Sunday, April 22, 2012

We are all feeding big data

A week or so ago, I wrote about Placeme app by Alohar Mobile, mobile application that automatically records your location.  If you feel that a device tracking your whereabout at all time is creepy, you are not alone.  It's natural to feel that way.  But whether we like it or not, we are all getting swept up in big data wave.  That's because everything about what we do is getting recorded.

Think about anything that you do online.  Whenever you are visiting a website, you are causing the web server to respond to you with a web page.  Each time that happens website can record the fact that it served the page to you (if you are registered user, if not just IP address).  Imagine getting all these data available for quick search by the visitor.  It will tell the website that what users are doing.  More importantly it will allow the website to model how you have been acting, and predict what you might do next.

It's not just online data.  Technology for recording our driving habit is already around us.  Since 1996, Event Data Recorder has been a part of most automobiles sold in U.S.  It records acceleration, brake, rpm, etc. each time you get behind the wheel.  Chances are that you are driving a car that has EDR recording every driving decision that you make.

And installing EDR is about to become a law.  Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) will mandate all auto manufacturers to install EDR and record all driving history.  The data will be accessible to car owners and will be requested by court if needed in legal proceeding.

All these data recording is what's fueling big data.  And we are seeing the first wave of this big data.  With Splunk IPO, expect more big data companies and data analysis firms to make headlines.

No comments:

Post a Comment