Connect with us

Feature/OPED

Then & Now: 5 Ways Google is Improving Search in Africa

Published

on

google search

There’s a lot that goes into building a search engine. While it seems simple enough — you type a question, and we find results that match — we’ve taken on many deep, technical challenges to make Google what it is today.

And the reality is that Search is never a solved problem. Old challenges evolve, and new challenges are constantly popping up — because the internet and the world are always changing.

Here are some of the biggest technological breakthroughs we’ve made through the years— and where we’re continuing to push the boundaries of innovation — as we build and improve Google Search.

Delivering quality results

It’s important that we rank information not only based on what’s relevant to your query but also on what’s likely to be helpful and reliable. This insight was what set Google apart from day one: Our PageRank algorithm didn’t just take into account whether words on a page matched. It looked at how sites linked to one another as a clue about which pages were important or authoritative.

We’ve adapted our techniques over the years as the web has evolved, and as technology has improved. For example, with the rise in misinformation, we’ve developed ways to understand if topics might be more susceptible to unreliable content, like conspiracy theories or medical misinformation, and orient our ranking more towards authoritativeness in those moments.

We do hundreds of thousands of quality evaluations every year to make sure we’re meeting our high bar for quality. We’ll regularly make broad updates to our systems, called core updates, as well as more specialized updates, like our helpful content update, to continue to deliver useful results.

There are dimensions of information quality that continue to evolve and require novel approaches. For example, one known challenge is information gaps, also known as “data voids,” in which high-quality information just might not be available. We’ve come up with ways to show notices when topics are rapidly evolving or when we don’t have high confidence in the quality of results, cautioning that people should approach these results with greater scrutiny. We’ve also invested in other information literacy tools that help people check sources and get context to evaluate what they’re finding.

Deciphering meaning

Information understanding — and in particular, understanding the meaning behind people’s queries — has been a critical focus area for Google over the years. Early on, our systems were largely built on simple word matching. But that’s where things like spelling became really important. At the time, if you spelt something incorrectly, you’d only find pages that spelt the word wrong, too! So, we built our first machine learning system in Search to tackle this challenge.

Over the years, our systems have become much more sophisticated, understanding synonyms and the context of words better. Breakthroughs like the Knowledge Graph helped us understand how people, places and things in the world relate to each other — understanding the world more like people do — so we can get you exactly what you’re looking for and even take the next step. For example, searching for the hottest new movie and getting facts about the cast and running time, along with theatres near you and links to buy tickets.

Large language models like BERT, developed by the Google Research team, have helped us take huge leaps forward in deciphering natural language queries so we can deliver more relevant results across languages used around the world. Such models can take learnings from one language and apply them to others, so we can return better results in the many languages that Search is offered in. We’ve built tools like Google Translate to help break down language barriers for people so they can understand more of the world’s information.

The latest generative AI technology and large language models can help us reimagine Search, unlocking new types of questions and transforming the way we organize information. We’re currently experimenting with applying generative AI to our Search experience through Search Labs, and we’re rapidly updating the experience as we explore what’s possible.

Understanding images, videos and more

There’s so much information in the world that isn’t text and so many ways to ask for things that aren’t by typing words into a search box.

By applying the latest developments in natural language processing (NLP) in 2008, we launched the ability to search with your voice, making it more natural to search on mobile. Then, we took voice input a step further with the ability to “hum to search” for all those times when you have a tune stuck in your head but don’t know what lyrics to look up.

In 2015, advances in computer vision made it possible to search what you see with Lens. We turned your mobile phone camera into a way to explore and ask questions about the world around you so you can learn more about that flower or insect you saw while you were out for a walk in your neighbourhood. Today, people do more than 12 billion visual searches every month with Lens.

Last year, we launched multisearch, which advanced these capabilities to allow you to add text to your visual searches. Now, you can do things like take a picture of a couch you like and add the word “chair,” and Google will use the image and word to show you similar pieces to add to your living room set.

Spotting and stopping spam

Anyone who has ever looked into their email spam folder can appreciate all the work that goes into keeping that junk out of your inbox. On Search, we’ve built advanced systems to fight spam in the same way. Without our advanced protections, search results would be clogged with completely irrelevant information, phishing attempts and links to malware.

We constantly develop new techniques and implement updates to our ranking systems to protect against spam. But spam also adapts and evolves, requiring constant attention from our teams.

