Building a “Data Eye in the Sky” by Erwin Gianchandani.
From the post:
Nearly a year ago, tech writer John Markoff published a story in The New York Times about Open Source Indicators (OSI), a new program by the Federal government’s Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) seeking to automatically collect publicly available data, including Web search queries, blog entries, Internet traffic flows, financial market indicators, traffic webcams, changes in Wikipedia entries, etc., to understand patterns of human communication, consumption, and movement. According to Markoff:
It is intended to be an entirely automated system, a “data eye in the sky” without human intervention, according to the program proposal. The research would not be limited to political and economic events, but would also explore the ability to predict pandemics and other types of widespread contagion, something that has been pursued independently by civilian researchers and by companies like Google.
This past April, IARPA issued contracts to three research teams, providing funding potentially for up to three years, with continuation beyond the first year contingent upon satisfactory progress. At least two of these contracts are now public (following the link):
Erwin reviews what is known about programs at Virginia Tech and BBN Technologies.
And concludes with:
Each OSI research team is being required to make a number of warnings/alerts that will be judged on the basis of lead time, or how early the alert was made; the accuracy of the warning, such as the where/when/what of the alert; and the probability associated with the alert, that is, high vs. very high.
To learn more about the OSI program, check out the IARPA website or a press release issued by Virginia Tech.
Given the complexities of semantics, what has my curiosity up is how “warnings/alerts” are going to be judged?
Recalling that “all the lights were blinking red” before 9/11.
If all the traffic lights in the U.S. flashed three (3) times at the same time, without more, it could mean anything from the end of the Mayan calendar to free beer. One just never knows.
Do you have the stats on the oracle at Delphi?
Might be a good baseline for comparison.