Big Data Still Requires Humans To Make Meaningful Connections

Little boy touching a computer screen. Big data is a big deal, make no mistake about it, but it’s probably not as big a deal as it’s going to be eventually when we really figure out how to make good use of it. For now, we have this muddled middle where we understand the value of the data, but most organizations and governments don’t know how to use that data to its full potential. In a recent issue of The… Read More

Leveraging Technology To Make Credit Credible

smallchange The small-dollar credit (SDC) market — think payday and auto-title lending — is ripe for innovation and disruption. Most of the $44 billion industry consists of high-cost, low-quality products that lead people into cycles of repeat usage and mounting debt. Regulatory burdens, reputational risk and the tough economics of making small loans profitable have limited the supply of… Read More

Tableau Software Soars 17% on 3Q Earnings

tableau Data provider Tableau Software reported third quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday, posting an adjusted earnings per share of 14 cents, blowing past analyst expectations of 7 cents. Shares ticked up 17% in after-hours trading.
Revenue grew to $170.8 million, up 64% year over year on strong international growth.  Analysts surveyed by Yahoo! Finance were expecting just $157.7… Read More

How RFID Delivers Big Data On Cows And Milk Production

 We know that big data has been used in retail, healthcare and finance, but you might be surprised to find out that it also helps farmers with dairy production. This practice, called precision dairy farming, involves the use of technology such as …

IBM Will Acquire The Weather Company’s Digital Business

hurricane earth IBM announced this morning it’s acquiring The Weather Company, the parent company to the The Weather Channel, as well as the company’s B2B, mobile and web properties, in a deal that’s being valued at more than $2 billion, according to a report from The Wall St. Journal. The companies are not disclosing the financial terms, however. The deal will see The Weather Company… Read More

The California Drought And Standards Of IoT

Plant struggling for life in drought land The Internet of Things (IoT) has a remote control problem — devices are operating independently with no knowledge of each other’s existence. Even systems that are supposed to work together don’t do so easily. We need a digital age of enlightenment and openness to unleash the full potential of the IoT. This means standardizing cross-device and multi-platform communication,… Read More

Dell Needs To Decide What To Keep And What To Sell After EMC Deal

Michael Dell and Joe Tucci shaking hands. In the brave new enterprise world, organizations will be awash in big data, and it’s against this backdrop that Dell bought EMC this week for the astonishing sum of $67 billion. All of this data needs to be stored somewhere and that’s where EMC comes in. Dell already has been selling storage of course. In fact, it bought EqualLogic in 2007 for $1.4 billion, which seemed like a… Read More

What’s The Value Of Your Data?

open-source-data-science On September 18, 2015, Comcast reached a $33 million settlement over claims that it published personal information of more than 75,000 customers — even though those customers had specifically paid a fee for their information to be kept private. As a consequence, the company will pay a $100 compensation to each victim. This case is particularly interesting because, for the first time,… Read More

The Other Ag Sector Problem That Big Data Can Solve

Filling a high clearance sprayer with chemical and water with proper safety equipment The average city-poke thinks about farm labor as the last of a dying breed of worker — replaced by $700,000 combines and all sorts of fancy technology that enables a farmer to do more than granddad imagined, and with little dust or manure involved. Things have changed. What has not changed is the need for farm worker management and safety. Read More

How The Digital Health Revolution Will Become A Reality

doctorpov To outlive the hype that comes with being Silicon Valley’s latest trend, and actually improve care for patients and consumers, health tech will require more than a just a funding pipeline. The good news is that all the pieces are in place — the problem, the appetite for a solution and the tech — to bring healthcare into the modern age. Read More