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Next The Economist explains: The backlash against big data

“BOLLOCKS”, says a Cambridge professor. “Hubris,” write researchers at Harvard. “Big data is bullshit,” proclaims Obama’s reelection chief number-cruncher. A few years ago almost no one had heard of “big data”. Today it’s hard to avoid—and as a result, the digerati love to condemn it. Wired, Time, Harvard Business Review and other publications are falling over themselves to dance on […]

Google's Big Data Flu Flop. In the Pipeline: – In the Pipeline – Corante

Some of you may remember the “Google Flu” effort, where the company was going to try to track outbreaks of influenza in the US by mining Google queries. There was never much clarification about what terms, exactly, they were going to flag as being indicative of someone coming down with the flu, but the hype (or hope) at the time […]