User:Vanderbi/sandbox

Data deluge refers to the vast and ever-increasing amount of digital data in the world. IDC, a research firm, calculated that in 2011 the world was expected to generate 1.8 zettabytes of information as a society, more than doubling every two years. A zettabyte is a trillion gigabytes, or a billion terabytes. An estimated 75% of data are generated by individuals. For instance, Facebook, a social-networking website, contains some 40 billion photos. Only 5% of the data that is created is “structured”, meaning it comes in the form of words or numbers that can be parsed by a computer. The rest are in formats such as photos or phone calls. The data deluge is the result of new technologies, such as environmental sensors that rapidly collect high volumes of data, and easier and more economical access by people worldwide to computers and cell phones. The data deluge has resulted in a phenomenon called Big data which are new technologies to extract value from very large volumes of data.