 Hello, and happy holidays. I'm Kristen Filetti, and thanks for joining us at Newsdesk on SiliconANGLE TV. As 2012 comes to a close, we're spending some time reflecting on the stories this year that have had a significant impact in the tech world. Join us to provide her review on the top consumer trends of 2012, along with predictions for the year ahead is SiliconANGLE Newsdesk editor Kristen Nicole. Hello, once again, Kristen, and thanks for joining us. Hello, hello. Now that we've covered mobile, I'd like to talk about the big consumer trends we've seen this year. 2012 has been a big year for the development and implementation of artificial intelligence. How has AI infiltrated the consumer market, and in what ways do you see it expanding next? I think mobile has been really important for AI. There's Siri, I think that's probably going to go down in history as a major development in AI, and it's become probably the most familiar consumer AI tool that we've seen so far. Now it wasn't launched in 2012, we've had a year to kind of get used to it, and now AI has become an established presence in our lives. So this year in particular, we've seen things like Google Now come about. There's also been a string of applications that are taking AI to the next level, whether they are some sort of ambient location-aware tool that incorporates here your social and your media experiences, or something more personalized that's tracking certain aspects of your daily commute or your dietary habits. These are really starting to become more commonplace. So artificial intelligence is an important way to interact with machines, and it's also a really important way for those machines to learn about us. In sharing some of his predictions about the evolution of big data in 2013, Silicon Engle founding editor Mark Risen Hopkins said he expects to see an upswing in data journalism. What's your take on data journalism and how its growth will impact the consumer? This is one area that is really applying some of the big data trends that we've seen to a consumer market. So journalism, you know, it's been characterized by the editor and that gut feeling and what stories are important to cover. And with more data analytics, we've been able to, you know, get a better idea of what is interesting in the consumer. And with social media sharing tools, we can gauge that on a number of different levels. So data journalism is going to be really important for the publishing industry, especially as print media continues to shift into the digital era and find more ways to interact with that reader. So in the future, the way it's going to impact the consumer, they're going to have more ways to take in their media. They're going to have more ways to personalize that media, and they're going to have more ways to interact with it. So this is going to be really important for the consumer experience from an education and a learning standpoint. There's going to be more opportunities and more ways for the publishing industry to get their messages across to the consumer and also educate the consumer on any topic you can imagine. Big Data got its own book this year titled The Human Face of Big Data. What does the release of this book say about the commercialism of Big Data? It says a lot. We've kind of, I think the book was a home run. I think it's a really important way to let the consumer know what's going on with Big Data. And one really important aspect of this book, it's a huge coffee table book. I got a chance to read an early copy of it. I had the opportunity to interview the author Rick Smolenman. And he really, he's a photographer by background. He took this as an opportunity to incorporate some eye candy into that book and really draw in that everyday reader so that once they get in the book and start reading some of the stories that are in there, they end up learning more about this Big Data trend than they probably would have anticipated just looking at the book. So I think this is a really important way to let the consumer know what's going on. The stories that are included in that book discuss specifically how data analytics, data collection, privacy and security are going to affect the consumer in the long run and exploring some of the ways in which data is already being used, how it's being applied for marketing and healthcare purposes. And these are the areas that are going to impact the consumer the most when it comes to data analytics. With the expansion of data, the demand for more data scientists is growing while those with the appropriate skillset are somewhat lacking. What strides have universities made in 2012 to address this gap? So I mean universities have taken it upon themselves to incorporate more curriculum that's specific to data analytics. Even more important, there's some initiatives on the corporate side. IBM in particular has really gone above and beyond to work directly with universities. They've opened up their own Big Data University. It's got some online learning tools. They've got some seminars that they do across the world. And this is indicative of what the corporate world is going to need in the years ahead. So for IBM, which has made huge strides in Big Data, for them to signal to the world and to the education system that this is what their company needs. This is what their clients need. There's a huge gap between the demands and the enterprise for skilled analysts and the actual skillsets that people have to address these needs. So you catch them while they're young. Let the students know that this is a career opportunity for them and there's going to be jobs waiting for them when they get out of school. If they can get them in this mindset early on, then there's a higher chance that we'll be able to fill those job roles that the enterprise expects in the next five to 10 years. Another consumer trend we've seen take flight this year is the expanded use of infographics. What are your ideas on the enhanced usage of infographics? I love infographics. They're fun, gone-pinterest. There's so many infographics. Sometimes it's too much because they can be really big and long. I think this is part of the evolution of infographics, what's going to be the best way to convey data in an eventual sense. So a couple of developments that I can speak to specifically, there is a site called Visually. They've really taken up in the past year and taken out to the point where they've created a network around the software and the people that are creating these visual data media. So you have a place where analysts and journalists and consumers and graphic design