Big Data, Open Data and Data Development

Introduction

Today data comes from everywhere: GPS tracking, smartphones, social networks where we can share files, videos and photos, as well as online client transactions made possible through the intermediary of credit cards. Of the 65 million people in France, 83% are Internet users and 42% (or 28 million) are on Facebook. More than 72 million telephones are active, and the French people spend a daily average of 4 hours online. Mobile phone users spend over 58 minutes online, and 86% of the population is on a social network. The French people spend over 1.5 hours per day on social networks.

Developing this massive amount of data and making access to it possible is known as “Big Data”. This intangible data comes in a constant stream and its processing is especially challenging in terms of knowledge extraction. This is why new automatic information extraction methods are put into place such as, for example, “data mining” and “text mining”. These are the sorts of processes behind radical transformations in the economy, marketing and even politics. The amount of available data will increase greatly with the appearance of new connected objects on the market that are going to be used more and more.

Some objects we use in our daily lives are already connected: cars, television sets and even some household appliances. These objects have (or will one day have) a chip designed to collect and transfer data to their users through a computer, a tablet or a smartphone. More importantly, ...