British Sign Language Glossaries of Curriculum Terms

BSL Data Science Glossary - Big data definition

Definition: Big data. There is an enormous amount of data that we're trying to work with. This is where one computer, one piece of software or one piece of hardware, isn't enough. Here we need a large number of computers, lots of software and hardware, to help us to work with big data. For example, on the motorway. There are digital speed signs asking drivers to slow down to 40 mph or to speed up to 60 mph. How does that really work? There may have been a company that has setup a large number of cameras in different places, that monitor the flow of traffic and the volume of cars on the motorway. So, feeds from the cameras may go to some computers that can automatically identify cars in the video feed and to count the number of cars. This may be collaborated with data from other places with more traffic information. Not only that, but also it may check the weather data and whether there may be icy conditions or if conditions are dry. So with all these different data, finally a decision can be arrived at as to what speed limit to display, whether to display 40 mph or 50 mph. All that is big data at work.