Big data shakes hands with academics.
Big cities are sources of big data. Data comes in streams
from all directions from diverse sources like traffic, crime, scams, events,
emails, social media sites, weather sensors, sniffers of various kinds, parking
lots and you name it. This data is not the kind of data that you can feed
directly to a relational engine, it is diverse, a mélange and can only be
termed informatics.
A new center, Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP)
at New York University will be utilizing Big data to understand the dynamics of
the city through various sensors and look through the data they bring in. Similar
programs are already in place in University of Chicago and MIT. Outside USA similar
efforts are in place like Spain and Singapore.
NYU will offer MS and PhD programs and takes an integrated
look at physical, biological and informational data form the city's sensors.
The data comes from not only installed sensors to measure temperature,
pollution etc. but also from body worn
sensors like FitBit, and Up wristbands that volunteers wear and go round the
city. Of course data from twitter feeds, blogs, video cameras etc. will be integrated as well.
Well there is no dearth for data from such a large resource
as Big Apple.
The program has sponsors committed to Big Data with biggies
like Microsoft, IBM, Xerox, City agencies, MTA and a couple of National
Laboratories thrown in for good measure.
This post was written after reading this article, ‘Smart
Cities will need big data’ in Physics today a journal published by the American
Physical Society, September 2013, pp. 19, 20. For details get a copy of the journal from a library near you.
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