Feature Column from the AMS

Feature Column from the AMS: "his brief example points to the beginnings of a field known as principal component analysis, a set of techniques that uses singular values to detect dependencies and redundancies in data.

In a similar way, singular value decompositions can be used to detect groupings in data, which explains why singular value decompositions are being used in attempts to improve Netflix's movie recommendation system. Ratings of movies you have watched allow a program to sort you into a group of others whose ratings are similar to yours. Recommendations may be made by choosing movies that others in your group have rated highly."