Steam API: accessing DOTA2 ranked matches - steam-web-api

I'm trying to use the Steam HTTP-based API to get information about ongoing and recently completed Ranked Matchmaking DOTA2 games. Specifically, I'm using the command
https://api.steampowered.com/IDOTA2Match_570/GetMatchHistory/V001/?format=json&key=<my_key>
I noticed that in the hundreds of games that I've looked at using this request, there is not a single ranked matchmaking game (lobby_type=7). Most games are lobby_type 4 (co-op versus AI), type 8 (solo mid), or type 0 (unknown). Why can't I see the ranked matchmaking games?

Regarding ranked games the Web API seems to be currently broken.
As far as I know there is no official statement yet.

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Correct recognition results of Google Speech API

Is it possible to train Google Speech API with sample data to help the recognition in my application?
What I mean is an approach like the one provided by wit.ai and described here (even though the example applies to nlp processing). Basically, if you can predict the interactions your users will have with your bot, you can train it to better perform. For instance, I know the subset of cities that will be used, eg: it seems I cannot make the bot understand me when I say Zurich, it becomes Syria or Siberia but I already know that is not possible. So if I, let's say, can upload a list of preferred words to be used first and then if no match is found there fallback to standard recognition or some similar approach I think it will be achieve better results.
Any idea if it is possible and how? I know those APIs are in beta stage and subject to change, but I would still like to give it a try.
I can upload some code sample of what I am currently doing, though it is just sending an audio and analyzing the result so far, so not really close to this problem.
In recognition config you can specify alternatives to return you with maxAlternatives field (up to 30). Once you have 30 alternatives with confidence you'll have Syria with confidence 0.5, Siberia with confidence 0.01 and Zurich with confidence 0.1. Usually the proper answer is present, although it might not be on the top. You can select best alternative according to your current status.
The current Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API allows the user to specify a list of words and phrases that provide hints to the speech recognition task.
From https://cloud.google.com/speech-to-text/docs/basics (mirror):
speechContext - (optional) contains additional contextual information for processing this audio. A context contains the following sub-field:
phrases - contains a list of words and phrases that provide hints to the speech recognition task.
For more details, see: https://cloud.google.com/speech-to-text/docs/basics#phrase-hints (mirror).

Confusion about Google Play Games Auto-matching behaviour

I have a turn-based multiplayer game developed with Google Play Games.
I'm just in the process of getting auto-matching to work, and I noticed a bit strange thing that I'm not sure if it's my (messy) coding, or just the way Google Play Games works...
Let's say player A starts an auto-matched game. Makes his turn, and the turn is pushed to the Google's Server.. now, player B starts an auto-matched game, and joins the player A's game.
Everything working so far.
However, I just tried to start ANOTHER auto-matched game, either with player A or B - while player A & B have a match already going on, and I noticed that my game jumps to the previous game.
Am I messing something up (very possible), or is it not possible to start two simultaneous games via auto-matching (with invitations it is very much possible).
#fluxi maybe there is some adjustments to be done to prevent your app to jump to the previous game. According to Developer's Guide for Turn-base Multiplayer,
When creating a match with auto-matching, Google Play games services
might return a match that is already in progress. This occurs when the
match configuration sent by your game to Google Play games services
has the same configuration as an existing match that is underway (that
is, the other player has already taken a turn). Because Google Play
games services might return a match that is in progress, be sure to
check for game data in the returned match object.
Maybe create a try catch and if invited player(auto-matching) is currently in an existing match alert the user (the one who send the invite) with a personal error message like "Failed to create game, invited player is already in match, Please try again".

Find reviews left by a user on Google Places

I'm looking to add a feature in my web app that will determine whether a person has left a review on a specific Google Places listing. I want to verify that (1) user X left a review on the listing and (2) that the person I'm dealing with is user X.
I'm looking at the Google Places API, found here, but the most information I can find is on a simple rating.
Any leads on which API to use to find reviews left by users on Google Places?
As it turns out, there isn't a way to do this through an API, since there is so much risk of user reviews solicited by incentives. Google is one of the least picky review-collecting organizations, but they still try to deter biased reviews.
In other words, don't do this....

Why do search APIs return different results from the main search engine?

I've been playing around with the Google and Bing search APIs, and I've noticed that even when both are configured to search the entire web, the APIs return different results from conducting searches on the actual search engines.
I've also noticed that for very long queries, the APIs tend to return very few results, and sometimes no results when a normal search on their website would return many results.
Why is this?
Search Engines tend to weight the results based on your own usage patterns online. Let's say you search for "Fluffy kitten", and you regularly spend time browsing around bar/restaurant directory sites, you might get that new hipster bar "Fluffy Kitten" at the top of your search results, while the person who spend more time reading pet fanatic sites might get the cute and cuddly search results.
This often catches people out who think their cool new site is number one in Google, when in fact, nobody else has the result at #1 and Google is just favouring it for them based on their online activity.
The APIs don't have the same knowledge about the user, so your results will vary.
There may be other reasons, but this usage-tracking stuff is very true.

search APIs versus screen scraping

I would like to know as a newbie programmer what the benefits are of using for example google search API or newest buzz API for data content gathering instead of screen scraping; obviously apart from the legal aspects.
API's are less likely to change than a screen layout.
One big downside of screen scraping is that the screen can change and break your scraper. So you end up having to continually adjust your code to match theirs, and since you don't know about changes ahead of time, you suffer downtime/outages as a result.
Also, you may be violating their TOS, and they won't like it. If you have paying customers for your service, you can find yourself between a rock and a hard place pretty quickly.
Also, if you're simulating many users, you'll produce an unanticipated drag on the servers. So using a published/permitted API would be much more efficient for you, and for the web site serving up the source material.

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