Forbes’ contributor Christopher Versace recently talked with Opera Solutions CEO Arnab Gupta about how Big Data is perceived in business today — and where it’s going in the future.

You may not be paying much attention to data science, but it’s paying attention to you — and will deliver personalized search results in due time.

For those of us who prefer to stay on the shopping side of recommender engines, how online retailers seem to know which hotels we’ll book, what flights we’ll take, or what brand of pots and pans we’ll buy next is simply math, or for those of us with a little more knowledge, algorithms. For most everyone else, it pretty much falls under something more akin to science so advanced it might as well be magic. Of course, for the machine learning data scientists who create these recommender engines, all engines are different, complex — and definitely not magic.

To predict the next shooting — in time to do something about it — we need to be looking at more open source data.

In the aftermath of yet another mass shooting in the United States, we find ourselves asking the same questions we’ve asked before: Why did this happen? Were there signs we missed? Could we have prevented this? And while there’s never a satisfying answer as to why, we can usually say that yes, there were signs — and they were missed — and yes, we most likely could have prevented this. Which leads us to the next question: how? 

It’s easy for money to slip through your fingers on business trips. Here are six ways to get it back. 

Anyone who’s ever entertained a client or taken a business trip knows how fast that expense report can add up. But administrators and category spend managers are left wondering, where did that money go exactly? And how do we go about cutting back? The answer, of course, is in the data. And (of course), it’s complicated. But complicated is what Big Data solutions do best.

Predictive analytics–based staffing solutions can save hospitals millions.

While we wait to see how insuring more of the population affects healthcare costs for patients, hospital groups are also working hard to reduce the cost of healthcare. Some hospitals are reducing unnecessary department labor costs — in some cases staff hours have been reduced by up to 8% — by using solutions that analyze Big Data to predict patient inflows. With accurate patient forecasts, hospitals can optimize scheduling to better match supply (nurses) to demand (expected patients). Not only does this reduce costs, it makes their hospitals more efficient and even increases patient satisfaction.

Gartner's 2013 Cool Vendor in Analytics report is now available.

We're pretty excited about earning a cool-factor nod from Gartner with its Cool Vendors in Analytics¹, 2013 report.  Each year, Gartner identifies a select number of new Cool Vendors in key technology areas and publishes a series of research reports explaining companies that offer technologies or solutions that are innovative, impactful, and intriguing. According to the report, five vendors were chosen from a shortlist of 15 vendors nominated by analysts in Gartner's analytics research community.

We never really thought of ourselves as cool, but we're sure glad somebody does! Gartner, Inc. has named us a "Cool Vendor" in its Cool Vendors in Analytics, 2013 report. Each year, Gartner identifies a select number of new Cool Vendors in key technology areas and publishes a series of research reports highlighting these companies and their products and services. For the Analytics designation, Gartner evaluated dozens of potential candidates to whittle it down to five final designees.

Big Data Republic has announced that Opera Solutions (@OperaSolutions), a global leader in Big Data, machine learning, and advanced analytics, has been voted one of the top 100 most influential Big Data Twitter accounts.

Opera Solutions’ Arnab Gupta explores the vast opportunities in Big Data on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

"The Big Data phenomenon is so vast, it can support 50 IBMs."

That was just one of the thought-provoking statements Opera Solutions’ CEO, Arnab Gupta, made during his appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” as he spoke with hosts Andrew Ross Sorkin, Becky Quick, and Joe Kernen on April 24^th.

Here at Opera Solutions, we eat, drink, and breathe the concept of Man + Machine. But its implications hold power in any organization that’s trying to leverage its data to improve its bottom line. In medicine, trading, and many other domains, humans can achieve extraordinary (possibly even super-human) results when partnered with a machine. This is because people and machines each play an important role in extracting meaning from Big Data flows.