be made public without revealing sensitive data, so that outside inspectors can verify that the intelligence community has and abides by adequate procedures to protect privacy.
While some of the necessary technologies to enhance targeted collection or improve automated usage controls require further research and development, some of the techniques are already in use in the intelligence community or in private companies, some have been demonstrated in research laboratories, and many are feasible to deploy within the next five years, the report says, although it does not recommend adoption of any specific technology. Automating usage controls will be easier if the rules governing collection and use are technology-neutral and based on a consistent set of definitions.
Ultimately, the decision to deploy any given technology is a policy question that requires determining whether increased effectiveness and apparent transparency are worth the cost in equipment, labor, and potential interference with the intelligence mission. Such discussions were beyond the scope of this report.

Geographic clusters of underimmunization identified in Northern California

Researchers used spatial analysis software and electronic medical records to identify clusters of underimmunization and vaccine refusal among Kaiser Permanente members in Northern California, according to a study published today in the journal Pediatrics.

Children are considered to be underimmunized when they miss one or more recommended vaccine doses before age three, while vaccine refusal means not allowing a child to receive any vaccines.
The study reviewed the immunization records of more than 154,000 Kaiser Permanente Northern California members between birth and 3 years old. All the children were born between 2000 and 2011 and were covered continuously by Kaiser Permanente, which provides health care for about 40 percent of the insured population in 13 Northern California counties. To identify the clusters of underimmunization and vaccine refusal, researchers used sophisticated spatial analysis software, which allowed them to examine health factors in relation to geography.
The Centers for Disease Control's immunization schedule recommends a minimum of 17 separate injections during a child's first two years of life, including for hepatitis A and B, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, influenza, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, and pneumococcal virus. Underimmunization is associated with elevated risk of vaccine-preventable disease, while nonmedical immunization exemption and refusal have been associated with increased community risk of measles and pertussis.
"This research confirms anecdotal reports of underimmunization clusters," said Tracy A. Lieu, MD, MPH, the study's lead author, a Kaiser Permanente pediatrician, and director of the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. "In addition, we found clusters in places we hadn't anticipated."
Dr. Lieu noted that this study will be useful for targeting outreach efforts in particular areas, although it was not designed to figure out why children in some areas are less likely to be fully immunized.
"Everyone in the Kaiser Permanente health care system has access to vaccines, and since childhood vaccination is covered by insurance, financial barriers are not an issue," Dr. Lieu said. "Our findings raise awareness that there may be communities where parents have more vaccine hesitancy and may be interested in more information or more in-depth conversations with their children's doctors."
Underimmunization ranged from 18 percent to 23 percent within clusters, compared with 11 percent outside clusters. Between 2010 and 2012, geographic clusters of underimmunization were found in:

• the East Bay (Richmond to San Leandro);
• Sonoma and Napa counties;
• a small area of east Sacramento;
• northern San Francisco and southern Marin counties; and
• a small area of Vallejo.

"Shot limiting," in which parents limit the number of injections or antigens that children receive during a pediatric visit to two or fewer, was found to cluster in similar areas.
Vaccine refusal ranged from 5.5 percent to 13.5 percent within clusters, compared with 2.6 percent outside clusters. Between 2010 and 2012, geographic clusters of vaccine refusal were found in:

• the East Bay (El Cerrito to Alameda);
• Marin and southwest Sonoma counties;
• northeastern San Francisco;
• northeastern Sacramento County and Roseville; and
• a small area south of Sacramento

"Kaiser Permanente's electronic medical record system is among the richest in the world," Dr. Lieu said. "This is the first time that spatial analysis techniques have been applied to real-time vaccine data."

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Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Kaiser Permanente. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Software that knows the risks

Imagine that you could tell your phone that you want to drive from your house in Boston to a hotel in upstate New York, that you want to stop for lunch at an Applebee's at about 12:30, and that you don't want the trip to take more than four hours. Then imagine that your phone tells you that you have only a 66 percent chance of meeting those criteria -- but that if you can wait until 1:00 for lunch, or if you're willing to eat at TGI Friday's instead, it can get that probability up to 99 percent.

That kind of application is the goal of Brian Williams' group at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory -- although the same underlying framework has led to software that both NASA and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have used to plan missions.
At the annual meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) this month, researchers in Williams' group will present algorithms that represent significant steps toward what Williams describes as "a better Siri" -- the user-assistance application found in Apple products. But they would be just as useful for any planning task -- say, scheduling flights or bus routes.
Together with Williams, Peng Yu and Cheng Fang, who are graduate students in MIT's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, have developed software that allows a planner to specify constraints -- say, buses along a certain route should reach their destination at 10-minute intervals -- and reliability thresholds, such as that the buses should be on time at least 90 percent of the time. Then, on the basis of probabilistic models -- which reveal data such as that travel time along this mile of road fluctuates between two and 10 minutes -- the system determines whether a solution exists: For example, perhaps the buses' departures should be staggered by six minutes at some times of day, 12 minutes at others.
If, however, a solution doesn't exist, the software doesn't give up. Instead, it suggests ways in which the planner might relax the problem constraints: Could the buses reach their destinations at 12-minute intervals? If the planner rejects the proposed amendment, the software offers an alternative: Could you add a bus to the route?
Short tails
One aspect of the software that distinguishes it from previous planning systems is that it assesses risk. "It's always hard working directly with probabilities, because they always add complexity to your computations," Fang says. "So we added this idea of risk allocation. We say, 'What's your budget of risk for this entire mission? Let's divide that up and use it as a resource.'"
The time it takes to traverse any mile of a bus route, for instance, can be represented by a probability distribution -- a bell curve, plotting time against probability. Keeping track of all those probabilities and compounding them for every mile of the route would yield a huge computation. But if the system knows in advance that the planner can tolerate a certain amount of failure, it can, in effect, assign that failure to the lowest-probability outcomes in the distributions, lopping off their tails. That makes them much easier to deal with mathematically.
At AAAI, Williams and another of his students, Andrew Wang, have a paper describing how to evaluate those assignments efficiently, in order to find quick solutions to soluble planning problems. But the paper with Yu and Fang -- which appears at the same conference session -- concentrates on identifying those constraints that prevent a problem's solution.
There's the rub
Both procedures are rooted in graph theory. In this context, a graph is a data representation that consists of nodes, usually depicted as circles, and edges, usually depicted as line segments connecting the nodes. Any scheduling problem can be represented as a graph. Nodes represent events, and the edges indicate the sequence in which events must occur. Each edge also has an associated weight, indicating the cost of progressing from one event to the next -- the time it takes a bus to travel between stops, for instance.
Yu, Williams, and Fang's algorithm first represents a problem as a graph, then begins adding edges that represent the constraints imposed by the planner. If the problem is soluble, the weights of the edges representing constraints will everywhere be greater than the weights representing the costs of transitions between events. Existing algorithms, however, can quickly home in on loops in the graph where the weights are imbalanced. The MIT researchers' system then calculates the lowest-cost way of rebalancing the loop, which it presents to the planner as a modification of the problem's initial constraints.