BT, Big Data and the triumph of the geeks
by Land Rover BAR 23 Sep 2016 17:06 BST
23 September 2016
Land Rover BAR race boat energy balance © Harry KH / Land Rover BAR
If you check out the latest global rich lists, there's no doubt that the geeks have inherited the earth; six of the top ten of the planet's richest people in 2016 work in the technology sector.
It's now cool to be smart, but underneath the shiny new newness of the latest app sensation there's a lot of hard work. And most of that hard work relies on something with a solid ring of dullness – database architecture.
Before you click away to the next story on how artificial intelligence (AI) is going to substitute for the human in one out of every two jobs, or how big data metrics helped the fabulously unfashionable Foxes from Leicester win the Premier League against 5,000-1 odds... consider what underlies all these stories – data. Reams of it. Vast swathes of it. Sorting data and learning from it is what makes AI smart, and what allows football analysts to see in spreadsheets what scouts miss on the grassy playing fields of England: but these applications – and many others that will transform the world we live in – all need data that's well ordered and structured. That's why database architecture is so important, to America's Cup sailors, designers and engineers as well as to anyone who has ever searched for anything on Google.
Prowess in this field is not something that those global business success stories will often shout about. The team's Technology in Sustainability Partner, BT, is perhaps better known for its strengths in broadband and broadcasting premium sport content than its database expertise, but the extent of its knowledge and experience meant it was the team's first stop when they needed help.
Winning the America's Cup is all about data; design data, engineering data, test data from video, fibre optics, six axis motion sensors... up to 16GB of uncompressed sensor data collected for each testing day, amassing 100TB of video data alone each year. Read on here...
Can technology win the America's Cup?
Join the discussion this weekend at 'New Scientist Live' Excel London where Land Rover BAR's Engineering Manager, Richard Hopkirk, will be giving an overview on the team's goal to bring the Cup home with Steve Masters, Vice President of Customer Innovation and Solution Design within BT Innovate & Design.