Truth be told, you’d be hard pressed to identify any industry in the world that has not been affected by Big Data in one way or another. Retailers analyze shoppers’ preferences to recommend additional products of interest and evaluate past purchases to predict future transactions. Marketers scrutinize social media engagement to gage consumer opinion and optimize effective strategies. The folks on Wall Street (i.e., traders, financial analysts and investment bankers) study Google Trends for search volume data to determine which stock market moves will be most profitable. Scientists at NASA map complex climate changes. The United States National Security Agency just finished its 1.5 billion dollar Utah Data Center, A.K.A. “the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center” to gather, store and investigate data from intercepted satellite communications and underwater ocean cables in order to spot potential national security threats – or to spy on us?? Who really knows, its precise mission is classified. But that’s not the point.
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