On June 23rd 2009 at 11:44am, according to iTunes, I was listening to the Decemberists’ album The Hazards of Love. What were you doing on that day?
As everyday tasks are merging with computing technology a sort of “digital residue” is left behind. Through the help of social network sites (SNS) and other forms of Web 2.0, we are quickly becoming a self-documenting society. So what do we do with this digital residue?
The iTunes example used above will help to give a simple definition for both Big Data and ubiquitous computing (ubicomp). These are terms that those using SNSs or a Smartphone should be aware of. Before I go further I must disclose that a) I am not a tech person but instead am more interested in how people engage with information and data and b) do not see these terms as threats to your personal security (but more on that later).
So what exactly is Big Data? The main task of iTunes is to play digital music but what happens in the process is that the music file gets time stamped, placed into a timeline and receives a play count. As this process continues over time you, as well as the iTunes program, can better understand your relationship with your music. You can know what songs you listen to the most, what songs you have not listened to in a while and what songs you have never listened to. This is vastly different then the way we used to listen to music on CD players. Not only are we able to carry our entire music collection around on a small portable device but also we are able to carry our entire music history as well.
An understanding of Big Data takes this process a step further by looking at the larger picture, that being that millions of people are generating this kind of data. Software can then be written to help make sense of the data. The basic assumption here is that meaning can be extracted from the patterns that are found in the data. However, as far as I know, iTunes does not publish your data so this works best as an example of self-generating data.
Big Data becomes even more interesting when computing gets moved online. With smartphones and GPS enabled devices the movement from offline to online is often blurred. Smartphone applications (apps) are used for specific tasks but as you do the task data is generated. For instance you may use an app like
Runkeeper to keep track of fitness routines like running or biking. After a run you can analyze the data and know where you went, how far you went and how long it took you to finish the run. If you perform the same run again the next day you can then compare the two runs. These are the basic functions of the app. However, because all of this data is stored on Runkeeper’s servers you potentially have the ability to find people in your neighborhood who have similar data. The benefit here is that people could meet up who are trying to achieve similar goals and running similar distances at a similar pace. This data can also be moved to a much larger scale as city planners can look at it and determine where people prefer to run and perhaps even try to evaluate why people are not running in a certain area.
The question that I am sure is lurking in your minds now concerns personal safety and privacy. Do we want people knowing where and when we are running?
Amber Case, the developer of the app
Geoloqi (which I highly recommend), stated that this sort of computing is helping humans become more human. Big Data and ubicomp is pushing us towards a more highly connected society and also helping us better understand ourselves. It is making data that has always existed more visible.
This post just barely begins to expose the much larger picture of Big Data and ubicomp. My goal here is to present a basic understanding of a concept that I will come back to often. It will be interesting to see how computing changes as more and more of this data becomes machine readable. One aspect that is already in the media concerns who will end up being able to access this data and what that means for personal privacy. Amber Case helps explain this by comparing it to buying food at the supermarket. Club card savings at supermarkets require customers to enter their unique ID# or a phone number to receive discounts. Maybe people are concerned about leaving this information with the store because of what the store will do with their info. However, these stores really do not care what the individual person is buying but are concerned with the much larger picture by finding patterns in the way people shop.
Still, the data you you are creating, either consciously or not, should be yours to control.
Al Franken is currently taking on some of the larger tech businesses that are creating ways to get at all of this data. I agree that you should be able to control what you broadcast and what gets collected and what does not. It will be interesting to see how all this plays out in the end. Computing as you now know it will be changing drastically in the next couple of years. The most savvy users will be those who are aware of the changes and are able to take full advantage of them. Many of my future posts will give glimpses of how the Internet will be used in the future.
