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When it comes to analyzing big data, the idea that tremendous insights can be gleaned from numbers is not new. What is new is how this data is being put to use. Everyone from sports fanatics and college professors to social media platforms are taking big data and using it to analyze real-world scenarios. The more it gets used, the more exciting it gets. In this week’s Web roundup, we look at big data’s recent coups – and privacy’s recent losses.
Big Data Scores at the World Cup
Perhaps no one understands the importance of gathering numbers and stats and then using them to make crucial analysis better than sports teams. With the World Cup in full swing, analysts are having a field day (pun intended) with the numbers. According to an article on Motherboard, FIFA employees work behind-the-scenes combining several technologies to capture analytics from each soccer game. One of the more exciting technological developments this year is the goal-line technology used to report any goals the referees might not see.
Big Data Gets an Honorary Degree
As big data grows up, colleges and universities are jumping on board and using its power to acquire new students, improve curriculum performance, raise student benchmarks, and more. Big data has proved to be enormously beneficial to higher education because of how many points of engagement the institution has with its students. There is so much data about students and their interactions with a university. Now these institutions have the technology to use it to their benefit. How’s that for higher learning?
Could All This Data Actually Stand in the Way of the Internet of Things?
Some people think so. Although the Internet of Things is still in its infancy, a trend has formed naturally to stop data gathering devices from sharing with one another. If this doesn’t change, the lack of data sharing could have a dramatic impact on the growth of the industry. Now, HyperCat could be a solution to this nail-biting problem. HyperCat combines the catalogs of more than 40 top organizations such as IBM, BT and more, in an effort to find ways to avoid siloing data onto individual machines or proprietary formats and APIs.
You Might Not Want to Hear This About Facebook
Facebook took public mental health matters into its own hands when it launched a study recently that tested user emotional reactions. Using almost 700,000 Facebook users’ emotional posts and reactions for nearly a week without their consent, Facebook manipulated what the test group saw. And that had Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg apologizing for not disclosing the study. Now that the damage is done, some people wonder how the findings of the study might affect future Facebook developments. (Learn more; check out Facebook’s Changing Privacy Policy.)
Speaking of Not Disclosing Enough Information …
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) just filed a formal complaint against T-Mobile for charging customers for unnamed data content by third parties. According to the FTC, the mobile communications provider kept as much as 40 percent of these charges. The FTC alleges that T-Mobile left out any specific mention of charging customers for third-party services. The problem? T-Mobile did mention it when they crammed the notice into their short commercial. The FTC does not believe that this was enough of a mention to warrant a charge. The verdict of this case could shape the future of mobile device companies and how they charge customers for services. Anyone who uses a mobile device should keep an eye on this story.
