Big data’s existence is already a recognizable, but it remains a somewhat immeasurable entity in the information technology sphere. The complex side of this would send experts to seek out storage for the massive amount of data being generated by countless enterprises and individuals every single day, around the world.  And while the pundits and data scientists are dwelling on this serious stuff, let us take a look at the more digestible face of big data—the practical and interesting uses, particularly with healthcare.

Based from a recent study conducted by researchers from University of Missouri and TigerPlace, video gaming and security systems devices may be used to sense the onset of illnesses and health risks for the elderly. Usually a part of video gaming equipment, the new motion-sensing device, Microsoft Kinect is found to have potential in being able to identify possible illnesses by looking at behavioral patterns and routine alterations.

In his statement, doctoral student Erik Stone said, “The Kinect uses infrared light to create a depth image that produces data in the form of a silhouette, instead of a video or photograph. This alleviates many seniors’ concerns about privacy when traditional web camera-based monitoring systems are used.”

Big Data for Business Analytics

One of the widespread and perhaps the ultimate use of big data to various industries presently is to support business intelligence. Primarily focusing on social media data, companies are able to fuel their marketing campaigns and organizational strategies to the right direction.

Giants, SMBs and start-ups alike are showing great interest in using big data analytics. Quantivo plans to harness big data to help accelerate enterprises’ growth and bring business analytics to the masses by means of cloud-based service. Apache Hadoop-built Datameer was just recently tapped by Attributor to provide production usage analytics to their clients. And the list just goes on.

Telecommunication

There is now a way to track anonymous calls and unknown contacts that keep on leaving messages in your voicemail. Big data and social graph join forces to launch Youmail’s Visual Called ID. With this, you can kiss spammers and pranksters goodbye.

Big Data for Science

The scope of influence of big data is not limited to IT.  Slowly, the big data frenzy is making its way to earth and medical sciences.  Explaining the multifaceted formation of planets and celestial bodies is now made easy through big data analysis. The very interesting wireless tattoo that collects information to monitor heart beat and brain activities still amazes me, and rats should be thankful for big data and bioinformatics for their virtual counterparts.  The virtual lab rats are the newest addition to the roster of innovations as we tread to the healthcare IT era.

There is still a large fraction of the big data sphere that has not yet been explored. This leaves enterprises searching for ways to leverage the ceaseless flow of information that the world generates daily, for monetization, education and the health of the human race.