artists, they can all come together and figure out the best way to portray the information that they have either in chart format or how can we make it pretty? How can we make it more accessible? How can we use this as an education tool? People really like to look at pictures and there's some alignment. One of the things about Big Data is it's so inclusive of so many things. The skills that data scientists need are kind of broad if you know statistics and you know math and you know physics and you know computer science, you're great for data science. And then on top of that, if you have strong language skills, you're golden. So the same thing is happening with the visualization of data, you have a mix of media that is being used so that the end user, the consumer can take in information in a lot of different ways. It can be visual in a picture format, it can be animated, it can be video, there can be sound incorporated into this and the more senses that are involved, the more likely it is to kind of stick in your brain. Just about every company is focused on its mobile presence right now, recognizing the growing importance mobile devices play in consumer lives. In what ways do you think mobile devices will need to continue to advance to keep up with consumer trends and demands? I think they're going to need to become more personalized, we're going to have more services that can kind of anticipate our needs and preempt them, think for us a little bit to a certain extent, it sounds kind of creepy but it's coming like it or not. I also think that applications need to be able to talk to each other more. So just like data needs to be shared across social networks, almost any site you go to now, that same site five years ago might have tried to launch their own social network or incorporate their own social networking tool. Now they can just say log in with Facebook, they're able to leverage the information and the social grasp that's already established on Facebook. Something similar is going to happen at the application level. More data sets need to be able to talk to more data sets and in that more of your environment is going to be incorporated because of mobile devices. So your smartphone is going to be able to do pretty much everything that your body can do. It will be able to see, it can already kind of see, it has a camera but it will be able to see in more ways, it will be able to hear in more ways. It might even be able to smell. So a lot of things will be able to, this information will be incorporated into the processes going on behind your phone. It will be able to make a lot more assumptions and determinations based on your environment and turn that into a service. This year we saw Nate Silver become the poster child for big data, making rounds in the mainstream including an appearance on the Daily Show with John Stewart. What do you think is important, why do you think it's important to have messengers like Nate Silver for the end consumer? It really helps get the message across the importance of science and the skill sets that you need to, you know, there's going to be so many career opportunities in data science and it's applicable to every single industry really. I think that's one of the reasons why it's going to be important for consumers to recognize what's going on. Also, there's going to be so many ways that data analytics is going to affect them in their everyday lives. It's already being incorporated into marketing and advertising. It's already being incorporated into banking and credit card financial institutions and health care and insurance policies. You're going to be judged to a certain extent on the data that you put off into the world. So for people to become more aware of how they're providing data to corporations and other individuals, we definitely need people that are able to convey the importance of what's going on with data to get that message across. Become home for many consumers as more social networks and applications continue to collect consumer data. How mindful should consumers be of their data footprint and what can be done to enhance the protection of the end user? I think they should be extremely mindful of what's going on, particularly in social networks, because you don't always tend to think of a social network as a data repository. But you're actually putting a great deal of very specific information about yourself into these networks. They're turning something like Facebook. They're already turning your data into an experience. You have the timeline that very nicely organizes your data. You've got the newsfeed that lets you see the data that other people are putting into the network. And they've created an entire business around this. They're social graph, they're advertising platform. I think consumers should certainly be cognizant of the information they're putting out there. When I was a teenager long before MySpace and Facebook, even long before Frontster, my mother sat down and kind of let me know this is the internet and it's more public than you think. And she was a visionary in that sense that kind of stuck with me ever since. I think twice before posting a photo on Facebook, I think twice before sending an email. Email is private, but I still think twice. I feel like if it's on the web, there is a chance for someone else to see it. It's a message that you're sending to someone else. You can do what you want with that message. You send it to someone else, though. Now that you have a copy of it, there's no telling what they're going to do with that information. So the data that's being shared on the web and social networks, especially as it becomes more of a commodity and an asset, really, that's being incorporated into business decision-making processes. Advertising, marketing, and especially as the consumer becomes judged on these things. There's going to be a day where your credit card company is going to be able to incorporate your Facebook information. There's correlations being made all the time that may not have anything to do with you on an individual level. But this collective information is going to be applied on an individual level. And we're all going to be judged on our data exhaust. Well, Kristen, it's been great chatting with you these past couple of days. Thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with us. Thank you. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. And that concludes our holiday segment with Silicon Angle Newsdesk Editor, Kristen Nicole, for more complete tech coverage and news in the new year. Join us daily at Newsdesk on SiliconANGLE TV.