Disaster Recovery in Real-time

We are saddened to hear about the tragedy unfolding across the Philippines.  Typhoon Haiyan has done massive damage to the people and infrastructure of the region.  This region is a great case where the application of real-time data analysis can become, literally, a lifesaver.  The Philippines is an active user of mobile and social media and the data is flowing.   The Wall Street Journal published an interesting article on how real-time Tweets are being analyzed, tagged and turned into actionable information for rescue workers in the storm ravaged country.   As the article points out, and we've seen this before, much of posts on social media is an echo of other posters.   Being able to separate the signal from the noise rapidly can save lives.