Data is the New Oil

Back in the 18th century, Oil was world’s the most important valuable asset. The general opinion then, without its availability, progress would come to a stagnant pause. Moving forward into the 21st century, with the development in Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Sixth sense technology, the notions have undergone a drastic change.

PROJECTS AND RESEARCH :

Google’s Go-playing robot defeated a human champion three consecutive times to clinch the five-match series, establishing its dominance and superiority.

The VISION AVTR — inspired by AVATAR, a concept vehicle embodies the vision of Mercedes-Benz to build a futuristic car with organic battery technology, sustainable materials, and intuitive control. By placing the hand on the center console, the interior comes to life and establishes a driver’s biometric connection.

Harvard Medical college published research comparing human pathologists’ accuracy against ML(Machine Learning) systems in detecting breast cancers. Humans were 96% accurate; however, ML was 92% accurate. Harvard then combined machine learning with the scans of pathologists’ discoveries. The accuracy soared to 99.5%. To accomplish this, researchers had to amass large amounts of data to improve their machine learning models.

These fascinating projects highlight the importance and scope of data for development beyond imagination.

COMPARISON WITH OIL:

Data drives the information economy in much the same way oil has boosted the industrial economy.

The life cycle of Oil involves extraction, refining, distribution. Data’s life cycle consists of a relationship with other related data, context, and itself through feedback loops.

Data flows like Oil, but we must drill deep down into data to extract its value. Data promises a plethora of new uses — the direction of traffic patterns, diagnosis of diseases, etc. — just as Oil has produced useful petrochemicals, plastics, gasoline, lubricants, and home heating.

SCOPE AND UTILITY:

Data seems to be the new Oil of the digital economy. Data infrastructure should become a profit center by using data to improve daily. This would enable sharing data about products and customers — which provides opportunities to increase profits, cross-sell, retention rates and improve customer service. Using internal data in combination with external data, there is a massive opportunity for every company across the world to create new products and services across business lines.

Businesses have begun to look for ways to leverage data management, analytics, and the Internet of Things while storing a vast amount of data to gain valuable insights and competitive advantages.

The WhatsApp Controversy :

The recent WhatsApp controversy highlights growing fears about data privacy. Many users abandoned it after the messenger service updated its privacy policy. Worries that their data could end up with Facebook are driving them to shift to other competitors with superior data protection. Inadequate information and ignorance among the common masses has led to fake news traveling nearly six times faster than fact-based information. There is absolutely no change regarding its policies for an individual user. All personal data, conversations, and call logs would not be shared by WhatsApp to any other organization. Hence the inability to communicate the update efficiently and the past scandals of Facebook in this sector have led to a massive uproar.

STORAGE :

The major hurdle in data being the digital economy’s new Oil is its storage and simultaneous accessibility. According to software company Domo, every minute in 2018, Google conducted 3.88 million searches. People watched over 4.33 million videos on YouTube, tweeted 473,000 times, sent 159,362,760 e-mails, and posted 49,000 photos on Instagram.

An alternative to the traditional storage devices: DNA Based data storage. DNA consists of long chains of nucleotides A, T, G, and C are a living organism’s information-storage material. Data can be stored efficiently in the sequence of DNA. It is exceptionally stable, as demonstrated by the complete genome sequencing of a fossil horse, which lived more than 500,000 years ago. And storing it requires minimal energy and human efforts.

It is estimated that with development in the field of DoT(DNA of Things), DNA could store all of the world’s present data in one room.

CONCLUSION :

We’re in a digital economy where data has turned out to be more valuable than ever. It’s the key to smooth functionality in almost every imaginable industry and workplace. Hence with advancements in AI, ML, and data analytics, data is arguably the new Oil of the present and the future ahead.