I just finished a fascinating book by Stephen Baker, “The Numerati” which describes how vast collections of data like supermarket purchases can be used to predict behavior.  The book explains in non-technical, non-mathematical terms basically how that this is being done and the basic principles of statistics related to this research being done.

With my background in database design, I would this book extremely interesting and parts of it, especially the shopping chapter, reminded me of the movie “Minority Report” which I also am fond of.

Unfortunately, the chapter on health care that I was looking forward to was not as strong as the chapters on shopping, working, voting and blogging.

Whether these concepts scare or fascinate you, everyone should pick this up to understand the direction technology is moving society in.