Cecilia Tom is an analyst at The Big Data Group.

FORBES: Not Your Grandmother's Presidential Debate

Taking advantage of the crunching power of SiSense and the free offer to play, Dave Feinleib and the team at The Big Data Group has just released their analysis of the state of the venture capital industry.

FORBES: CrunchBase Crunching: SiSense and the Big Data Group on the State of the VC Industry

Oh casts our current state of affairs as lying somewhere between Analyst 1.0, the state of maturity that the last generation of tools got us to, and Analyst 2.0, the eventual state in which big data will be much easier for a wide group of people to use.

FORBES: Why Purpose-built Applications are the Key to Big Data Success

But Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive for software and systems at IBM, insists big data does not represent a huge paradigm change in processes or results.

FORBES: Big Data Is Faster and Cheaper But Not New Or Revolutionary - IBM

The ACLU campaign to change the law comes after the group asked members last year to seek data about themselves from big Web firms using the 2003 law designed to help shed light on direct-marketing practices.

WSJ: Online-Data Bill Sets Up Privacy Fight

From 2005 to 2009, it had the highest accident rate of any big Japanese nuclear plant, according to data collected by the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization, a mainly government-funded group.

FORBES: An Immodest Proposal to Spur Nuclear Energy Industry Growth -- and Global Safety

But Data Distilleries has one big advantage: a strategic alliance with Accenture (previously Andersen Consulting), a global consulting group that also owns an equity stake and is busily putting its new partner in touch with senior managers in client companies.

ECONOMIST: Enterprise software