Which paint color is mostlikely to tell you that a used car is in good shape? How canofficials identify the most dangerous New York City manholes beforethey explode? And how did Google searches predict the spread of theH1N1 flu outbreak?
The key to answering thesequestions, and many more, is big data. “Big data” refers to ourburgeoning ability to crunch vast collections of information,analyze it instantly, and draw sometimes profoundly surprisingconclusions from it. This emerging science can translate myriadphenomena—from the price of airline tickets to the text of millionsof books—into searchable form, and uses our increasing computingpower to unearth epiphanies that we never could have seen before. Arevolution on par with the Internet or perhaps even the printingpress, 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, from the inevitable end of privacy aswe know it to the prospect of being penalized for things we haven’teven done yet, based on big data’s ability to predict our futurebehavior.