In November a personal injury case progressed through Canadian courts where a lawyer attempted to prove that an accident victim’s life was being compromised. A common sight in the courtroom one might think; but this case hinged upon wearable technology. Lawyers used data analysis of the victim’s movements and compared them to activity from the general population.
It’s a fairly extreme scenario, but expect it to become more commonplace as the world of big data explodes even further. Health, money, travel, and retail are all fair game for businesses across the globe, and UK companies are not slouching in their efforts to make measurements, predictions, and alterations based on research of individual and mass data.
Travel
Foreign exchange rates can be crippling both for holiday and business purposes, so how can their effect be lessened? Companies such as Transferwise, covered in the Guardian, are proving that the traditional banks are losing their grip on services that were once their preserve. The system is breathtakingly simple; the money is swapped between people in the same country – if A needs pounds and is living in France, and B wants to get rid of some pounds and also lives in France, then B sends his money to A, B gets Euros sent from another user, and so on.
Money
Word of mouth is still an essential factor in the choice that many people make when deciding on service providers in the financial world, and when we need to enlist a service unfamiliar to friends and family it can become a minefield. Cue vouched for: a site that allows you to search for mortgage advisors, accountants and others in your postcode area, ranked on a review system.
Services
Price comparison websites have moved on considerably from just searching for insurance. For example, comparethemarket.com can also search for the best credit cards and even energy providers, but also uses its data to provide analysis of how people from different parts of the country behave with their money, and therefore providing food for the media. Find out more about careers with the company here.
Transport
If we already know where we need to be and what mode of transport we’ll be using, then the next step is to plan out our journey using real time algorithms. Transport fleets are already utilising services that can implement a system to save time and fuel bills, but Routemonkey has taken it a step further by bringing in ultra-low carbon solutions for electric vehicles – the company has helped more than 500 businesses worldwide.
Health
The power of our connected world means that we can combine computers from across the world for medical purposes: Google Research is currently overseeing a gigantic medical expedition to compare and contrast chemical compounds that could work as treatments for a variety of diseases. The UK is also playing its part in the connected battle against disease; although the vast majority of us are unlikely to ever utilise research sites such as University of Cambridge-based Abcam, the people who matter will – a combination of the worlds of science and entrepreneurship which is logging the properties of antibodies from across the world.
