Data is everywhere.
Everyone, from governments to hospitals and from social media to supermarkets, uses data to make better decisions.
Data is behind some of the most interesting applications, such as chatbots like Siri or Alexa, and AI agents that can beat you in any game.
Data is simply information. It can come in different formats, such as numbers, text, images, or videos. Data can also come from different sources, such as social data (tweets, likes), device data (generated by electronic equipment such as sensors, medical devices, cameras, and satellites), transactional data (generated by business processes such as invoices and price points), and others.
Even though data can come in different shapes and forms, it can be divided into two main categories: structured and unstructured data.
Structured data can be stored in rows and columns, such as names, phone records, and addresses, while unstructured data is information in many forms that is difficult to store in tables, such as text documents, social media posts, audio, image, and video files.
Advancements in electronic devices have made it possible for large amounts of data to be continuously generated and stored. Two main trends are behind this data revolution.
First, processing devices are getting faster. This is also known as Moore’s Law. Processing large amounts of data is now faster and cheaper.
Second, hard drive storage capacity is increasing. This is known as Kryder’s Law. Storing data is now cheaper.
Big Data
The term Big Data refers to sets of data that are too large and/or too complex to be stored and processed by a single device.
Big Data allows us to better understand the world around us and it impacts everyone’s life. Decoding human DNA in minutes? Detecting diseases? Making better trading decisions?
Everything got easier.
Cheers, Irina 😊