Publisher Description
Search is as old as language. There has always been a need for one to find something in the jumble of human creation. The first web was nothing more than passing verbal histories down the generations so others could find and remember how not to get eaten; the first search used the power of written language to build simple indexes in printed books, leading to the Dewey Decimal system and reverse indices in more modern times. Then digital happened. Besides having profound societal impacts, it also made the act of searching almost impossibly complex for both engines and searchers. Information isn't just words; it is pictures, videos, thoughts tagged with geocode data, routes, physical world data, and, increasingly, the machines themselves reporting their condition and listening to others. Search: How the Data Explosion Makes Us Smarter holds up a mirror to our time to see if search can keep up. Author Stefan Weitz, a Director in Search for Bing (Microsoft), explores the idea of access to help readers understand how we are inventing new ways to access data through devices in more places and with more capabilities. We are at the cusp of imbuing our generation with superpowers, but only if we fundamentally rethink what search is, how people can use it, and what we should demand of it.
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About Stefan Weitz
Stefan
Weitz is a Senior Director in the Search group at Microsoft and charged with
working with people and organizations across the industry to promote and
improve Search technologies. While focused on Microsoft’s product line, he
works across the industry to understand searcher behavior, academic
developments, and innovations from all over and, in his role as an evangelist
for Search, gathers and distills feedback to drive product improvements.
Stefan
is a huge gadget ‘junkie’ and can often be found in electronics shops across
the world looking for the elusive perfect piece of tech. Stefan also serves on
advisory boards for many startups ranging from biometrics to advertising to
virtualization and is an active Angel investor. In his other spare cycles, he is
working with national educational reinvention groups to reboot K-12 education
in this country and is actively advising startups that are focusing on boosting
student achievement through technology and big data. Finally, Stefan is working
on a book with the nation’s youngest VC to promote entrepreneurism to the high school
crowd and is advising on how to make available forty years of archived data
from the 92nd Street Y in NYC.
About Dana Hickox
Dana Hickox is a Juilliard-trained actor with off-Broadway, regional theater, and network television credits. As a voice-over artist, he has recorded textbooks for Learning Ally’s New York and Washington, DC, units. He has also recorded poetry and children’s stories for the David Black Literary Agency.