The three V’s definition of big data is the one that most people are familiar with. This denotes data that has the defining properties of volume, variety and velocity, which respectively refer to the amount, the number of types and the speed of processing said data.
However, presenter and write Timandra Harkness, has reverse engineered an acronym to explain big data in another way. The acronym is DATA. See what she did there?
According to her, D stands for dimensions and bringing data together from different areas to see how it might correlate. Harkness said that she illustrated this in her book by speaking to a neurologist, whom she referred to as a brain scientist. The neurologist had taken brain scans images and cross-referenced them with the addresses of the pertaining patients and the weather in their locations. From these multi-dimensional profiles of the patient, he was able to pose the question of whether there was a link between the amount of sunshine the patient received and the progression of their multiple sclerosis.
The first A stands for automatic, as in the automatic collection of data through wearables and IoT devices. To clarify this, Harkness explained that there is a thing called Strava, a social app for athletes to connect with friends and record their workouts. Strava draws time, distance and other pertinent data from fitness trackers, sports watches and smartphones, and creates ranking tables and maps to help runners, cyclists and other fitness enthusiasts to benchmark themselves to friends and strangers.
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