How 'big data' is changing lives 25 February 2013Last updated at 20:08 ET Data is increasingly defining us - from the information we share on the web, to that collected by the numerous companies with whom we interact. Intrigued by the sheer scales involved, photojournalist Rick Smolan wanted to see how data was transforming the world. Take a look at his global snapshots - compiled in his book The Human Face of Big Data. Continue reading the main story To see the enhanced content on this page, you need to have JavaScript enabled and Adobe Flash installed. Click bottom right for image information and full credits. All images subject to copyright. Additional images courtesy Google Maps. Slideshow production by Jane Wakefield and Paul Kerley. Related: BBC News - What If? More audio slideshows: LED at 50: An illuminating history Reg Turnill - The Moon landing Wildlife photos: How to take the best shots
Sell your data to save the economy and your future Imagine our world later in this century, when machines have got better. Cars and trucks drive themselves, and there's hardly ever an accident. Robots root through the earth for raw materials, and miners are never trapped. Clothes are always brand new designs that day, and always fit perfectly, because your home fabricator makes them out of recycled clothes from the previous day. I can't tell you which of these technologies will start to work in this century for sure, and which will be derailed by glitches, but at least some of these things will come about. Who will earn wealth? Will they live gig to gig, with a token few of them winning a YouTube hit or Kickstarter success while most still have to live with their parents? This question has to be asked. How could it be that since the incredible efficiencies of digital networking have finally reached vast numbers of people that we aren't seeing a broad benefit? The medicine of our time is purported to be open information. Digitally unequal
Wearable tech: why Intel thinks we should own our data | Technology "Even in San Francisco, a dude wearing Google Glass looks like a dick," a friend observed on Facebook last weekend. That neatly sums up one of the barriers to wearable technology and all that it implies: are we ready to get so intimate with technology that we're prepared to wear it? Justin Rattner, Intel's chief technology officer, says we should "approach these things from the point of view of what technology needs to be invented and made production-worthy, as opposed to a great idea for a pair of glasses". While Google Glass is a proof-of-concept device, it points the way to a paradigm that will become increasingly part of our lives. If you believe the vision of the future enthusiastically set out by Intel at its annual Research event in San Francisco, data is going to play a much bigger part in our lives via technology that we wear and which is connected not only to the web, but to other devices. Creepy?
Big Data's New Buzzword: Datafication Much like no serious business can run without electricity, few businesses today can run without data, or being "datafied." Big Data Analytics Masters Degrees: 20 Top Programs (click image for larger view and for slideshow) Just when you thought you had mastered all the data-riffic buzzwords out there, another rears its trendy head. Never mind big data, we're talking about "datafication," the notion that organizations today are dependent upon their data to operate properly -- and perhaps even to function at all. Wait, isn't that what big data is supposedly all about? "Datafication is a different concept," said Waitman in a phone interview with InformationWeek. Waitman drew an analogy between datafication and electrification, the build-out of electrical generating and distribution systems from the late 1800s through the mid-1900s in the U.S. and other industrializing nations. [ Big data has value that's often not reflected in the books. The evolution of data is taking a similar path.
What Big Data Will Never Explain “She told him that she loves me, which is an important data point.” I overheard those words a few months ago, and they stopped me in my tracks. I did not know the smitten and empirical young man who spoke them well enough to offer a correction of his way of talking about desire, but I was pleased to have stumbled upon such a blunt formulation of one of the shibboleths of the day. I refer to the messianic conception of data, or Big Data. (It always sounds to me like a tragic bully out of Tennessee Williams: “Big Data’s going to live!”) “To datafy a phenomenon,” they explain, “is to put it in a quantified format so it can be tabulated and analyzed.” I have been browsing in the literature on “sentiment analysis,” a branch of digital analytics that—in the words of a scientific paper—“seeks to identify the viewpoint(s) underlying a text span.”
