chaP tEr 1 Big Data Is Everywhere Do you have a special card you show each time you shop at a certain store A loyalty card or shopping card If you do then you are part of the Big Data revolution You may think that by swiping your loyalty or shopping card you’re just getting discounts But behind the scenes a whole bunch of information about you is being stored This collection of information is so big that it wouldn’t fit on most regular computers When there is that much information involved we call it Big Data You may have heard about Big Data in the news but what is it Well you already know what big means Data is another word for information in the form of numbers or words 4 21st century skills library
Your family might have a whole pile of different cards for different stores Each one tracks information about you Let’s say a woman named Jane swipes her loyalty store card at the grocery store When the card is swiped it tells the computer running the cash register to unlock special sale prices for some items Hooray for Jane However the card can also collect a lot of other stuff that helps the business From that one swipe the computer system knows Jane’s name address and other personal information It can then keep track of everything she buys Wait How does the system know so much about this shopper It’s simple Back when Jane first got her card she was asked to fill out a form with her name address and other personal 5 55 Data Geek
