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Science

Predicting the Future with Big Data

July 29, 2014

Amazon does it, the police do it, and now so does the psychiatrist: predicting the future with the aid of big data. Analyzing huge amounts of personal information makes it possible to foresee developments. Now doctors want to use this method.

https://p.dw.com/p/1CkFb

Human beings produce 2.5 nonillion bytes of data every day -- that's 2.5 with 30 zeros after it. Powerful computers and storage media now make it possible to analyze such huge amounts of data. Researchers hope this will make it possible to predict people's behavior. Doctors are now also testing applications of big data. Physicians at Bonn University want to use data skimmed from the smartphones of depressed patients to predict depressive phases -- enabling preventive intervention.