As we start the second half of January, this is a particularly good time to check out what real-time data on flows and income has been telling us about the first half of this month.

FORBES: Huge U.S. Equity Fund Inflows Being Funded By Tax Front Running Income

Owned and controlled by the member central banks, the BIS provides them with data on capital flows and sets recommended regulatory standards such as capital-adequacy levels.

CNN: In Search of a Tougher Cop

So GE brags about the terabyte of data that flows out of a single jet engine on a single cross-country flight.

FORBES: Apps Lead the Way to the Next Innovation Hypercycle

This means: enhancing transparency on gas prices and flows (collecting data and making it widely available), improving the interconnection between markets, creating liquid trading hubs and providing clear and stable regulation for infrastructure investment, among other measures.

BBC: Europe charts new gas future

Governments could define best practice on dealing with information flows and the processing of data, just as they require firms to label processed foods with the ingredients or impose public-health standards.

ECONOMIST: Regulators are having to rethink their brief

Analytical data focuses on a context of a particular topic and channel and how information flows among tweeters.

FORBES: Product Review: The New TweetLevel And Blog Level - Critical Tools To Rate Twitter Influence

Massive data flows are collected, analyzed, modeled, forecast and presented on displays the size of several Imax screens.

FORBES: Big Data Unleashes the Electric Equivalent of a Free Keystone Pipeline

For an investor who is unsophisticated in the science of encrypted data transmission, such as myself, I can still make an investment analysis based on historical cash flows from this IP.

FORBES: New IP Company Marathon Patent Group Promises Diversification Amid Risky Environment