Big data



"[Q]uantifying the amount of information that exists in the world is hard. What is clear is that there is an awful lot of it, and it is growing at a terrific rate (a compound annual 60%) that is speeding up all the time. The flood of data from sensors, computers, research labs, cameras, phones and the like surpassed the capacity of storage technologies in 2007."

Definitions
Big data

"refers to the rising flood of digital data from many sources, including the Web, biological and industrial sensors, video, e-mail and social network communications."

"is a term applied to data sets whose size is beyond the ability of commonly used software tools to capture, manage, and process the data within a tolerable elapsed time. Big data sizes are a constantly moving target currently ranging from a few dozen terabytes to many petabytes of data in a single data set."

External resources

 * "Data, Data Everywhere, A Special Report on Managing Information," The Economist (Feb. 25, 2010) (full-text).
 * "Dealing with Data," Science (special issue) (Feb. 11, 2011) (full-text).
 * Robert Kirkpatrick, Beyond Targeted Ads: Big Data for a Better World (2012) (full-text).
 * Jules Polonetsky & Omer Tene, Privacy and Big Data: Making Ends Meet, 66 Stan. L. Rev. Online 25 (2013) (full-text).
 * Edith Ramirez, The Privacy Challenges of Big Data: A View from the Lifeguard's Chair, Keynote Address by FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez (Technology Policy Institute Aspen Forum) (Aug. 19, 2013) (full-text).