Facebook Introduces Data Tool to Better Understand Users

Facebook announced a new service for companies that will allow them to better understand their customers. The service lets a marketer access anonymized user data to determine what they are saying about brands, activities, subjects, and events. Facebook expects this data will allow companies to better understand the needs of their consumers and therefore develop … Continue reading Facebook Introduces Data Tool to Better Understand Users

Gender equality report: an example of how big data can address big problems

A new report from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation cites data collection and analysis as a valuable tool in solving problems and measuring progress in the fight against gender inequality. The report, called “No Ceilings”, uses 850,000 data points on gender issues to identify progress and … Continue reading Gender equality report: an example of how big data can address big problems

Challenges and Achievements of a Data Scientist

Challenges and Achievements of a Data Scientist – An Interview with Suzanne McIntosh, Adjunct Professor at New York University and Technical Consultant and Curriculum Developer at Cloudera Inc. Prof. Suzanne McIntosh, an Adjunct Professor at New York University and technical consultant and curriculum developer at Cloudera Inc., recently presented at the Supercomputing 2014 (SC14) conference … Continue reading Challenges and Achievements of a Data Scientist

Statistical controls tell us how the gender pay gap works, not that it isn’t real

Patricia Arquette’s speech about the gender pay gap during Sunday night’s Oscars has the subject back on the public agenda, and with it the controversy over whether it’s really true that women earn 23 percent less than men. Max Ehrenfreund at the Washington Post writes that “some of that gap is due to women’s own … Continue reading Statistical controls tell us how the gender pay gap works, not that it isn’t real

Prof. Yann LeCun on His Quest to Unleash Deep Learning and Make Machines Smarter

Few people have been more closely associated with Deep Learning than Yann LeCun, 54. Working as a Bell Labs researcher during the late 1980s, LeCun developed the convolutional network technique and showed how it could be used to significantly improve handwriting recognition; many of the checks written in the United States are now processed with his … Continue reading Prof. Yann LeCun on His Quest to Unleash Deep Learning and Make Machines Smarter

US Department of Agriculture cultivates open data

The burgeoning open data movement has taken hold in federal agencies as well as state and local governments. Open data increases citizens’ confidence in government and fosters innovation and economic growth. Additionally, open data can improve agency operations as data is available in a central location. In the last year, the Department of Agriculture has … Continue reading US Department of Agriculture cultivates open data