Big Data Scenarios

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Big Data is THE biggest buzzwords around at the moment and I believe big data will change the world. Some say it will be even bigger than the Internet. What's certain, big data will impact everyone's life. Having said that, I also think that the term 'big data' is not very well defined and is, in fact, not well chosen. Let me use this article to explain what's behind the massive 'big data' buzz and demystify some of the hype.

Basically, big data refers to our ability to collect and analyze the vast amounts of data we are now generating in the world. The ability to harness the ever-expanding amounts of data is completely transforming our ability to understand the world and everything within it. The advances in analyzing big data allow us to …show more content…

Without going into too much detail, we now have software like Hadoop and others which enable us to analyze large, messy and fast moving volumes of structured and unstructured data. It does it by breaking the task up between many different computers (which is a bit like how Google breaks up the computation of its search function). As a consequence of this, companies can now bring together these different and previously inaccessible data sources to generate impressive results. Let's look at some real examples of how big data is used today to make a difference:

The FBI is combining data from social media, CCTV cameras, phone calls and texts to track down criminals and predict the next terrorist attack.
Facebook is using face recognition tools to compare the photos you have up-loaded with those of others to find potential friends of yours (see my post on how Facebook is exploiting your private information using big data tools).
Politicians are using social media analytics to determine where they have to campaign the hardest to win the next election.
Video analytics and sensor data of Baseball or Football games is used to improve performance of players and teams. For example, you can now buy a baseball with over 200 sensors in it that will give you detailed feedback on how to improve your

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