Big Data Is so Last Year, Data Analysts Inform Us
February 1, 2016
The article on Fortune titled Has Big Data Gone Mainstream? asks whether big data is now an expected part of data analysis. The “merger” as Deloitte advisor Tom Davenport puts it, makes big data an indistinguishable aspect of data crunching. Only a few years ago, it was a scary buzzword that executives scrambled to understand and few experts specialized in. The article shows what has changed lately,
“Now, however, universities offer specialized master’s degrees for advanced data analytics and companies are creating their own in-house programs to train talent in data science. The Deloitte report cites networking giant Cisco CSCO -4.22% as an example of a company that created an internal data science training program that over 200 employees have gone through. Because of media reports, consulting services, and analysts talking up “big data,” people now generally understand what big data means…”
Davenport sums up the trend nicely with the statement that people are tired of reading about big data and ready to “do it.” So what will replace big data as the current mysterious buzzword that irks laypeople and the C-suite simultaneously? The article suggests “cognitive computing” or computer systems using artificial intelligence for speech recognition, object identification, and machine learning. Buzz, buzz!
Chelsea Kerwin, February 1, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Authors Guild Loses Fair Use Argument, Petitions Supreme Court for Copyright Fee Payment from Google
January 12, 2016
The article on Fortune titled Authors Guild Asks Supreme Court to Hear Google Books Copyright Case continues the 10 year battle over Google’s massive book scanning project. Only recently in October of 2015 the Google project received a ruling in their favor due to the “transformative” nature of the scanning from a unanimous appeals court. Now the Authors Guild, with increasing desperation to claim ownership over their work, takes the fight to the Supreme Court for consideration. The article explains,
“The Authors Guild may be hoping the high profile nature of the case, which at one time transfixed the tech and publishing communities, will tempt the Supreme Court to weigh in on the scope of fair use… “This case represents an unprecedented judicial expansion of the fair-use doctrine that threatens copyright protection in the digital age. The decision below authorizing mass copying, distribution, and display of unaltered content conflicts with this Court’s decisions and the Copyright Act itself.”
In the petition to the Supreme Court, the Authors Guild is now requesting payment of copyright fees rather than a stoppage of the scanning of 20 million books. Perhaps they should have asked for that first, since Google has all but already won this one.
Chelsea Kerwin, January 12, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Google Clamps down on Surprise Costs in BigQuery
December 23, 2015
The article titled Google Promises to Rein in Runaway Query Costs on Fortune discusses the obstacles facing Google’s BigQuery data tool. Google hopes to make BigQuery a major resource for big companies considering cloud technology, but unpredictable costs are getting in the way of the “low-cost big data analytics option” marketing that Google has deployed. Hence, the introduction of “custom quota” and Query Explain,
“Google is now offering potential inquisitors a way to set a “custom quota” to ensure that the number crunching on a specified project does not exceed a pre-set daily limit. In addition, a Query Explain feature promises to lay out, how BigQuery will go about processing the question on the table in advance. That way, in theory, you can see if your questions will be “write, read, or compute heavy” and better anticipate where performance bottlenecks could lurk…”
One might fairly ask why there was any delay in these services, since customers are not known for their fondness of mobile phone type billing surprises. Amazon is also standing next to Google waving at RedShift, a BigQuery competitor in the air. But the simpler pricing and efficiency of BigQuery might be more appealing to many companies, especially with the more controlled processes now available.
Chelsea Kerwin, December 23, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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