Proliferation of Data Driving Machine Learning

Machine learning is a hot topic, but what applications is the technology driving and what drives machine learning? The short answer, concludes a new research report on machine learning, is data--lots of data. "Data is available in volumes never dreamed of, which means the algorithms have more to get their teeth into," concluded a survey by market watcher 451 Research, noting that "machine learning lives or dies depending on the quantity and quality of the data available." Moreover, the rise of application containers in software development "means small [machine language] applications can be placed into software without breaking the rest of the application," the report's authors continue. With enterprises large and small going digital and computing resources ubiquitous, there's plenty of data available with which to train rather than simply program machines.