Canadian startup Vantage Analytics is announcing that it has raised $1.1 million in its first round of funding.
Co-founder and President Aran Hamilton told me that the company currently integrates with Shopify’s e-commerce platform, aiming to help Shopify businesses understand and act on their data.
For example, he said the product could tell an online T-shirt store in Canada not only how many shoppers become repeat customers, but also how their numbers compare to other T-shirt stores and to other sellers in Canada. And it could help them reconnect with past customers who never came back.
Statisticians have boasted of the benefits of big data. Now they’re discovering the weaknesses.
Earlier this year, the European Central Bank held a two-day workshop on big data and how it can be used for forecasting. The headline speaker was Hal Varian, chief economist at Google and a number cruncher of rock star status.
When British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline announced in October 2012 that it planned to make detailed data from its clinical trials widely available to researchers outside its own walls, the scientific community was stunned. For a company that spends $6.5 billion a year on research and development, it was a sharp turn away from the system of data secrecy that had made it one of the world’s largest drug companies, with 2013 sales of $43.6 billion.
Israeli firefighters are using high-tech solutions, such as a system called Matash, to figure out where fires are likely to break out and to prepare accordingly. The system uses predictive analysis, big data collection and breakdowns, and Google Maps-style graphical interfaces to keep a constant eye on both conditions conducive to the spread of fires and assets, including firefighters, equipment and vehicles. Armed with that information, officials can decide where to deploy assets to put out fires before they get out of control. Using made-in-Israel technology, they can develop plans to eliminate fire hazards altogether.
Worldwide IT spending is expected to increase this year, but it's nothing compared to how much money will flow into Big Data. And for employees at those companies, more money is certainly a good thing.
As a new IDC report reveals, spending in the Big Data market will reach $32.4 billion by 2017, or nearly six times the growth rate of the overall IT market.
Le Ministère du Territoire, des Infrastructures, des Transports et du Tourisme japonais a lancé un comité composé d'entreprises d'informatique, d'experts académiques et d'industriels visant à étudier la faisabilité d'un système de partage d'un très gros volume de données. Les membres sont issus du secteur privé comme public, par exemple la Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association. Le comité va identifier les problèmes qui pourraient s'opposer à la mise en place du système dès l'été 2014. Le projet sera soumis au budget fiscal de 2015.
Le 7 février 2014 s'est tenue à Berlin la 7e conférence annuelle sur la propriété intellectuelle dans les sciences de la vie. Organisée par le think tank Biocom AG, elle a porté sur le Big Data pour l'innovation dans la santé en réunissant des acteurs publics et privés, économiques et scientifiques internationaux. Cet évènement a été l'occasion d'échanger sur la vision des entreprises des sciences de la vie et des TIC vis-à-vis de l'exploitation des données massives dans la santé. Les innovations à la clé sont fondamentales, susceptibles de réduire les coûts de santé et d'ouvrir la voie vers la médecine personnalisée. Il subsiste toutefois des obstacles soit techniques, soit liés à la propriété des données.
