Desktop Indexing - What's it good for anyhow?

A couple of years ago I received an "impossible" task, to search for a specific mail in which all that was known was the name of the company that was mentioned in an attachment to a mail that went out of the company I was working in.
The person that sent the actual mail was no longer an employee of the company and the CEO, which requested this mail, remembered that he was CC’d to this mail. At the time the CEO had more than 250,000 mails in the account which was active for more than 5 years and had more than 350 folders.
To make it even worse, the time I was given to find this mail was 2 days. If there is one thing I like it’s a worthy challenge and the above mentioned request certainly met my requirements but how could I succeed in such a task? I started searching with Microsoft tool for the name of the company but since the name only appeared as a part of an attachment I soon returned empty handed. After realizing very fast that Microsoft search is probably not a good way to go about it I started looking for a tool that will allow such a task.
At the time the concept of “Desktop Indexing” was not common and the search engines were used only to scout the web and not the unstructured data within the company. It so happened that I was lucky enough to stumble upon a beta release of Copernic Desktop search. I downloaded the software to the PC, installed and waited for 5 hours for the software to scan only the Inbox of the CEO account. along with me at the room, when the status bar showed 95% were several other people. The time went by until finally the index was completed and my heart missed a bit. I have invested 2 days in searching for the solution and did not even try to look for the actual mail. What if it wouldn’t work? I suppose you can guess what would be such a response from the CEO.
Anyhow, the search was over and I entered the name of the company in the search box. The search results that appeared in splash screens as I was typing the name appeared in front of my eyes and the software found 5 mails that included the name of the company in the search results. We were all amazed at the power of this software and soon adopted the software to the company. The later versions of Desktop Search engines included Isys, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and many others that soon realized the potential in allowing companies an indexed search of all their unstructured data.
Today we are using the X1 Professional search engine that allows a very smooth and fast search for big indexes of a million mails and more. The software also allows scanning documents in the network and as such allows ultra fast retrieval of data from almost every electronic source. In Today’s environment of electronic information we are so much relied on Desktop Indexing software that we cannot work at all without it.
The software allows saving all the time not only in the actual search for information but also saves time since opening folders in Outlook is not necessary. I strongly urge you to try out an indexing tool for your company for the following reasons:

1. Save time dramatically in search for any kind of electronic material
2. Enable searches on electronic materials of people that are no longer working in the company
3. Save time in tagging and classifying of the documents
4. Allow searches on multiple users in one search
5. Allow search on a broad spectrum of document and platform types

My hope is that companies will continue to develop this important field of applications, which is not happening at the rate I expected it, to allow companies gain true control of the information inside the company. Today’s situation is that companies do not fully utilize the know-how within and waste valuable time and money to rebuild information that was previously known inside the company.

Copyright - Tamir Huberman 2010

LinkedIN – Does it Truly Deliver?

A year ago I was frustrated at the extremely low percentage of replies I received from companies I tried contacting with regards to Hebrew University cutting edge technologies. As a Business Development officer in the field of computer science and engineering and Director of IT at Yissum, Technology Transfer company of the Hebrew university, and the Director of IT at ITTN, Israel’s Technology Transfer Organization, I could not explain those low percentages of less than 1%. I have been using the best databases out there, such as; Capital IQ, SciFinder, Delphion, STN, Dialog, Lead411, LexisNexis, Nerac and many more. 

All those databases gave me long lists of companies in the fields I was looking for and later, in specific databases, generated the names of the professionals that would be most suitable to hear about our opportunities. Taking into consideration a proven track record since 1964, over 1B$ in annual sales of products that were licensed from the Hebrew University and over 65 Spin off companies, among them companies such as; MobilEye, HumanEyes, BriefCam, ExLibris, Valensum, ReadEasy, NasVax and many more, it was clear we should be taken seriously.

According the ITTN database, the Hebrew University is responsible for almost 40% of the total technologies that are available for license in Israel, with over 350 technologies currently available for license. 

Clearly something was wrong and not with the technologies or with the companies but rather with the approach to those executives.

I think it was Anthony Robbins that once mentioned in a lecture that I heard, if you do not receive the results you would like to get; “change your approach” until you do.

Thinking back a year ago I remember grasping the idea that perhaps the people I was trying to reach regarded my mails as spam, since they did not know who (or what) was Yissum and never took the time to see if there is actually something they might be interested to license in or collaborate with the Hebrew University.

