Experts: Big data holds diverse opportunities

Writing for Forbes on the rise of big data, software industry insider Albert Pimentel reminded audiences that big data is, comparatively, a recent phenomenon. Citing research by Science magazine, he described digital data's rise from 3 percent of world information in 1993 to 2.7 zettabytes of data this year. In big data analytics, he sees potential waiting to be exploited.

One area Pimentel sees big data changing the world is traffic planning, with anonymous data streaming from cars to provide accurate representations of road conditions. Planning new road developments can be based directly on unstructured data mining from vehicles themselves.

Pimentel also stated that weather forecasters have taken to crunching big data. With an increase in the accuracy of atmospheric data mining, forecasts will too become more accurate. In turn, these could help weather-driven forms of power generation such as wind farms and solar panels.

One other use of big data, according to the Atlantic, is in health data mining, predicting where diseases will strike. According to the source, data from pharmacists describing the sales of over-the-counter medicine can help emergency rooms prepare for patients. The spike in sales can precede hospitalizations by over two weeks, giving ample warning.