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Microsoft’s Larry Hryb (Major Nelson) has confirmed the Xbox One hardware is able to output in 4K resolution and will support 3D content, following the console’s big reveal on Tuesday. The official word came during a Yahoo chat session held on Wedensday,…

Big data has become something of a buzzword. Everybody talks about it, but its impact can be elusive. How is big data really changing the way companies and other organizations function? These 12 stories highlight that transformation: from helping health insurers keep better tabs on patients, to changing how cars are made, to easing traffic congestion on busy freeways. These case studies show big data at work.

Healthcare

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We’ve got the medicine to treat lots of ailments — the challenge is getting doctors and patients to focus on the the one or two intervention programs that would make a real difference to a person’s health. Aetna is using big data to try to achieve that.

–From How Aetna is using big data to improve patient health

Cars

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When most people think about how cars are built, they think about assembly lines and manufacturing robots. But at Ford, big data is impacting the parts and features of those cars before they’re ever part of a design file.

–From How data is changing the car game at Ford

Presidential campaigns

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Many people use Facebook to update their status, share photos, and “like” content. The Obama presidential campaign used all that data on the social network to not just find voters but to assemble an army of volunteers.

–From How Obama’s data scientists built a volunteer army on Facebook

Highway traffic

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Anyone who has driven in Los Angeles has experienced the traffic nightmare. The goverment is using big data to keep traffic moving on the I-10 and I-110 freeways for drivers who are willing to pay for less congestion.

–From Hey, Los Angeles, Xerox thinks it can clear traffic on I-10

Pro basketball

Pro sports teams collect vast amounts of data, yet they’re struggling to make sense of it. Are there two or three things that will guarantee teams a win or at least tip the scale in their favor? That’s Krossover’s premise.

–From How to make your mark in professional basketball at 5′ 9″

Music

 

More than a decade ago, the music metadata company Gracenote received some cryptic advice from Apple to buy more servers. It did, Apple launched iTunes and the iPod, and Gracenote became a metadata empire.

–From Gracenote co-founder on ‘iPod day’ and better music through data

Social networking

Ghosh’s diagram of LinkedIn’s data architecture, with Hadoop plans laid out

Five years ago, LinkedIn was a shell of the technology company. Today, it’s an engineering powerhouse. Here’s how it got there.

–From How and why LinkedIn is becoming an engineering powerhouse

Insurance

The insurance industry hasn’t exactly been a beacon of technological innovation. But MetLife has bet $300 million on a new system that for the first time puts everything it knows about its customers in one place.

–From The promise of better data has MetLife investing $300M in new tech

Television

How RUWT might work on the TV.

For sports fans, keeping up with what’s on TV is a near impossibility. On many nights there are hundreds of events spread across 8,000-plus channels. One app tracks all that sports and rates games based on how exciting the action is — so you know what to tune into.

–From How one sports geek wants to save cable TV with data

Social change

One of India’s highest-rated TV shows aggregates and analyzes the millions of messages it receives from viewers on controversial issues like female feticide, caste discrimination and child abuse — and uses that data to push for political change.

–From How India’s favorite TV show uses data to change the world

Prescription drugs

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While drug prices tend to dominate discussions about prescription drugs, we shouldn’t overlook the economic problems caused by abuse and misuse. One company is using sophisticated models to detect fraud and predict when people will stop taking medications on time.

–From Not taking your medication, or taking waaay too much? The data knows…

Email

MailChimp’s core business is email — it sends about 35 billion emails a year on behalf of roughly 3 million users. But it’s what the company is doing with the data from all those emails that may represent its future.

–From How MailChimp learned to treat data like orange juice and rethink email in the process

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The FTC has launched an antitrust probe into whether Google’s dominance of the display ad business on the web hurts competition, Bloomberg reports.

The assessment, which is preliminary and may not develop into a full investigation, is looking at whether Google is involved in illegal “tying,” or “bundling” — the practice of requiring customers to buy linked products in more than one category in order to leverage competitive dominance in one category into an unfair advantage in another. Bloomberg reported:

The FTC is looking at whether Google is using its tools to force companies to bypass competing products and use other Google properties, including a marketplace for buying and selling Internet display ads, and features that help companies maximize revenue, the people said. The agency is also reviewing Google’s potential to use its dominance in search advertising to squeeze out competitors in the display advertising market, the
people said.

Google settled an antitrust probe into its search advertising business in January. That settlement required Google to tweak some of its practices, but it left the core search ad business alone. What dominance Google has in search ads was a natural outgrowth of the fact that Google’s product is superior, the FTC concluded, and therefore not an illegal monopoly.

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“I think it should like, make a high contrast between the figure and the line. Cause I feel like. It’s like…”

An art student freaks out in the middle of class and smashes her painting after receiving a horrible critique. I feel like. She like totally made the right choice by storming out.

video via Da KAnDyMaNFU

Thanks Jonathan Bergeron!

Google announced a new keyword tool named the Keyword Planner.

The tool can be found under the Tools & Analysis tab when you are logged into your Google AdWords account. The tool combines the benefits of the Keyword Tool and the Traffic Estimator into an integrated workflow…