It later dawned on me that I should try out professional networks such as XING, Ecademy and LinkedIN. I was already registered as a user for over 5 years on LinkedIN and as most of you I had several profiles without having a clue what was the password to those redundant accounts. I chose the account with the highest number of contacts, 35 at the time, and started to edit my profile. I could not escape the thought that I was wasting my valuable time but I had to give it a chance. I tried to search for executives in some companies that I found out from the other databases and it was clear that a lot of executives were online but out of my network grasp.

I fixed some of my previous titles and got a phone call from my previous boss 10 minutes after adding the title. I was shocked at the fact that someone was actually looking at my profile and it gave me a boost to try it out more seriously.

After adding a lot of my colleagues and business associates my network began to grow dramatically and after less than 3 months I had over 500 connections. Best of all was the fact that the percentage of replies grew more than 10 fold. Soon after I got replies from heads of companies I never dreamed of receiving replies from LinkedIN gradually became a leading tool for business development. Using LinkedIN allowed me to get fast replies on technologies that I am trying to license and I also received help from professionals that connected me to the correct companies. The rate of Non Disclosure Agreements boosted and best of all other colleagues from my company were beginning to enjoy my connections on their projects as well.

Soon after passing the 1000 connections I began using the “groups” option which allows reaching more people and providing them with marketing materials in fields of their interest. “Groups” allowed me to generate important leads for our technologies at no cost.

I now use LinkedIN on a continuous basis and have a lot of thoughts on better using this incredible tool. Having said all the positive things on LinkedIN it is also fair to say that it is clear there is still a long way to go.

I have tried reaching LinkedIN to give them some idea on how they can improve their database and although there is a place to give such feedback LinkedIN never gets back to you on what they think on your suggestions which greatly reduces the motivation to give feedback in the first place.

I have tried getting in touch with professionals from LinkedIN via LinkedIN itself but it seems that although they are connected it is difficult, if not impossible to receive a reply from them on such issues.

Here are some of the points that LinkedIN should consider modifying:

1. In the “Groups” module it is not clear why there is no option to export those contacts at least as the owner of the group

2. In the “Groups” module there is no way to connect data such as files, movies and other material content other than links. Even a simple embedding is not an option.

3. Not clear why I cannot determine the title of the Link I am supplying in the News and why I cannot add pictures or any other materials to news items.

4. In the invitation option in groups it is once again not clear why I can’t use the saved profiles, tags and other search capabilities for adding exactly those contacts that I want.

5. Did you ever find a way to search contacts according to something written in the notes? What if like me you have tons of connections and all you remember is that you wrote a note that you met someone at an exhibition?

6. What about sending mail to more than 50 contacts? Why not have the options like in any normal mailing tool to add those contacts in BCC?

7. How about the exporting option that will include the notes you have written?

8. The “Groups” module should also definitely have an option to have more graphic capabilities in the body of the overview page. It should also allow connection to other company names the same is on the company module.

I could go on and on and clearly LinkedIN have gone a long way and obviously they are working hard to try and improve but a clearer vision will lead to better outcomes. Clearly LinkedIN is not a place to search for companies in fields that you do not know, for example search a company according to a field. Currently companies are not really classified according to a recognized classification system and hence one cannot search for companies in a meaningful way. To summarize; clearly networking tools such as LinkedIN, XING and others will revolutionize the way we connect and do business. It is also obvious that consolidation of different tools will be the next step in this exciting market.

For additional information contact: Tamir Huberman (LinkedIN)

Yissum License to Adobe Photoshop CS5- Protect Details in Photoshop CS5

Yissum Licenses Cutting Edge Technology for Enhanced Digital Image Processing to Adobe Systems

JERUSALEM, Apr 21, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Yissum Research Development Company Ltd., the technology transfer arm of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem today announced that it has signed a non-exclusive worldwide licensing agreement with Adobe Systems for the development and commercialization of an imaging technology that improves digital image processing. The technology, invented by Dr. Raanan Fattal from the School of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is called Edge Avoiding Wavelets and it enables better and faster detail enhancement and preserves edges when sharpening digital images.

Image processing applications invest considerable computing power in attempts to enhance details in digital images, and to enable users to accurately demarcate a specific object within the image. Current state-of-the art technologies for enabling such image processing functions are overly sophisticated and suffer from various limitations. The new Edge Avoiding Wavelets technology is fast and uses explicit computations to obtain results traditionally obtained by implicit formulations requiring sophisticated linear solvers. The new technology avoids pixels from both sides of an edge, thus achieving a sharper, halo-free image. Its fast performance accelerates various computational photography applications by a factor of more than one order of magnitude.

