Data-driven applications returned to the headlines this week after Hortonworks announced that it will bundle the open source Cascading development framework into its flagship Hadoop distribution. Created and maintained by a company called Concurrent, Cascading is a Java-based abstraction layer that allows users to take advantage of the batch processing platform without mastering MapReduce or even changing the way they work.

Cascading  supports a broad range of enterprise technologies, including Java, SQL and a number of popular data science tools. Future releases of the version, which the Yahoo! spin off has committed to certifying as part of its partnership with Concurrent, will also feature integration with the emerging Apache Tez Hadoop query framework.

Applications are as essential to the future of analytics as ease of use and simplicity, the two benefits credit scoring software giant FICO hopes to deliver for customers through the acquisition of Hadoop business intelligence specialist Karmasphere. No financial terms were disclosed, but the company said that it will fold the startup’s technology into its FICO Analytic Cloud, a hosted service that combines its decision-making platform with a number of complementary tools.

Lastly, IBM on Tuesday announced that its recently formed Watson business unit has injected a portion of the $100 million it was allocated to foster an application system around the Jeopardy-winning supercomputer into Fluid. The e-commerce firm develops the Fluid Expert Shopper (XPS), a recommendation engine that leverages Watson to absorb vast quantities of product information and present online shoppers with the item that best fit their particular needs. Fluid will presumably use the new capital to accelerate the engineering roadmap for the the app, which is being developed in collaboration with The North Face and a number of other prominent consumer brands.

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