In recent years, we’ve applied new AI-powered techniques to spam detection, which has helped us keep search results over 99% spam-free. This remains a big area of investment for us: As long as people come to Google looking for information, spammers will be trying their hand at getting around our protections, so we have to stay vigilant and one step ahead.

Making Search safer

Over the years, we’ve maintained a strong commitment to our principles of maximizing access to information while helping people stay safe and in control. We aim to help people find information that’s within the bounds of legal expression while not inadvertently exposing them to low-quality or harmful content that they haven’t asked to see.

We’ve approached this both through expanding our policy protections for people to remove sensitive personal information from our results and through improving our ranking systems with safety and inclusivity in mind.

For example, we’ve launched improvements to reduce unwanted explicit content from ranking highly in Search updates to blur explicit imagery by default, and ranking improvements to limit the reach of sites that use exploitative practices. Meanwhile, we’ve updated our policies so that people under the age of 18 can have images of themselves removed from Search and launched new tools like Results About You to make it easy to control how your personal information shows up in search results.

Billions of people rely on Google for information, so there’s always something more we can do and new questions that we can help people with. That’s why we’re always working to make Search better every day.

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Feature/OPED

NDDC: When Public Policy and Public Good Combine To Bring Development

Published

on

Chiedu Ebie NDDC Chairman

By Jerome-Mario Utomi

Public policy, going by experts’ definition, is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs and encompasses what the government does, or does not do to solve a problem in society.

Correspondingly, policymaking and problem-solving are what citizens expect from their elected and appointed government representatives once they have taken office, and are entrusted with serving their constituency.

Given the foregoing,  developing public policy decisions for the good of those in, and on behalf of those outside the government (public) has become not only a culture but vital for public officers and all levels of government — municipal, state, and federal Ministries, Parastatals, Commissions and agencies among others. They met this culture when they joined the service, guided by the culture while in service and ultimately transferred this culture to their successors in office.  It is imperative to note that the root of public policy in our nation, just as in other parts of the world, is deep and there is something massive and positive about it.

A veritable example is the people-oriented and sustained development-minded actions and policies of the Mr Chiedu Ebie-led Governing Board and Management of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), a federal government agency established by former Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo in 2000, with the sole mandate of developing the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

Upon inauguration in November 2023, the NDDC board, to the admiration of all stakeholders, came up with well-thought-out initiatives and projects. Prominent among these projects, programmes and initiatives are the building of partnerships, lighting up the region, initiating sustainable livelihood, improving youth capacity and skills base, executing efficient and cost-effective projects, including Project Hope for Renewed Hope, reducing carbon emission, and improving peace and security.

While the above initiatives and policies remain admirable, there is another policy by the Governing Board and Management that this piece would underline as something massive and positive.

Some months ago, the Commission’s leadership, during the presentation of its N1.91 trillion 2024 budget to the Senate Committee on NDDC, emphasized priorities such as security, job creation, youth and women empowerment, social welfare, education and the profound initiative to raise N1 trillion, from development and commercial banks, for the completion of 1,006 legacy projects spread across the region. These projects were reportedly in specific areas such as roads, bridges, electricity, schools, hospitals, shore protection and reclamation, among others.

Aside from the overt awareness that when abandoned projects are completed and put into use, it saves the nation from wastage, boosts national assets and promotes socio-economic development of the people, region and the nation in general, there are, however, other covert reasons that render this present development as both newsy and commendable. Students of history is familiar with the origin of project abandonment and neglect of national assets in Nigeria and the politics that fuel this will agree that the NDDC governing board and management are on the path to ending an ugly ‘culture’ that has over the years held down the region’s development.

If this policy framework is achieved as envisaged, it is abundantly clear that future historians and, of course, development professionals shall refer to the present board and management as a bunch that restored new order in the region and hope to the people. Beyond what future historians may say, there is equally the need to highlight why this piece is fixated on NDDC’s departure from the old order, and at the very moment on a mission to tackle a challenge that has not only become a culture of a sort but has its origin deeply rooted in history that predates the nation’s independence in October 1960.

Beginning with the historical undertone as to why Nigerians and successive leaderships in the country daily demonstrate a lackadaisical attitude towards national assets and see nothing wrong with project desertion, history has it that during colonial rule, Nigerians developed the anti-colonial belief that public property is no man’s property. This belief, according to reports, was intended to fight colonialism but it continued after independence and brought insensitivity to government property as well as ineptitude, nepotism, neglect of duty, etc.; it gravely explains as to the reckless way in which government property and projects are handled.

