Hot on Facebook

Angry Dad Shoots Daughter's Laptop ... after she criticized her parents on Facebook »

CIA, Google Invest in Future-Predicting Firm

'Recorded Future' scans the web to see what's coming

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Jul 30, 2010 8:45 AM CDT

(Newser) – The investment arms of Google and the CIA have teamed up to support a company that says it can predict the future. Recorded Future—a Massachusetts tech firm that presumably saw the deal coming—monitors tens of thousands of websites and uses algorithms to find the relationships between people, places, and events in the past, present, and future, Wired reports.

The company says it calculates the online "momentum" for any given event, 100 million of which are indexed on its servers. "The cool thing is, you can actually predict the curve, in many cases," CEO Christopher Ahlberg says. Ahlberg—a former Swedish Army ranger—says the Google and CIA representatives on the company's board have provided valuable business and technology advice, as well as potential clients. Click here to see how Recorded Future could have hypothetically predicted a reported transfer of Scud missiles from Syria to Hezbollah in March.

[Images (1)]

[Quotes (1)]

Google and CIA teaming up to predict the future has some privacy advocates worried. (Shutter Stock)

« Prev« Prev | Next »Next » Slideshow

We’re right there as it happens. We can assemble actual real-time dossiers on people.

- Recorded Futures CEO
Christopher Ahlberg

« Prev« Prev | Next »Next » Slideshow

CLICK BELOW TO VOTE

10%

47%

34%

To report an error on this story, notify our editors.

More Newser Stories

Google, Facebook Yank Content as India Cracks Down

Court threatens to come down on firms 'like China'

(NEWSER) - A strongly-worded directive from an Indian court, threatening to crack down on websites "like China," has pushed Google and Facebook to bar some content on Indian domains, Reuters reports. Some 19 other companies have also been asked to block material considered offensive to Hindus, Muslims, and Christians following a court case. The companies haven't yet given details of what was removed. More»

SOPA Author: 'I Don't Mind Taking That On'

Lamar Smith seems unfazed by powerful opponents to piracy bill

(NEWSER) - Rep. Lamar Smith, author of the fiercely controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, doesn't sound like he's bothered much by the heated opposition from e-powerhouses such as Facebook, Google, Reddit, and Twitter. "It is amazing to me that the opponents apparently don't want to protect American consumers and businesses," the Texas Republican tells Reuters . The SOPA bill, which would authorize the government to seek federal injunctions against foreign-based websites suspected of piracy, is still in committee hearings and could reach the House floor in a few weeks. More»

Is Google Launching Own Social Networking Site?

Blogs report conflicting information on 'Google Circles'

(NEWSER) - Google will soon launch a social network, blogs are saying, and it may be called Google Circles. The tech blog The Next Web first reported the news Friday, noting that the product would launch at Google’s I/O conference in May; ReadWriteWeb followed with an assertion that the new service would be announced at South By Southwest. Google knocked down the latter claim, but refused to “comment on rumor and speculation” about the service itself, the Telegraph reports. More»

Google Catches Bing Copying Its Results

It theorizes that it's spying on users with IE, Bing toolbar

(NEWSER) - Google is furious. The search giant says it’s caught Bing red-handed stealing its search results—or, at least, mining data from its results to use to adjust Bing's own ranking algorithm. It suspects Bing is using Internet Explorer and/or the Bing toolbar to monitor users’ Google queries and results. Microsoft doesn’t deny it either, according to Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land . Asked for comment, Bing’s director said the toolbar was “one of many inputs” the site uses. More»

Sorry, Google: Facebook Most-Visited Site in US

Social network eats up 8.9% of US visits

(NEWSER) - Facebook knocked Google from its cushy No. 1 slot this year, becoming the most-visited website in the US, Reuters reports. Between January and November, Facebook saw 8.9% of all US visits; Google.com saw 7.2%. If you count all of Google’s properties, like YouTube and Gmail, however, Google takes 9.9%, surpassing Facebook. Yahoo’s properties came in third, with 8.1%. Google was king in 2009 and 2008; MySpace was on top in 2007. More»

NEWS FROM OUR PARTNERS

What is Newser?

Face it: there's too much news. At Newser, we choose the most thought-provoking and entertaining stories from hundreds of US and international sources and reduce them to a headline, picture, and two paragraphs. And we do it 24/7—you can come back morning, noon, night (and in between) for something new that matters. Read less, know more.

Learn more »

Partnering with: Slate

View Newser on the mobile website

CIA, Google Invest in Future-Predicting Firm