Friday Video: BIG DATA: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think

“BIG DATA: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think,” is a revelatory exploration of the hottest trend in technology and the dramatic impact it will have on the economy, science, and society at large. Which paint color is most likely to tell you that a used car is in good shape? How can Con Edison catch the most dangerous New York City manholes before they explode? And how did YOU (well, Google) predict the spread of the H1N1 flu outbreak? The key to answering these questions, and many more, is big data, our newfound ability to crunch vast collections of information, analyze it instantly, and draw sometimes profoundly surprising conclusions from it. This emerging science can translate myriad phenomena—from the price of airline tickets to the text of millions of books—into searchable form, and uses our newfound computing power to unearth revelations that we never could have seen before. A revolution on par with the Internet or perhaps even the printing press, big data will change the way we think about business, health, politics, education, and innovation in the years to come. It also poses fresh threats, especially the prospect of being penalized by for things we haven’t even done yet, based on big data’s ability to predict our future behavior.