IBM Takes Its University Initiative to Scotland
August 22, 2016
The article on Inside HPC titled IBM Partners with University of Aberdeen to Drive Cognitive Computing illustrates the circumstances of the first Scottish university partnership with IBM. IBM has been collecting goodwill and potential data analysts from US colleges lately, so it is no surprise that this endeavor has been sent abroad. The article details,
In June 2015, the UK government unveiled plans for a £313 million partnership with IBM to boost big data research in the UK. Following an initial investment of £113 million to expand the Hartree Centre at Daresbury over the next five years, IBM also agreed to provide further support to the project with a package of technology and onsite expertise worth up to £200 million. This included 24 IBM researchers, stationed at the Hartree Centre, to work side-by-side with existing researchers.
The University of Aberdeen will begin by administering the IBM cognitive computing technology in computer science courses in addition to ongoing academic research with Watson. In a sense, the students exposed to Watson in college are being trained to seek jobs in the industry, for IBM. They will have insider experience and goodwill toward the company. It really is one of the largest nets cast for prospective job applicants in industry history.
Chelsea Kerwin, June 22, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph There is a Louisville, Kentucky Hidden /Dark Web meet up on August 23, 2016.
Information is at this link: https://www.meetup.com/Louisville-Hidden-Dark-Web-Meetup/events/233019199/
Visual Analytics Makes Anyone a Data Expert
October 5, 2015
Humans are sight-based creatures. When faced with a chunk of text or a series of sequential pictures, they will more likely scan the pictures for information than read. With the big data revolution, one of the hardest problems analytics platforms have dealt with is how to best present data for users to implement. Visual analytics is the key, but one visual analytics is not the same as another. DCInno explains that one data visual company stands out from the rest in the article, “How The Reston Startup Makes Everyone A Big Data Expert.”
Zoomdata likes to think of itself as the one visual data companies that gives its clients a one up over others and it goes about it in layman’s terms.
“Zoomdata has been offering businesses and organizations a way to see data in ways more useful than a spreadsheet since it was founded in 2012. Its software offers real-time and historical explorations of data streams, integrating multiple sources into a cohesive whole. This makes the analytics far more accessible than they are in raw form, and allows a layperson to better understand what the numbers are saying without needing a degree in mathematics or statistics.”
Zoomdata offers a very interactive platform and is described to be the only kind on the market. Their clients range from government agencies, such as the Library of Congress, and private companies. Zoomdata does not want to be pigeonholed as a government analytics startup. Their visual data platform can be used in any industry and by anyone with the goal of visual data analytics for the masses. Zoomdata has grown tremendously, tripled its staff, and raised $22.2 million in fundraising.
Now let us sit back and see how their software is implemented in various industries. I wonder if they could make a visual analytics graphic novel?
Whitney Grace, October 5, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Hadoop Rounds Up Open Source Goodies
July 17, 2015
Summer time is here and what better way to celebrate the warm weather and fun in the sun than with some fantastic open source tools. Okay, so you probably will not take your computer to the beach, but if you have a vacation planned one of these tools might help you complete your work faster so you can get closer to that umbrella and cocktail. Datamation has a great listicle focused on “Hadoop And Big Data: 60 Top Open Source Tools.”
Hadoop is one of the most adopted open source tool to provide big data solutions. The Hadoop market is expected to be worth $1 billion by 2020 and IBM has dedicated 3,500 employees to develop Apache Spark, part of the Hadoop ecosystem.
As open source is a huge part of the Hadoop landscape, Datamation’s list provides invaluable information on tools that could mean the difference between a successful project and failed one. Also they could save some extra cash on the IT budget.
“This area has a seen a lot of activity recently, with the launch of many new projects. Many of the most noteworthy projects are managed by the Apache Foundation and are closely related to Hadoop.”
Datamation has maintained this list for a while and they update it from time to time as the industry changes. The list isn’t sorted on a comparison scale, one being the best, rather they tools are grouped into categories and a short description is given to explain what the tool does. The categories include: Hadoop-related tools, big data analysis platforms and tools, databases and data warehouses, business intelligence, data mining, big data search, programming languages, query engines, and in-memory technology. There is a tool for nearly every sort of problem that could come up in a Hadoop environment, so the listicle is definitely worth a glance.
Whitney Grace, July 17, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph

