Even the tiniest piece of information about you is worth something to someone - welcome to the age of data-ism
Data is the vital raw material in our modern information economy. There is already an incredible amount of digital data in the world, and it's doubling every two years. Business decisions used to be based on experience and intuition - now detailed data analysis is the name of the game. Those bits and bytes are transforming our world.
Steve Lohr, chief technology reporter at the New York Times, takes us to meet the people at the centre of this digital revolution and shows how we, both as individuals and institutions, will need to exploit, protect and manage our data in order to remain competitive. Beyond a vast array of illuminating insights and rich anecdotes, he asks provocative questions about the policies and practices surrounding digital data. The answers he finds will reach far and wide to affect every one of us.
FROM NY TIMES WEBSITE
Steve Lohr reports on technology, business and economics. He was a foreign correspondent for The Times for a decade and served brief stints as an editor, before covering technology, starting in the early 1990s.
In 2013, he was part of the team awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting “for its penetrating look into business practices by Apple and other technology companies that illustrates the darker side of a changing global economy for workers and consumers.”
He has written for magazines including The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly and The Washington Monthly. He is the author of a history of computer programming, “Go To: The Story of the Math Majors, Bridge Players, Engineers, Chess Wizards, Maverick Scientists and Iconoclasts ― The Programmers Who Created the Software Revolution” (Basic Books, 2001; paperback, 2002).