To efficiently analyze a firehose of data, scientists first have to break big numbers into bits.

By Peter Sondergaard Gartner, Inc. Big data is the oil of the 21st century. But for all of its value, data is inherently dumb. It doesn’t actually do anything unless you know how to use it. Oil ...

Bitmap indexing has emerged as a vital tool in the efficient management and interrogation of scientific data. By representing data elements as bits, these indexes facilitate rapid, hardware ...

Algorithms are also a fundamental tool for transforming big data, first into useful analytics and eventually into action. Smart cities will rely heavily on data and the algorithms that turn that into ...

Opinion: Algorithms are making us do their bidding, and we should be mindful.

Math isn’t prejudiced, goes the argument. But these arithmetic programs can learn bias from the data fed into them by human beings, leading to unfair treatment and discrimination.

Big data, she concludes, holds tremendous potential. Used thoughtfully, algorithms can actually strip human bias out of decision-making. But you have to be aware of the problem to correct for it.

In today’s world of big data, learning from the vast amount of information collected every day is critical for the firms that rely on it for manufacturing, marketing, decision-making and more. Often, ...