{"id":12321,"date":"2013-05-17T15:51:52","date_gmt":"2013-05-17T14:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/?p=4984"},"modified":"2013-05-17T15:51:52","modified_gmt":"2013-05-17T14:51:52","slug":"sapphire-now-the-human-face-of-big-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/sapphire-now-the-human-face-of-big-data.html","title":{"rendered":"The Human Face of Big Data"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"human-face-of-big-data-banner\" alt=\"human-face-of-big-data-banner\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/human-face-of-big-data-banner.jpg?resize=690%2C310&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"690\" height=\"310\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>SAPPHIRE NOW in Orlando was packed with examples of how Big Data affects all our lives.<\/p>\n<p>SAP Executive <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nstevenlucas\" target=\"_blank\">Steve Lucas<\/a> was the host of an Intel-sponsored Big Data special interest group meeting at the conference. He kicked off the session by explaining that he considers himself to be an example of the human face of new data technologies. As a type 1 Diabetic, he wears a device that measures his blood sugar once a second, and communicates it to a hand-held device that he uses to constantly monitor his diet and take control of his health:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;For a diabetic, you literally are the living embodiment of data because you spend most of your spare time during your day checking and monitoring your blood sugar number.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NiYr35cMLvE\" height=\"315\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rick_Smolan\" target=\"_blank\">Rick Smolen<\/a>, a former Time Life journalist and photographer, spoke at the event and during a panel the next day.<\/p>\n<p>After working on various projects including the very successful \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/curiosity.discovery.com\/question\/day-in-the-life-book-series-successful\" target=\"_blank\">Day in the Life<\/a>\u201d series of books, Rick\u2019s most recent book (and accompanying <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/app\/big-data-tablet-app\/id579041860?ls=1&amp;mt=8\" target=\"_blank\">interactive iPad application<\/a>) is called <a href=\"http:\/\/humanfaceofbigdata.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Human Face of Big Data<\/a>, and it\u2019s full of compelling stories of how new data technologies are making a difference.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"rick smolen\" alt=\"rick smolen\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/rick-smolen.jpg?resize=640%2C400&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Rick explained that Marissa Meyer, now CEO of Yahoo, helped draw him to the project when she described technology as \u201chelping the planet develop a nervous system.\u201d In other words, by aggregating all of the sensors, searches and transactions in the world, it gives us a sense of what\u2019s happening in the planet in real time.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">In his forward to the book, Rick says:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">\u201cOn the following pages, as you meet the men, women, and children whose lives are being transformed by this data revolution, I suspect you will come to the same conclusion that I have: Big Data may well turn out to be the most powerful tool set the human race has ever had to address the widespread challenges facing our species and our planet\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: left; padding-top: 0px; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"image\" alt=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/image.png?resize=145%2C193&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"145\" height=\"193\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" \/>Rick believes that big data will change our lives \u2013 and not just in the business world. \u201cHealthcare is at the top of the list\u201d he explained. Today, as drug companies do clinical trials, they may find that it can help 99% of patients, but harm a small percentage, so could never get approved by the FDA. But the price of genome decoding is plummeting, holding out the promise of personalized medicine, prescriptions based on what is effective for your particular DNA. \u201cToday, the cures exist, but they are sitting on the shelves\u201d said Rick \u201ctoday, antibiotics is one size fits all. The whole work is going to change thanks to medicine designed to treat the individual.\u201d<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Sensors will also result in new opportunities. \u201cFor example, 14 seconds before the recent massive earthquake in Japan, every bullet train and every factory came to a halt\u201d said Rick. \u201cBecause the country had prepared a hardwired sensor system to detect the wave that comes before the violent one&#8221;.\u00a0 That required a huge upfront capital investment. In silicon valley, a group of researchers realized that every modern laptop has sensors to protect their hard drives: if you drop the computer, it lifts the head off the platter to try to save the spinning disk. So they created the <a href=\"http:\/\/qcn.stanford.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\">Quake Catcher Network<\/a>, that allows crowd-sourced earthquake detection around the world. You download the free software to your computer and let it run in the background (it can be your default screensaver, for example). Then the software aggregates all the data and if one person\u2019s laptop sensor is set off by, for example, a heavy truck going by, nothing happens, but if all the sensors in a 30 mile radius go off, then it\u2019s an earthquake\u2026<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"quakesensors\" alt=\"quakesensors\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/quakesensors.jpg?resize=514%2C303&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"514\" height=\"303\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Sensors are also behind a new \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/node\/15868133\" target=\"_blank\">magic carpet<\/a>\u201d: \u201cMy mother is 90 years old, and my father passed away six years ago. Six months ago, my mother fell, and then she fell another time, and the third time, nobody found her for five hours. We asked her to move in with us, but she didn\u2019t want to. We hired people to live with her in shifts, and she hated it. Now GE and Intel are introducing products aimed at aging at home, and one of the prototypes is a carpet filled with sensors. Over time, it creates a baseline knowledge of \u2018normal behavior\u2019 \u2013 she walks on the carpet at 9:30 am, and here\u2019s her gait \u2013 over time it can predict muscle weakness, and changes to normal patterns and tweet me to \u201ccall mom!\u201d<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Rick believes one of the biggest opportunities is making better use of previously ignored \u201cdark data\u201d. \u201cFor years, meteorologists have had to filter out \u2018bioclutter\u2019 from Doppler radar weather systems \u2013 the \u201cnoise\u201d generated by flocks of birds or bats. But when bird researchers realized they had 15 years of invaluable data on migration patterns they were delighted!\u201d<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">But Rick also cautioned that there will be new challenges. For example, today, data is typically owned by governments and businesses, not individuals, and there needs to be more thinking about how to make sure that powerful data is not misused.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">For more fantastic examples and stories about Big Data is affecting people\u2019s lives, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/bigdata.saphana.com\/\">http:\/\/bigdata.saphana.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bigdata.saphana.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"image\" alt=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/image18.png?resize=640%2C423&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"640\" height=\"423\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At SAPPHIRE NOW, Photographer Rick Smolen gave compelling examples of how Big Data is changing people&#8217;s lives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[27,54,100,173,213,911,939,940,942],"class_list":["post-12321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-presentations","tag-bigdata","tag-54","tag-analytics","tag-big-data","tag-businessobjects","tag-sap","tag-sapphire","tag-sapphire-now","tag-sapphirenow"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/human-face-of-big-data-banner-1.jpg?fit=690%2C310&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3X9RF-3cJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}