麻豆约拍

The big new buzzword at the annual futurist technology conference in Utah is "flow" - but what does it mean, and what are the practical implications for data and for our lives?

In the first of two programmes from this year's FiRe shindig, presenter Ed Butler speaks to one of the joint hosts, economic forecaster Mark Anderson, as well as Prof Pai-Ling Yin of the University of Southern California, about why gigantic data flows are so important.

Keynote speaker Bill Ribaudo of accountancy firm Deloitte explains a new way of valuing companies and entire countries.

And could the data flow analysis also revolutionise medical diagnostics? Prof Ben Smarr of the University of California in Berkeley seems to think so.

(Picture: Conceptual image depicting data flow; Credit: agsandrew/Thinkstock)