NYU Data Science newsletter – September 30, 2015

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People have been hunting for proof of the hot hand in basketball longer than Stephen Curry has been alive. The search has lasted three decades and exhausted almost all options. But the results were usually the same. There was no evidence of the hot hand. A player who made a shot was no more likely to make his next shot.

Then something strange happened this summer. Economists, psychologists and statisticians started talking about a new paper on basketball. It claimed that the hot hand really does exist. But what made it truly mind-boggling was that the authors used the simplest scientific method: coin flips.

INTRODUCTION As data-driven research becomes the norm, practical knowledge in data stewardship is critical for researchers. Despite its growing importance, formal education in research data management (RDM) is rare at the university level. Academic librarians are now playing a leadership role in developing and providing RDM training and support to faculty and graduate students. This case study describes the development and implementation of a new, credit-bearing course in RDM for graduate students from all disciplines.

Many companies are working to retro-fit physical stores with capabilities originally developed for ecommerce. Without adding any new sensors or tags, image recognition company Blippar provides APIs that digitize physical products to create an in-app experience around them. Farfetch, which initially brought an exclusive network of luxury brick & mortar shops online, recently announced that it will soon provide in-store analytics.

In parallel, digital companies continue to seek out physical spaces to augment their customer experience. Warby Parker and Rent the Runway have physical stores, and Gilt and Etsy are exploring new models to engage consumers offline (Gilt has a private retail space in their corporate headquarters and Etsy launched an app to inform shoppers of sellers’ nearby products). These digital companies were built upon testing every detail affecting their website performance. As tracking migrates to physical retail, it’s important that retailers consider the consumer experience risks associated with new technologies as they explore the benefits.

By Thomas G. Dietterich, Eric J. Horvitz

Discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) have jumped into the public eye over the past year, with several luminaries speaking about the threat of AI to the future of humanity. Over the last several decades, AI—automated perception, learning, reasoning, and decision making—has become commonplace in our lives. We plan trips using GPS systems that rely on the A* algorithm to optimize the route. Our smartphones understand our speech, and Siri, Cortana, and Google Now are getting better at understanding our intentions. Machine vision detects faces as we take pictures with our phones and recognizes the faces of individual people when we post those pictures to Facebook Internet search engines rely on a fabric of AI subsystems. On any day, AI provides hundreds of millions of people with search results, traffic predictions, and recommendations about books and movies.

… Aside from the above three Internet giants, we see a proliferation of start-ups that are seeking to tap the potential of advanced AI and deep learning. The United States, which won decisively in the Internet race, is maintaining its overwhelming lead in the current competition to develop AI, the key technology for the years to come. Its closest rivals at this point are Asian: China’s Baidu and Tsinghua University, Hong Kong University, and the National University of Singapore. Japan is part of the second pack, which lags far behind the leaders.

… Nest serves as a great example of an Internet of Things business which is coming up with products that have the potential to simplify or improve our lives, but accompanied by their own set of emerging problems, in terms of privacy and data security. Whether we accept them into our lives or reject them through distrust will most likely be down to how the delivery of the services is managed.