Yissum Announces a Novel Method for Swift and Robust Pattern Recognition

Jerusalem, Israel – Yissum, the Technology Transfer Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, introduced today a novel method for real time, automatic, generic and robust pattern matching. The novel algorithm, developed by Professor Michael Werman and Ofir Pele, both from the School of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, enables very rapid recognition of a particular pattern in a fraction of the time currently available. The novel algorithm can be used in computer vision software for managing images, in robotics as a simple and fast method for vision-based systems used for assembly manufacturing and inspection, as well as for face recognition and additional security applications. The findings were published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (Pele, O. and Werman, M., August 2008, 30(8) 1427-1443).

"This novel method enables ultra-rapid pattern recognition which is highly robust and reliable," said Nava Swersky Sofer CEO of Yissum. "The algorithm can enhance various imaging and computer vision applications that are becoming an ever-growing part of everyday life. For example, it can be helpful in quick information retrieval from large visual databases. One such application can be photographing a restaurant and

immediately accessing relevant reviews. In the filed of security, the algorithm can be used, among others, for surveillance purposes by finding a suspected person in a video movie."

Many applications in image processing and computer vision require finding a particular pattern in an image, a process termed pattern matching. Pattern matching is typically performed by scanning the entire image, and evaluating a distance measure between the sought pattern and areas, or windows, in the image. The novel algorithm is much faster than current methods because it does not attempt to estimate the distances for non-similar windows, but only decides that these windows are non-similar. The reduction in running time is due to the fact that unnecessary information is not computed. The method is applicable to any pattern shape, even a non-contiguous one, and is automatic and robust, enabling detection of low quality patterns, rotated patterns or patterns that are partly occluded.

About Yissum

Yissum was founded in 1964 to protect the Hebrew University’s intellectual property and commercialize it. $1 Billion in annual sales are generated by products based on Hebrew University technologies licensed out by Yissum. Ranked among the top technology transfer companies in the world, Yissum has registered 5500 patents covering 1600 inventions; licensed out 480 technologies and spun out 65 companies. Yissum’s business partners span the globe and include companies such as Novartis, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Intel, Teva and many more. 

For more information, please contact:

Tamir Huberman

www.yissum.co.il

Yissum Introduces a Novel Method for Ranking Online Reviews

JERUSALEM (Business Wire)

Suppose you want to go to a movie, or buy a new book, or perhaps a new digital camera. What would be your first step? Certainly, most of us would consult the internet for reviews about the specific product we want to buy. This is where things usually get complicated, because we are often swamped with hundreds or thousands of reviews, some of which are useless.

Now, Yissum Research Development Company Ltd., the technology transfer arm of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, presents a new technology especially suitable for ranking product reviews according to the particular needs of the person performing the search. This novel method for content analysis, invented by Professor Ari Rappoport and Mr. Oren Tsur from the Hebrew University's School of Computer Science and Engineering, is specifically designed to automatically rank book and product reviews according to their estimated helpfulness.

"This novel method has the potential of changing the way we extract information from the internet. It already allows us to easily identify the most helpful reviews on various topics, and, in the future, will actually generate one comprehensive, optimized review from the available data. It offers a necessary tool for coping with the vast amount of data in the web world," said Yaacov Michlin, CEO of Yissum. "This is one out of dozens of breakthrough technologies developed at the Hebrew University and available for licensing in the field of computer science."

The technology, RevRank, first identifies a core of dominant terms that defines a virtual optimal review, and then uses those terms to rank other reviews relative to the `virtual core` review. The simplicity of RevRank enables easy understanding of the output and an effortless parameter configuration to match the personal preferences of different users. RevRank was successfully tested on book and product reviews on Amazon. As a result effective reviews that had a good chance of being missed by readers were moved up to top positions.

About Yissum

Yissum Research Development Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Ltd. was founded in 1964 to protect and commercialize the Hebrew University`s intellectual property. Ranked among the top technology transfer companies in the world, Yissum has registered over 6,100 patents covering 1,750 inventions; has licensed out 480 technologies and has spun-off 65 companies including, BriefCam, HumanEyes, Mobileye and ReadEasy. Yissum`s business partners span the globe and include companies such as IBM, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Monsanto, Novartis, Phillips, Roche, Sygenta, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Vilmorin and many more. For further information please visit www.yissum.co.il.

Yissum Ltd.

Tamir Huberman

Copyright Business Wire 2009