Recorded Future appears to be a data analytics company that tries to calculate what the future might hold by applying search-engine like capabilities to highly specific data sets in order to deduce what's probable to happen down the road. By scanning the Web for the frequency and nature of references to a certain person or occurrence, Recorded Future computes what it calls a "momentum value" for each entity in its database. From there, it tries to project future happenings, be they stock market swings or terrorist attacks.

A blog post on Recorded Future's Web site 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 post continues:

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.

It sounds more reliable than a crystal ball, and honestly it sounds like a good fit for Google. Recorded Future's analytics tools could prove valuable to the search giant, especially if they prove useful at crunching large volumes of data into useful, actionable information -- a task that is Google's bread and butter. We'll try to guard our optimism and not dwell on the fact that such prediction models sounds vaguely similar to some of the risk management models employed by once-mighty investment firms.

Google plans to invest $100 million in startups through Google Ventures this year alone, so regardless of whether Recorded Ventures pans out, we predict Google will be just fine.

[ComputerWorld]

Germany’s data protection chief said he was “horrified” by the discovery – which has been rumored for a while now – and called on Google to delete what he claims was unlawfully collected personal data from wireless networks, as well as to cease cruising German streets for Street View.

What’s a bit baffling about all this is that several other companies have done the exact same thing without catching the backlash Google is currently enduring. Germany’s own Fraunhofer Institute has mapped the WiFi networks in parts of Germany going back as far as 2000 and firms like Skyhook Wireless use their own massive databases of wireless networks (gathered in a similar way) to provide location awareness in many mobile gadgets, including the iPhone and iPad.

Then again, Google is another story altogether. For one, some European nations have already expressed a disdain for the way Google’s tentacles are spreading throughout their cities. Street View has been a particular sticking point for several EU countries, as the idea of a bunch of Yankees cruising about snapping photos of the populace doesn't necessarily sit well with certain governments.

There have been other privacy concerns surrounding Google as well. A few days ago, information czars from a handful of nations including France, the UK, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands sent a strongly-worded letter to CEO Eric Schmidt criticizing the irresponsible rollout of Buzz (Canada, Israel and New Zealand also signed). So perhaps it's not so surprising that Germany is taking issue with this.

Further, the massive amount of data Google has at its disposal is enough to make anyone a bit paranoid. While Fraunhofer might be able to tell you how many WiFi networks are in a certain village in Bavaria, Google could – and we’re just speculating of course – associate your network name or MAC, your address, and a picture of your front door. That’s a bit creepy even for the most digitally open among us.

But perhaps the greatest objection is this: What is Google going to do with all that data? The intelligence community would love a means to cross reference MACs with locations and the people who reside there, so the fact that a foreign nation is wandering the streets of Europe gathering this data is understandably disconcerting from a security standpoint. It’s more likely Google wants to use that kind of data for targeted advertising or some such . . . did we say “targeted?” We meant highly-specific advertising. Now, give us the information we want.

[The Register]

What was once a kind of grainy, pixelated experience -- at least if you zoomed in really tight -- is now much more like the real deal. Building facades and architectural nuances are in focus, storefronts are legible, and landmarks can be explored in a far more realistic fashion than before. You could even argue that the ability to fly through cities, experiencing them from both ground level and from their upper stories and beyond, beats pounding the pavement yourself.

Currently, the 3-D experience is limited to a smattering of international cities -- New York, Cape Town, London, etc. -- but more 3-D-enabled locales are surely on the way, as Google's mission is, after all, to catalog everything in the world. You can take a spin around NYC below.

[PC Authority]

Kremlin leaders quickly approved the project with a $200 million budget after a January visit to MIT, where students and researchers alike busily churn out futuristic projects ranging from a Minority Report glove mouse to $3 pumps that have helped speed healing in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti.

