Practical data mining.

The buzz-word "data mining" was once the exclusive purview of the scientific and research communities. This is no longer the case. Data mining techniques are spreading, and soon they will be a part of our daily lives. Already, they've come into common usage in the public domain.

In the early nineties, with the explosion of the internet, it became clear that no human could possibly absorb all of the information available. This was a real problem for researchers whose ability to research was being crushed under the staggering weight of information. Enter data mining. How do you find what you're looking for in an endless web of research material? Write a program to find it for you.

In the present day, the search engine is the most common data mining tool available. More complex, more specific tools are coming into popular use. Social bookmarking networks and music recommendation sites are designed to show us new information based on our own preferences. Some would argue that effectiveness of a data mining application depends on the level of artificial intelligence being used. Soon, agent based technologies will be ready for prime time, giving us access to what we ask for with far less trial and error.

That gets us up to the present.

In the future, I imagine that data mining will continue to evolve, but more importantly, I believe that it will become more and more closely integrated into our way of life. Data mining will move away from the desktop and directly into our phones, our clothing and ultimately our brains, becoming an extension of our own thought processes, both conscious and sub-conscious. Our memories will be expanded, our ability to learn increased and our very awareness of our environment enhanced by this technological paradigm.

( see also my earlier post on this subject )