Indeed, what the above information tells us is that both project abandonment and public asset neglect in the country are two striking human tragedies, and the pain they inflict on the nation is deepened by the realisation that they were avoidable.

Beyond this understanding, there are reasons to believe that this piece is not alone in the understanding that NDDC leadership is doing something positively new.

A few days ago, the Pan Niger Delta Development Forum, PANDEF, commended the leadership of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, for its commitment to transparency, accountability, and infrastructure development in the region.

Giving the commendation during a courtesy visit by a delegation from the umbrella organization of Niger Delta people at the NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt, PANDEF’s National Chairman, Ambassador Godknows Igali, lauded the Commission’s leadership, describing it as visionary and result-driven.

His words: “We have never seen a leadership team like this, and we thank President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for his support. Your interventions in infrastructure, particularly the Benin-Ore Road and the Light Up Niger Delta initiative, are commendable. Your youth development programmes are also making a significant impact.”

He further assured the Commission of PANDEF’s continued collaboration, reiterating the group’s role as the voice of the Niger Delta people in the civic space:  “We believe in working closely with you and reaffirm our support for your administration. We urge Mr. President, the governors, and other stakeholders to provide you with the necessary tools to succeed,” he concluded.

No doubt, some books teach how to build a house, how to repair an engine and how to write a book, but there are no codified books on how to build a region, society or nation. Conversely, nation-building, in my view, depends on ceaseless creative and far-reaching public policies designed and implemented by well-forsighted leaders- a case in point is the NDDC’s resolve to complete abandoned projects that presently litter its mandate states.

This author,  therefore, believes that closing ranks to learn from NDDC’s latest template is not only important but eminently desirable for other agencies and Commissions in the country as “we cannot continue to do one thing repeatedly and be expecting a different result-or tackling our societal challenges with the same mentality used when the problems were created”

Finally, while it is obvious that it is a season of public good for the Niger Delta region and its people, for me, the positive public policies so far generated by the Governing Board/Management of NDDC align with the famous words of Martin Luther King Jnr: “Human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability but is achieved through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be coworkers with God”

Utomi, a media specialist, writes from Lagos, Nigeria. He can be reached via [email protected]/08032725374

Continue Reading

Feature/OPED

Familiar Challenges Likely to Feature in SONA 2025 – Can the President Deliver?

Published

on

MRI Software

By Waldo Marcus

South Africans will be watching this week’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) to see if the government’s long-promised structural reforms will finally be fast-tracked to drive much-needed economic growth. They will also be assessing how the president balances a number of tightropes including concerns that some of the GNU partners have with the Expropriation Bill, NHI and the BELA Act, local government failures including a rapidly approaching water crisis, mixed with global tensions.

Past SONAs have focused on a familiar litany of issues: lacklustre economic growth, high unemployment, failing infrastructure, poor service delivery and a regulatory environment which is not conducive to economic growth. There is little expectation that this year will be any different with many of the same platitudes about a commitment to growing the economy likely be dusted off again.

What will be different this time around is that the president will be balancing an ever more complex environment. Positivity around the GNU has waned with policy differences starting to appear. While the energy crisis has been partially addressed, water is a looming catastrophe. South Africa’s relationship with its largest trading partner is in the spotlight with a threat of tariffs from the United States. Then there are diplomatic issues one being how South Africa plans to extricate its peacekeeping troops from Rwanda.

Locally, the president is under pressure to facilitate a more business-friendly environment. The IMF says South Africa has one of the most restrictive business environments globally. It has recommended a raft of reforms to enhance the country’s business environment, bolster governance, improve labour market flexibility, facilitate trade and achieve the country’s climate goals. The IMF calculates that South Africa could add 1.8% to its growth rate if it can get corruption under control, improve the regulatory and business environment and make government more effective.

The country has also come in for criticism for its competition regulations with Stuart Theobald, chair of research-led consultancy firm Krutham pointing out in a recent Business Day editorial that the government does not appreciate how damaging our competition authorities are to foreign investment and growth. He says South Africa urgently needs to revisit the principles and objectives of how competition is regulated. Large property asset sales are already being slowed due to the Competition Commission’s involvement.

