My friend pulled me aside and, in a hushed voice, told me that he was worried his device was listening to him when he spoke to his wife at home. He said he had mentioned something in a live conversation, that he swears he had never typed, and then he started getting ads for it. The nervous question came “Is my
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It probably won’t surprise you to know that I do most of my research online. Sure, I have a mini-library of actual books on big data, privacy and parenting ‘in the digital age’, but all the latest and greatest info needs to be sought in real-time. Thing is, I am not alone. Many people, especially kids, use the internet for
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Self Quanti-what?? “Self Quantification” is a fancy way of saying “measuring and analyzing your life”. This is a huge trend in technology and it continues to grow. First we had machines that measured our data (step counters, heart monitors, sleep machines). Then we had applications that analyzed the data you entered (baby growth charts, running logs, calorie counters). Now we have
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*Updated 2019 * If you have a Facebook account then likely you have visited a website and found it already knew something about you. Perhaps you saw a section showing pictures of other people who ‘like’ that page and some were your friends. Maybe it knew your location. How did the site know that? You never even signed in! You
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What is Big Data? In the beginning, there was simple computing: Think of the most basic computer you have, your calculator. It is great at computing numbers, and displaying the answers. Then there was number comparison: Comparing a series of numbers requires a spreadsheet, which takes more data and uses graphs and charts for displaying the results. For complex and automated solutions,
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Almost every crime drama has the same scene in it – the FBI has some grainy photo of what ‘might’ be a suspect and then they enhance it a few times and voila, they have the criminal on tape! If only it were that simple. Though the technology has come a long way, using facial recognition in a public video is
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Imagine that you are looking for a pair of jeans. You walk in to a clothing store and, lo-and-behold, the only thing this store has is jeans AND they are all in your size. They may not be the fit or colour you wanted but you asked for jeans and that’s what you got. Sound like wizardy? It is content
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