Survey: Despite risks, patients want to share data A survey of 2,125 adults with health conditions who are already members of PatientsLikeMe found that 94 percent of adults would be willing to share their health information on social media if it helps doctors improve care even though a majority of those surveyed also understand the data could also be used negatively. The survey was done in partnership with the Institute of Medicine. The same number of people, 94 percent, would also be willing to share their health information on social media if it would help other patients like them and 92 percent would be willing to share information to help researchers learn more about their disease. Of this same group, 76 percent of respondents said they believe their health data from their personal health record could be used without their knowledge, 72 percent believed this information could be used to deny them health care benefits, and 66 percent were prepared for this data to be used to deny them job opportunities.
In-Depth: Digital health APIs every health startup should know By Jonah Comstock One conversation topic that never seems far away at digital health industry events is the idea of data silos. Consumer health and fitness apps are letting people collect more health data about themselves than ever before. This is increasingly being done through application programming interfaces, or APIs, which are offered by consumer devices like Fitbit, Withings, and Jawbone, but also electronic health records like drchrono, Allscripts, and Practice Fusion. A recent history of health APIs The now-defunct patient health information hub Google Health and its surviving competitor Microsoft HealthVault both made APIs an important part of their strategy as early as 2008. The next year, 2012, saw two big API moves: Aetna opened its CarePass API to developers and Nike+ started offering its API via hackathons and its own accelerator, specifically for companies building technology that would integrate with Nike+. Navigation: ( ←Previous | 1 2 3 4 5 | Next→ )
Why I want a microchip implant With a chip under your skin, you can do everything from unlocking doors to starting motorbikes, says Frank Swain, who has been trying to get his own implant. A few years ago, I perched on the edge of my bed in a tiny flat, breathing in a cloud of acetone fumes, using a scalpel to pick at the corner of an electronic travel card. More than 10 million Londoners use these Oyster cards to ride the city’s public transport network. My goal was to bury the chip under my skin, so that the machine barriers at the entrance to the Underground would fly open with a wave of my hand, as if I was some kind of technological wizard. The person who does will find themselves inducted into the community of “grinders” – hobbyists who modify their own body with technological improvements. Take Amal Graafstra, a self-described “adventure technologist” and founder of biohacking company Dangerous Things in Seattle, Washington. Yet if that’s true, what’s the point of implanting it?
Dating sites 24 March 2014Last updated at 20:12 ET By Paul Rubens BBC News Would your chances of finding love online be improved if dating agencies knew far more about you? If you want to know if a prospective date is relationship material, just ask them three questions, says Christian Rudder, one of the founders of US internet dating site OKCupid. "Do you like horror movies?" "Have you ever travelled around another country alone?" "Wouldn't it be fun to chuck it all and go live on a sailboat?" Why? Mr Rudder discovered this by analysing large amounts of data on OKCupid members who ended up in relationships. Dating agencies like OKCupid, Match.com - which acquired OKCupid in 2011 for $50m (£30m) - eHarmony and many others, amass this data by making users answer questions about themselves when they sign up. Some agencies ask as many as 400 questions, and the answers are fed in to large data repositories. US internet dating revenues top $2bn (£1.2bn) annually, according to research company IBISWorld.
Stop The Cyborgs | Only the unmeasured is free. Can you still be a stranger when everyone is wearing Google Glass? The premise of facial recognition app NameTag could have come from any number of science fiction stories. Start a conversation at a cocktail party. Look deep into the eyes of a stranger from behind a pair of glasses, and take a picture. Flicking your eyes away, check his Facebook account. His hobbies. His criminal record. Face recognition technology has been under development since the 1960s, and its use has expanded in the past decade, accelerated by the September 11th terrorist attacks. Google Glass face recognition offers something different. "You should be able to walk into the bar and be safe." "If you’re in a bar, you should be able to walk into the bar and be safe, not have to be immediately identified by someone who could be targeting you," says Eric Schiffer. It’s hard to say how well Anti-Glass actually works, let alone how many people could justify the cost. A promotional rendering of NameTag, running on a mobile phone. "We have a very positive mission here."
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