The Future Is Here Already
It’s said that 90% of all existing data has been created in the last two years. As people migrate online and become inseparable from their cell phones, their browsing activity and movements, along with satellite data, are being measured and analyzed, offering valuable insights to businesses, and-increasingly-to portfolio managers. In my role as a data scientist, I’ve looked closely at these trends, and share some thoughts below.
Data in Action
Before I came to finance, I worked as a professor teaching neuroscience and computer science, and helped students start businesses. One startup analyzed bank transactions at large financial institutions to help identify potential money-laundering activity. There were many transactions, but it turns out that accounts owned by terrorists and other criminals don’t look like normal bank accounts. A lack of check writing, cash-only transactions, receiving a wire from a charity-these were some of the traits that analysis of large data sets could use to help identify the bad guys.
Another venture dealt with online browsing activity-the “shoes” that follow you around the internet. In 2009, there were only static ads on all websites. But by 2014, the majority of advertisements on websites became dynamic and personalized to the user. The advertisements are selected in an auction that takes place as the web page is loading. Worldwide, users visit a new web page a million times per second, and we had a tenth of a second to decide, based on all the information we had at our disposal, what ad to show them and how much to bid for it.
These are two examples of the power of big data. The field of advertising has developed considerable infrastructure around such tasks, and other industries, including Wall Street firms and portfolio managers, are becoming more involved.
The post Asset Matters: Big Data – The Future Is Here Already appeared first on Statii News.
source http://news.statii.co.uk/asset-matters-big-data-the-future-is-here-already/
No comments:
Post a Comment