Big data is like the Atlantic Ocean; it’s huge and deep and full of power but we know that—whatever we have done so far—we have barely touched its potential.
One example of tapping the potential of big data is a service that mines and analyzes the hits generated by more than one million mobile wireless devices as they register at one cell tower after another while traveling along. The identities of the users are never known, but it doesn’t matter. It is the pattern of movements on a grand scale that tells the tale.