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FEBRUARY 2013
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HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
all this stuff is that it never goes
away. The digital detritus just keeps accu-
mulating, making it increasingly difficult
to find the information you actually need.
In fact, our society has reached the point
where it’s amassed so much information,
no one could possiblymake sense of it all.
Or at least that was the case until the
advent of Big Data, a technology that
has provided us with what might be
termed an archivist of everything, stor-
ing and sorting the facts of the world
via a new generation of supercomputers
that operate at unimaginable speeds.
This in turn has led to a couple of
game-changing advances in the way we
process data.
The first of these is that, beyond reach-
ing conclusions, computers are now able
tomake assumptions, to anticipate users’
needs rather than merely responding
to them. So it is that you have social
networking sites pointing you to the
friend-of-a-friend youdidn’t knowexisted,
e-tailers suggesting the perfect birthday
gi for your Great-Aunt Dora, or a local
auto dealer sending you a special offer
at the exact moment your car kicks the
bucket. The levels of synthesis and analy-
sis being employed to these ends are not
only beyond human capability, but o en
beyond human comprehension as well.
The second major shi is the way in
which Big Data allows us to unite the
digital andmaterial worlds. At the super-
market, for example, strategically placed
cameras record your actions, which are
then transformed into a constellation of data points, showing retail-
ers how long you study every item. In a similar vein, face recognition
technology can gather images fromsecurity cameras, analyze those
images to establish themovement pa erns of a suspected criminal,
then make an educated guess as to where that person may be at
any given time.
The potential for the abuse of such capabilities is obvious, but so
are the potential benefits. Ecologists are using similarly intrusive
methods to trace the migratory pa erns of endangered aquatic
species, for example. And, as the technology’s defenders are keen
to point out, Big Data is already revolutionizing the healthcare
industry. With such computational power at researchers’ fingertips,
the 13 years it took to map the human genome could be reduced to
mere hours. Big Data may soon be able to anticipate when an indi-
vidual might suffer a
heart a ack; it might
even find a cure for
cancer one day.
In a bid to show
how beneficial this
technology can be,
data storage giant
EMC p a r t n e r e d
with Rick Smolan
—
the man behind
the epic “Day in the
Life” crowdsourcing
p r o j e c t s—fo r an
initiative called “The
Human Face of Big
Data.” The project aims to document every conceivable way that
Big Data can improve the world, from stemming the tide of coun-
terfeit pharmaceuticals in Africa to making our home appliances
more energy-efficient.
Smolan, a true believer, has likened Big Data to a kind of plan-
etary central nervous system. The idea is that once everything in
the world has been linked to everything else, there is no problem
that cannot be overcome—except, perhaps, the problems raised by
the fact that everything in the world is linked to everything else.
Once this happens, you can say goodbye to privacy. And we’re not
only talking sinister, Big Brother–style prying here.
Consider the recent case of a Minneapolis teenager who went
shopping at Target. Based on what she did while she was there,
which was duly recorded and analyzed, the store subsequently
mailed her ads for maternity clothing and nursery furniture. The
girl’s parents were a li le surprised, let’s say, to discover their baby
was pregnant.
It’s possible that the single biggest potential problem with
Big Data is this: Even the smartest computers can be kind of
stupid sometimes.
BOYD FARROW,
a London-based editor and writer, believes he is
responsible for about a third of the world’s digital clutter.
FEBRUARY CROSSWORD ANSWERS
BRIGHT IDEAS
||
TECH
Big Data has created
what might be
called an archivist of
everything, storing
and sorting the
facts of the world
via computers of
unimaginable speed.
