Today, we are excited to announce the public preview of search indexes and related SQL SEARCH functions in BigQuery. This is a new capability in BigQuery that allows you to use standard BigQuery SQL to easily find unique data elements buried in unstructured text and semi-structured JSON, without having to know the table schemas in advance. By making row lookups in BigQuery efficient, you now have a powerful columnar store and text search in a single data platform.

We’re entering the defining decade of data. While every aspect of our lives have been changed by data in recent years, the next ten will see data rebuild the world around us. Every business, in every industry, needs a plan to adapt to this new world if they want to thrive. But how? That’s a question in the minds of data leaders, CEOs, and board members. The right approach is critical if companies want to dominate this new era. The wrong decision can spell disaster.

At a distance of a million miles from Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope is pushing the edge of data transfer capabilities. The observatory launched Dec. 25 2021 on a mission to look at the early universe, at exoplanets, and at other objects of celestial interest. But first it must pass a rigorous, months-long commissioning period to make sure that the data will get back to Earth properly. Mission managers provided an update Feb.