Podcast special feature: a book report from Rich! The Human Face of Big Data by Rick Smolan details the ways in which Big Data affects our daily lives and predicts the ways it will transform our future.

The big-picture overview the author presents is that of our planet becoming a giant nervous system in which we, its inhabitants, are the nerve endings. Or as his ten-year-old son put it, “Isn’t this like growing another eye?” Indeed it is: with all of this sensory input, we are beginning to see a third dimension.

It’s also one of those we-don’t-know-what-we-don’t-know propositions. Just as we could never have imagined how transformative the Internet would be, we can’t predict where Big Data will take us. We don’t even know, really, how to maximize the data we’re collecting right now.

The Human Face of Big Data is available – well, probably lots of places – but here’s the Amazon link, because they have so much data on us already.

Check the Radio Free HPC website for new episodes and more great content from Rich Brueckner of insideHPC, Henry Newman of Instrumental, Inc., and GCG’s Dan Olds.