Soviet researchers once lived in luxury within closely guarded cities that acted as comfortable prisons for the scientific elite. But that walled-off existence hardly resembles freewheeling entrepreneurial culture of Silicon Valley, and so Russia faces the challenge of reinventing its notion of a scientific city.

Russian science has a demonstrably rich history yoked to a less-than-stellar record of turning ideas into innovation. Political leaders have also shown an unfortunate tendency to fall for dubious ideas and pseudoscience.

That could change if Russia can take a different attitude. Planners have studied how easier immigration has helped Silicon Valley attract talent, and there's also a proposed law that might revise tax, customs and immigration rules for businesses.

There's no small irony in the fact that one of Silicon Valley's premier companies, Google, was co-founded by Russian-born Sergey Brin. The New York Times speculates that Brin might have stayed in Russia had the cultural and economic climate been different.

Brin was slated to fly as a space tourist with Space Adventures aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, at least until Russia announced it would Soyuz end space tourism when NASA's space shuttle retires.

At least Russia's proposed new direction might help calm down fictional Russian cosmonaut Lev Andropov in Armageddon. "American components, Russian components, all made in Taiwan!" Adropov yelled in frustration while attempting to fix an experimental space shuttle. We feel your pain, Lev, but cheer up -- if Russia's proposed Silicon Valley doesn't take off, there's always the possibility the nation might actually launch an Armageddon style asteroid deflection mission.

[via New York Times]

Apple's iPhone reigned supreme, followed from a distance by the Google Nexus One

The MOTO lab folk ran both "medium touch" and "very light touch" tests with the robot finger on each of the four smartphones previously tested with human fingers, and threw in a Blackberry Storm 2 and Palm Pre for good measure.

So who came out on top? Apple's iPhone touchscreen bested the competition by a good margin, but Google's Nexus One and the HTC Droid Eris also turned in solid performances. The Motorola Droid fared the worst and ran into trouble even on the "medium touch" test, while both the Palm and Blackberry devices showed signal loss on the "very light touch" test.

Take a look at MOTO's light-fingered robot in action:

Robot Touchscreen Analysis from MOTO Development Group on Vimeo

[MOTO]

The technology blows away the competition by scanning 200 pages a minute

The scanner's camera runs at 500 frames per second, and captures rapidly flipping book pages in two modes. First, a regular line shines on the page to capture text and images. The second mode then manages neat the trick of reconstructing the curved, distorted pages in their original form. A laser device projects lines onto each page that the system can use to recreate the 3-D page model and correct the deformed lines.

Google's own proprietary book-scanning technology seems to use some sort of infrared camera to capture the 3-D shape of book pages, but the book lies flat and the page-turning mechanism is unclear. Other book scanners boast of capturing about 50 pages per minute, which is four times slower than the new method.

Masatoshi Ishikawa -- the University of Tokyo researcher behind the book-scanning marvel -- previously developed the fastest robot hands in the East, so he's probably not too worried about tiring out human hands by flipping book pages.

Miniaturized versions of this technology could eventually find their way into our smartphones for completely legal digitizing delights. Or it might combine with the robot hands to bring Short Circuit's Johnny 5 to life.

[via IEEE Spectrum]

The new version is also compatible with Rogers Wireless’ 3G network in Canada.

Google’s Nexus One can be used with a SIM card from most GSM operators around the world. The unlocked phone has run into limitations, though, since some carriers use different 3G frequencies. The Nexus One hit the market in January, with a plan and 3G support from T-Mobile in addition to the unlocked version.

The Verizon edition is expected to launch later this month, and a version for Vodafone in Europe is scheduled to be released as well in the second quarter of this year. There have also been rumors about a stripped down version of the Android-based phone for the Indian market.

The AT&T-compatible Nexus One can be used with a SIM card from the carrier, and the phone is sold online at $529. There is no discount for AT&T, however, because Google still offers a plan with T-Mobile only, at $179.

Tags: Google, nexus

Companies: AT&T, Google