As a child I can remember watching the futuristic life of The Jetson’s on Saturday morning cartoons and thinking “wow that must be a long time from now!” But this is not necessarily the case. With the immersion of Big data and its widespread application, we are beginning to see “The Future” much more quickly than we expected.
Now that Big Data Analytics has been around long enough to no longer think of it as a magical, all knowing, wonder tool, companies are now used to Big Data and understand how to manage it. Big Data has become a mainstream, ordinary process in the work place. With Big Data being more manageable and easy to understand, it is now being applied to many different new and exciting projects. Big Data is being utilized in Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, and Machine Learning.
Artificial Intelligence is being developed in forms anywhere from robotics to the Internet of Things. Big Data is being heavily utilized in Natural Language Processing to enhance applications such as Apple’s Siri. Natural Language Processing is something we can expect to see a lot of a The Internet of Things continues to make a bigger presence. Machine Learning will make its mark as algorithms continue to be developed to ensure efficiency and minimal human intervention. Between these three sectors we are looking at the world of The Jetson’s being very near.
With Big Data continuing to make its mark in numerous different industries and the internet Of Things on the rise, what can we expect to see out of them in the future?
This time of year everyone starts to predict what the future will hold, what trends will be all the rage and whose products will be the most successful. It is pretty safe to say that Big Data will continue to be improved and utilized in more ways in the future. The Internet Of Things is definitely on the rise, but what can we expect from it in this upcoming year?
I recently heard on the radio that parents are now using “Elf on the shelf” to make their kids behave better. Elf on the shelf is a fun little game families have begun playing where they place a little elf doll in different places of the house every night- giving kids the illusion that elf is real. Parents are beginning to take this sweet holiday tradition and use it to make their children believe that Elf is always watching.
Parents have always used little tactics to help control their kids, like Santa Clause knowing if you are naughty or nice, we simply need a little white lie every now and then to help us out.
Is this now being taken too far? How do we know when we have crossed the line?
Mattel has just introduced it’s latest Barbie doll and not only is it highly fashionable, but she can actually talk. Yes, that is right, your child can now play with a Barbie doll who can hold full conversations with them as well as remember your child’s key interests. When the new Barbie hears your child speak, she sends the data to a computer that records the message, and then relays the correct response back to Barbie.
In theory this may seem like another Big Data success; woohoo! a toy that can finally act as a play buddy for my child! Not so fast, everything your child says to Barbie gets recorded and stored by Mattel. This means that not only do the people working at Mattel have direct access to speak to your child at any time, in the safety of your home, but they also will use everything your child says for research.
Personally, I think this is one of the creepiest ways to use Big Data. The new talking Barbie is more invasive than any of the tracking companies do on the internet. So if you are thinking about getting your little one a talking Barbie this Christmas, think twice, or you may be putting your child in a potentially manipulative situation.
In light of last week’s tragic events in Paris and Beirut we begin to wonder how terrorists can get away with committing such horrible crimes and is there a way we can stop it? Is there a way to protect ourselves from terrorism other than using drones to bomb whole cities? Could we track these awful people and arrest them before any of their plans can be carried out?
Big Data may not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about defending our country’s safety. but it may be more important than we think. We must remember that Big Data is essentially a lot of information- information on all of us. We are the ones who put our information out there for the world to see. We may not think anything of posting on Facebook about our vacation travels or what big event we are attending, but to the sick minded people out there we are basically telling them where and when we will be somewhere they can best attack.
Many people get angry about the fact that the government is tracking their information, but really it is for our own protection. The government is not listening in on your call for entertainment, they are using machines to scan the information our there across the internet for patterns that may detect a possible dangerous outbreak. Whether it be the spread of disease or an angry protest group, the government is searching for clues to predict when these acts may happen and how to best prevent the worst from happening.
What if Big Data could help us spot terrorists living in our country before they could attack. There must be a way to find the connections the link individuals to terrorist groups. This would allow homeland security to track down these individuals and get them into custody before any damage is done. To be able to shut down terrorist groups before they even act would be the best way to prevent terrorism, not by bombing cities that are also home to innocent people.
As for now we can only hope that the information we put out there is being used for good and that the government is using Big Data to its fullest potential to prevent distastes from happening. Check out other articles on Big Data and Security by CLICKING HERE!
You can pretty much look anywhere on the internet today and find an article, post, or book written on the benefits of Big Data. It is on the mind of every executive out there, and rightfully so. While the benefits do greatly outweigh the downsides, it still needs to be brought to attention that there often remains a weak link in big data- the data itself.
Without good data, the business intelligence gained from it can all be deemed useless. Without good data, companies find themselves spending unnecessary time and money in an attempt to clean it up. So, rather than focusing right now on how much data we could possibly gather, shouldn’t we be focusing on how to retrieve the ‘correct’ data?
Annual BI and Big Data expenditures are expected to reach $114 billion by the end of 2018- not a number to be taken lightly! It is estimated that almost $65 Billion of that is absorbed or unrealized by businesses each year due to return mail/bad data. Poor data is prevalent in nearly every major industry, from healthcare to retail and finance to telecommunications.
USPS gave us a perfect example of how crucial good data is when they incurred $1.5 Billion in costs processing “undeliverable as addressed” mail. While there were many other factors, over half a billion dollars in expense was due to businesses having wrong addresses in their databases.
Organizations can continue to go along as many are today, gathering all of the data they can get their hands on, because somewhere within that, the good data will fall. However, in an age of efficiency and desire to save as much time and money as possible, executives should drive their organizations to ensure data is properly entered from the beginning or corrected within the systems and databases. Thankfully, there are many products already on the market that can help companies with this today.
After getting rid of the crud in the data and spending our time retrieving only what matters, we will begin to see Big Data being used to its fullest potential. Oh, the possibilities!
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