Berkeley Group Digs In to Challenge of Making Sense of All That Data

No, it is not a tsunami, it is Big Data, the incomprehensibly large amount of raw, often real-time data that keeps piling up faster and faster from scientific technology, social media, smartphones -- virtually any activity that leaves a digital trace.

Making sense of Big Data is, to tell the truth, a holy grail of computer science these days -- and innovation companies, academic institutions and the federal government are investing heavily in the endeavor.

And with Google, Facebook, Twitter and many other leading data-heavy research companies based in the Bay Area, many locals are on the cutting edge of Big Data innovation.

The challenge is to combine traditional database science with new techniques that harness the power of cloud and cluster computing to handle the massive scale of today's data landscape.