Cities across the US are opening their data to the public, allowing for coders and companies to create projects to better the city in which they live and play. One such city is Seattle. Partnering with Microsoft and Accenture, the city of Seattle is making data about its downtown buildings' power consumption available to be analyzed. The goal of the project is to reduce wasteful power consumption by 25%.

Partnering with SAP, the National Basketball Association offered fans access to unlimited official NBA statistics this summer, including every box score in NBA history. And they did all of this free of charge to fans. Previously, this data was restricted to league and NBA team personnel. By opening this data to the public (and in an impressive visual way), sports fans were able to interact with and analyze official league, team, and player statistics in real-time. Creating this real-time data platform gave fans a way to interact with and become more heavily involved with the games and players.

Tackling patient care in Japan is Mitsui Knowledge Industry, a biotech company specializing in information and communication technology. Mitsui Knowledge Industry is using real-time analysis of patient genome data to personalize and improve upon cancer treatment. What used to take up to two days to analyze complex genomes, can now be performed in 20 seconds, and Mitsui Knowledge Industry is part of those efforts.

Netflix and Amazon are two ecommerce powerhouses using real-time analytics to bring you personalized buying recommendations. For instance, looking at what you recently purchased along with your buying behaviors allows them to tailor ads and provide new recommendations for you. Oh, you just watched Breaking Bad? Why don’t you check out Mad Men too? Better yet, purchase them together and receive a discount. Not only are they using this data collection to improve upon their buying algorithms, but they are using it to form better customer relationships with you. By allowing these insights to direct their conversations and content, they're reinventing the way customer service is performed.

Map-makers have found visually stunning ways to use Big Data. Discovery News featured a slideshow of maps created from the insights collected on servers across the globe. Among these innovative map artists is The Smithsonian in Washington D.C.. The Smithsonian Museum took vintage maps of select cities (including Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco) and overlaid them with satellite images of today’s cities, providing viewers with a before-and-after picture of the cities’ layouts. Among other organizations and maps featured on Discovery News' slideshow were Big Foot sightings, craft breweries, and the oldest buildings in New York.