Next steps: securing a patent on the sizing algorithm--before the big retailers do it themselves--and hiring a market research team to get the 10, 000 or so survey responses needed to build a size database big enough to convert all those crazy sizes.

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The typical big-business database has grown in size a hundredfold in the past five years, bloated by the sprawl of computing systems and applications, Internet commerce and recordkeeping mandated by government regulation.

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High profile cases have made even liberal-minded folk think twice about limiting the size of the database.

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According to the release notes, iOS 4.3.3 reduces the size of the location database cache, stops backing the cache up to iTunes when you connect your device to a computer, and deletes the cache entirely when you turn Location Services off.

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And although many of IBM's efforts in corporate markets, such as e-commerce, will center around the mainframe version of DB2, it is the NT version of DB2 that is clearly driving its database business in small and medium-size companies.

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Its database now holds 20 terabytes, twice the size of all the printed matter at the Library of Congress.

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It claims the software creates a virtual topographical map of your features, which is then measured against the donor database, looking for similar surface textures, vector templating and, of course size of features.

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Note that Wikibon defines big data as data sets whose size, type and speed of creation make them impractical to process and analyze with traditional database technologies and related tools in a cost- or time-effective way.

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