Both national, provincial and local governments need to become more efficient and effective. Operation Vulindlela is an initiative spearheaded by the president and the National Treasury to speed up reforms. Local government in the form of municipalities plays an important role in providing communities with essential services including clean water, proper sanitation, reliable electricity, effective waste management and well-maintained roads and municipal infrastructure.

Of concern is the trend of failing municipalities. According to the Auditor-General’s latest local government and audit outcomes report, many municipalities continue to receive poor audit outcomes with only 13% obtaining clean audits. This has triggered a cycle of low collection rates across municipalities as ratepayers demand value for money but fail to see good governance and leadership delivering on promises. Collectively, municipalities owe Eskom more than R109 billion, putting the power utility under pressure.

Property values in poorly run municipalities typically decline. Well-run municipalities that have maintained their public infrastructure, including well-maintained and safe public areas, on the other hand, will ensure that those areas remain sought after by property investors, tenants and businesses.

The president is very aware that the economy pays a heavy price for the high unemployment rate with less personal tax available to be collected, less consumer spending taking place and sluggish GDP growth.

As far as the property industry is concerned, a robust and secure job market is essential for the long-term health of the residential rental market and to keep vacancies low. Stats SA’s employment survey reveals that the unemployment rate increased in the fourth quarter of 2024 to 32.1% from 31.9% in the fourth quarter. The formal sector lost 128 000 jobs with further job losses expected in agriculture, mining and manufacturing in 2025.

A new study by speciality research publisher Taylor & Francis revealed that none of the eight largest metros in South Africa have experienced appreciable employment growth in manufacturing and tradable goods.

An issue that the president will likely touch on in the SONA is reporting on what the government is doing to reduce logistics constraints and ensure improved efficiencies at Transnet. He may also touch on the government’s draft National State Enterprise Bill which proposes the creation of a centralised holding company to oversee state-owned enterprises. Critics of the bill have pointed out that state-owned enterprises such as Eskom and Transnet are already owned by a centralised agency which hasn’t improved their efficiency or competency and that the proposed bill will simply add another layer of bureaucratic bloat.

The annual SONA is often described as bland. In a constrained fiscal space, there is little expectation that this year’s address will deliver anything more exciting. In a perfect world, President Ramaphosa would be announcing a way forward that includes improved service delivery, more efficient local government, a plan to address the water crisis, and the implementation of a less restrictive regulatory environment while at the same time providing assurance to the country’s major trading partners and investors that their needs were also being taken into consideration.

Waldo Marcus is a Director at TPN from MRI Software

Continue Reading

Feature/OPED

Who Says Value Deals Are Only for December?

Published

on

value deals

Ever noticed how brands bombard you with discounts in November and December? Then January rolls around, and suddenly, it’s full price everywhere—right when your wallet needs some tender loving care the most.

Let’s face it: The first three months of the new year is for financial recovery. School fees are due, rent is knocking, and that December salary seems to have vanished faster than your New Year’s resolutions. But here’s the real question: Why should amazing deals only happen towards the end of the year?

While other brands are busy recovering from their year-end spending, GOtv is here saying, “Hold up—let’s make the new year interesting.” Here’s a deal that makes actual sense when your pocket needs it most: Step Up Once, Get Twice the Entertainment.

Here’s how the offer works: When you subscribe to a package higher than your current one, GOtv automatically upgrades you to the next tier for free. That means if you’re on Jinja, pay for Jolli and enjoy Max; if you’re on Jolli, pay for Max and enjoy Supa; and if you’re on Max, pay for Supa and enjoy Supa Plus.

Why This Deal Is a Game-Changer

Perfect for The New Year Blues: The festivities are over, and everyone’s indoors more, making this the ideal time for quality entertainment.

Family Time Is Back on Track: With the kids back to school and routines resuming, this deal ensures your family has more options and great shows to bond over after a long day.

Smart Financial Choice: Let’s be honest—January is about budgeting smarter, and this offer gives you maximum value for less.

While others are nursing their financial December hangovers, you could be levelling up your home entertainment, making a wise money move, and creating meaningful family moments.

So, what are you waiting for? Step up now to unlock a world of exciting and entertaining programs. To upgrade, subscribe, or reconnect, simply download the MyGOtv app or dial *288#. To catch up and for on-the-go viewing, don’t forget to download the GOtv Stream App and enjoy your favourite shows anytime, anywhere.

Continue Reading

Trending