Google has invested in Recorded Future, a startup company that claims to be able to predict the future. Google Ventures, the company’s investment arm, and put forward an undisclosed sum to own a part of the Massachusetts-based startup. Recorded Future claims it “offers customers new ways to analyze the past, present and the predicted future,” […]
Google has invested in Recorded Future, a startup company that claims to be able to predict the future. Google Ventures, the company’s investment arm, and put forward an undisclosed sum to own a part of the Massachusetts-based startup.
Recorded Future claims it “offers customers new ways to analyze the past, present and the predicted future,” according to a new Google Ventures site that went live on Monday. Recorded Future’s own Web site doesn’t list any products for sale, but the company has developed a data analytics technology that could be used to try to predict future stock market events or even terrorist activity, according to blog posts and videos on its site.
4/5/2010
The technology looks at how frequently an entity or event is referred to in the news and around the Web over a period of time, then uses that data to project how it might behave in the future.
“At Recorded Future, we compute a momentum value for each entity and event in our database,” one blog post explains. “The momentum value indicates how interesting a certain event or entity is at a particular time, and is continuously updated. In computing the momentum value, we take into account the volume of news around an entity or event, as well as what sources it is mentioned in, what other events and entities it is mentioned together with, and several other factors.
“The momentum measure is used to present the most relevant query results in our web user interface, but it can also be analyzed using statistical methods to predict possible future changes in momentum, which in turn can be valuable, e.g. for trading decisions.”
In other news, Google Ventures has acquired an online and mobile payment services company called Corduro.
Google already has its own online payment system, Google Checkout, and the move is likely designed to boost the search giants technology in this area.
Corduro offers a branded gateway that merchants can use to accept credit card payments online. Its investors page, however, contains a paragraph describing Google Ventures.
http://www.recordedfuture.com/rf/
