A look at the larger picture
From the Stone to Digital age, human civilization has processed information and data. This is starting to change, observes Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University and Kenneth Cukier, Data Editor of the Economist and a prominent commentator, in their latest book, Big Data. They say that we now are entering the world of constant data-driven predictions.
The book begins by citing how Google, on its own initiative, devised means to track the spread and intensity of flu prior to the 2009 health season. Google’s methodology began by comparing 50 million of the most common American search terms with data available with Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, on the spread of seasonal flu between 2003 and 2008. Google’s software found a combination of search terms that, appropriately weighted, strongly correlated with official data. However, unlike the CDC, Google was able to make those assessments in real time, not a week or two later.
There is another interesting case of how Oren Etzioni, a leading US computer scientist was both infuriated and frustrated to learn that many passengers booking a flight after he had, were able to pay less - contrary to conventional wisdom. He then ‘scraped’ information from a travel website from a 41-day period to forecast whether a price was a good deal or not, founding Farecast to offer this new ability.
Etzioni next went on to improve the system by digesting data from a travel site that covered most American commercial routes for a year - nearly 200 billion flight-price records. Before expanding to hotel rooms, concert tickets and used cars, Microsoft snapped up his firm ($110 million) and incorporated it into it Bing.
Authors explain that ‘big data’ are things that can be done on a large scale that cannot be done on a smaller one, and see this offering as a major transformation.
To those who are not aware of the ever changing world of data mining, the duo cites how approximately 7 billion shares change hands every day in finance, two-thirds via computer model direction, Google processing over 24 petabytes of data/day, Facebook getting over 10 million new photos uploaded every hour.
In the age of big data we crunch an incomprehensible amount of information, providing us with invaluable insights about the whats rather than the whys. For those who are puzzled about the importance of big data, authors point out the scientific and societal importance of this data as well as the degree to which it can become a source of economic value. “The world of big data is poised to shake up everything from businesses and the sciences to healthcare, government, economics, the humanities, and every other aspect of society,” says the book. As a result the amount of data is not just growing fast but it is outstripping not just our machines but our imagaination as well.
A few initial chapters identifies and examines different shifts the way in which information is analysed, transformed and how we understand and organize society. This is followed by datification that refers to taking all the information under the Sun and transform it into a data format to make it quantified. Chapters Six and Seven, detail how big data changes the nature of business, markets, and society. Finally it concludes with the following observation. “It doesn’t negate the insights that big data offers, but it puts big data in its place as a tool that doesn’t offer ultimate answers, just good-enough ones to help us now until better methods and hence better answers come along. It also suggests that we must use this tool with a generous degree of humility.....and humanity.
As every coin has two sides so does big data. The book points out how it erodes privacy and threaten individual freedom and warn us the numbers are more falliable than we think. It draws out a comparison how Apple founder Steve Jobs continually improved gadgets based on intution rather on data while Robert McNamara, US Secretary of Defense during Vietnam War, insisted on statistical rigours to arrive at a decision that led to the United States to escalate the war partly on basis on body counts, rather than to base decisions on more meaningful metrics.
From the Stone to Digital age, human civilization has processed information and data. This is starting to change, observes Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University and Kenneth Cukier, Data Editor of the Economist and a prominent commentator, in their latest book, Big Data. They say that we now are entering the world of constant data-driven predictions.
The book begins by citing how Google, on its own initiative, devised means to track the spread and intensity of flu prior to the 2009 health season. Google’s methodology began by comparing 50 million of the most common American search terms with data available with Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, on the spread of seasonal flu between 2003 and 2008. Google’s software found a combination of search terms that, appropriately weighted, strongly correlated with official data. However, unlike the CDC, Google was able to make those assessments in real time, not a week or two later.
There is another interesting case of how Oren Etzioni, a leading US computer scientist was both infuriated and frustrated to learn that many passengers booking a flight after he had, were able to pay less - contrary to conventional wisdom. He then ‘scraped’ information from a travel website from a 41-day period to forecast whether a price was a good deal or not, founding Farecast to offer this new ability.
Etzioni next went on to improve the system by digesting data from a travel site that covered most American commercial routes for a year - nearly 200 billion flight-price records. Before expanding to hotel rooms, concert tickets and used cars, Microsoft snapped up his firm ($110 million) and incorporated it into it Bing.
Authors explain that ‘big data’ are things that can be done on a large scale that cannot be done on a smaller one, and see this offering as a major transformation.
To those who are not aware of the ever changing world of data mining, the duo cites how approximately 7 billion shares change hands every day in finance, two-thirds via computer model direction, Google processing over 24 petabytes of data/day, Facebook getting over 10 million new photos uploaded every hour.
In the age of big data we crunch an incomprehensible amount of information, providing us with invaluable insights about the whats rather than the whys. For those who are puzzled about the importance of big data, authors point out the scientific and societal importance of this data as well as the degree to which it can become a source of economic value. “The world of big data is poised to shake up everything from businesses and the sciences to healthcare, government, economics, the humanities, and every other aspect of society,” says the book. As a result the amount of data is not just growing fast but it is outstripping not just our machines but our imagaination as well.
A few initial chapters identifies and examines different shifts the way in which information is analysed, transformed and how we understand and organize society. This is followed by datification that refers to taking all the information under the Sun and transform it into a data format to make it quantified. Chapters Six and Seven, detail how big data changes the nature of business, markets, and society. Finally it concludes with the following observation. “It doesn’t negate the insights that big data offers, but it puts big data in its place as a tool that doesn’t offer ultimate answers, just good-enough ones to help us now until better methods and hence better answers come along. It also suggests that we must use this tool with a generous degree of humility.....and humanity.
As every coin has two sides so does big data. The book points out how it erodes privacy and threaten individual freedom and warn us the numbers are more falliable than we think. It draws out a comparison how Apple founder Steve Jobs continually improved gadgets based on intution rather on data while Robert McNamara, US Secretary of Defense during Vietnam War, insisted on statistical rigours to arrive at a decision that led to the United States to escalate the war partly on basis on body counts, rather than to base decisions on more meaningful metrics.
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