Big Data

A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013

15 min read

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Big data is changing, and will change, everything.

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Professor Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Economist data editor Kenneth Cukier make sweeping claims about big data. The authors describe a tidal wave of data that evokes crucial economic, medical and even philosophical questions. This book is so enthusiastic that you might need to take some of the claims with a grain of salt. That said, the pages crackle with energy and describe implications for everyone and every business. If only a tenth of what the authors claim is true, they are describing a fundamental change in the world – and they underscore the fact that this is only the beginning of the big data revolution. getAbstract recommends this futurist manifesto to those interested in how technology changes society, in cyberculture or intellectual history, and to those who must deal, one way or another, with big data.

Summary

The Great Change

Everyone with a computer or cellphone knows that the “information revolution” has transformed the world. However, you might not know that another sweeping transformation is underway, one changing philosophical debates, disease control, retail pricing and many other facets of modern life. Big data drives this new revolution. The term originated in sciences like genomics and astronomy that deal with massive calculations, but it is spreading to “all areas of human endeavor.” Initially, the term “big data” referred to calculations that consumed so much information they overwhelmed computers. New techniques have been developed to deal with that scale of data, allowing people to utilize it without fitting it to a specific organizing format. The big data revolution calls for working on a massive scale to do things that you can’t do on a smaller scale.

Several factors fuel the big data revolution. Computers keep getting faster, and memory, cameras, video cameras and sensors keep getting cheaper. As more people go online – and as social media become more widespread – those faster computers have more data to work with. Everyone online has access to several hundred...

About the Authors

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is professor of Internet governance and regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute. Kenneth Cukier is data editor at the Economist.

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A. 1 decade ago

Big Data is subject to the classical "Hype Cycle" like any other innovation as well. The abstract includes, fortunately, the small chapter about "Risks" as well. I believe that Big Data will have quick success in 'contained environments' like companies, enterprises, where data is fully owned by the entity, and therefore all stakeholders know about it and buy into the purpose. However, Global Governance on Big Data has not even started, and this will lead to setbacks to the success of Big Data: Currently, the bad press of Big Data related to U.S. NSA's spy activities shows what happens to the 'digital individual' without opt-in or opt-out possibility. I believe that Global Governance for Big Data will sooner or later become a topic for a multinational body like the UN, and this will help to evolve Big Data into a broad consensus beyond national interests.

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth Cukier

Big Data

A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think

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The Great Change

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