Internet becomes a tool for prediction. Now this Scrying ball in the hands of security services and IT-industry giants When in 2009 the track Right Round was first performed on radio, the American rapper Flo Rida troubles began. Critics have called his song base and empty, and their smasher foreshadowed failure. However, the audience was his own opinion, and ultimately track a few weeks left in the first lines in the charts, becoming the hallmark musician. Critics sat down again to write articles. This time they blamed not the rapper, and public taste. The reaction of students was for them a complete surprise. In fact, this turn was not difficult to predict. Recently, a group of researchers from the U.S. company Yahoo has devoted to this great record. Yahoo.com - one of the most popular U.S. search engines. The company's specialists say: analyzing search queries of Internet users can easily predict their future preferences. The method is simple to the obscene, but it works and allows analysts to make their forecasts more accurate, without any special effort. In Yahoo it has already run-in hundreds of films, computer games and music. Analysis of initial searches at once showed that cold encountered critics song Flo Rida awaits commercial success. Now thinking about profit and the company itself. In Yahoo are going to earn money online predictions. And their competitors from Google has already begun to do so. Google recently invested in a small company Recorded Future - there have developed their own way to predict the future, using open data from the Internet. Everything goes to the fact that such projections will soon become a familiar tool for analysts. At least, these methods are already interested in the CIA. PUTIN VS MEDVEDEV Employee research division of Yahoo Sharad Goel knows that Vladimir Putin is interested in the Americans much more than Medvedev. At least, so things are among users of the search engine Yahoo.com. "By the number of requests ahead of your prime president almost twice - says Goel told Newsweek. - That if you take the statistics for the last two months. " On this example, the scientist explains the principle of his method. "Putin and Medvedev for Goel is not the individual, but only keywords. Approximately 20% of all searches in the U.S. pass through the server Yahoo. Millions of U.S. users from time to time looking for online information about Russian politicians. The number of such requests - an indicator of public attention. This is certainly not a real political rating. But if for the keyword "Putin and Medvedev" would not be hiding people, product names, then doubled the advantage in the search statistics would certainly have an impact on their commercial success. This logic Sharad Goel has repeatedly tried in the case. For example, when in May last year, suffering Flo Rida track only appeared on the radio, Yahoo's servers have a real barrage of requests - users have begun to look grown fond song in the network. Even then it was clear that this is - a potential hit, says Goel. Then the audience started to give a voice to the track in all sorts of ratings. There is already a victory became apparent. The universality of his method of Goel proves with figures in his hands. He and his colleagues analyzed the searches by name hundreds of songs from last year's hit parade magazine Billboard. It was found that the intensity of the initial search, to predict the future position of tracks in the charts. This trick helped the researchers to predict box office receipts from movies, just published in rental and sales results of new video games. Goel method allows analysts to make the usual ways to predict accurately. For example, experts generally predict box office performance of films, based on the budget pictures, ratings from critics and the number of participating theaters theater. Add to this formula the number of search queries, Goel managed to slightly increase the accuracy of forecasts. Their results scientist was quite pleased: "Even a small increase prediction reliability is important when it comes to finance." It's not only in reliability. "An analysis of search queries allows real-time monitor preferences huge number of people - says economist from the University of Kansas Michael Ettridzh. - The price issue with very modest. " According Ettridzha, the possible applications of the method are not limited to movies and music: "It is also possible to predict the behavior of voters or investors." He himself was a few years ago proved that the statistics of search engines - a beautiful and independent indicator of the level of unemployment. People are starting to look for jobs online and labor exchanges. Economist at the University of South Carolina, John Gerdes is less optimistic. He does not argue that the new method is indeed promising. Instead, the scientist points to a problem that will face Sharad Goel and his colleagues from Yahoo. They need to learn to filter out irrelevant queries. "Take the statistics of the search on the name of famous hotel chains - Hilton and Hyatt - explains the scientist - is almost certain" Hilton "turns out to be popular. You know why? Because someone from the user is actually looking for news about Paris Hilton. " Sharad Goel, these difficulties do not scare. "Now we are looking at a couple of commercial projects - says a scientist. - But these plans with you I can not discuss. " It is possible for something like that now reflect in the other large company - IBM. In 2005, Officer Daniel Grul corporation engaged in that analyzed the content of randomly-selected blogs. Specially written program extracts them feedback on the recently published books. It turned out that the analysis of texts written by bloggers to predict sales of these books in the largest network shop Amazon.com. Discuss their academic researcher did not want: "information to journalists only provides our press office." BACK TO THE FUTURE In the office of Recorded Future even greater secrecy. "We do not comment the press," - says on its website. Request Newsweek an interview with its creator, Christopher Albergo remained unanswered. Recorded Future («Recorded future") - one of the most promising online service for forecasters. The fact that this project has great potential, evidenced by its list of investors, chief among them - Google and the CIA. Both have a special investment units - the company In-Q-Tel in the scouts and Google Ventures from the creators of the world's largest search engine. According to U.S. media, they have invested in Recorded Future for $ 10 million for the first time endorsing the same startup. Experience of cooperation in intelligence and the Internet giant is already there: in the early 2000's In-Q-Tel has invested in the company Keyhole, which has developed a program EarthViewer 3D, and in 2004 it bought the search engine, making the basis of his super popular service Google Earth. According to Noah Schechtman, an analyst specialized publication Wired, intelligence agencies willing to invest in promising Internet services: "They hope to use them in their work and, ideally, make some money." Exactly how the agents plan to use the new service, known for certain. The company In-Q-Tel declined to comment. Talking about the project would not even normally open to communion Google. It remains only to scrutinize the advertising site Recorded Future. And it says: "90% of the information necessary intelligence to predict the future is in the public domain." For maximum efficiency with this information and create services. Its engine does not analyze search queries, and a huge amount of data from various sources available on the network: media publications, government sites and resources, commercial companies, financial databases, blogs, forums and social networks. Similar services existed before, but I Recorded Future most user-friendly interface and feature content analysis of the data. Search results appear on the screen in the form of a timeline, which reflects developments in the past, present and - future. Recorded Future does not make their own predictions, but reflects all the predictions made by others. Beating in the search bar the name of Apple, you can find out when new products are expected to have her and that by this time to prepare its competitors. You can also see a list of all U.S. companies planning an IPO in 2011, or to obtain data on drugs, clinical trials are planned for the near future. If you enter the name of Barack Obama, you can get a rough timetable of his foreign trips for the year ahead, as well as a list of other world leaders, who plan to be in the same places at the same time. The site has examples of how this program can use the intelligence or military. Take, for example, recently held parliamentary elections in Afghanistan. With Recorded Future can be pre-examine all the related statements of representatives of an event of radical Islamist groups, to isolate them from the announcements of attempts to disrupt voting, and attacks, and then compare these statements of the same people in the past so, whether given their threats into action. Or, for example, to predict attacks on foreign aid workers who arrived in Pakistan after the recent floods - based on the aggressive debate on Pakistani forums, speeches of leaders of the local Taliban and compare the current situation with the earthquake of 2005. Also, a month before the official announcement from the Israeli side to guess that Syria has transferred the Lebanese Hizbullah party of Scud missiles. Shimon Peres spoke about this in March, and the program is still in early February recorded a sharp change in the statements of members of Hizbollah what purpose in Israel they could strike. Idea creators Recorded Future like too banal, because it uses public data, but had to find and compare this information to take hours. A new program to cope with this task in seconds. "It's as if Google had met Nostradamus" - admired program newspaper Boston Globe. Subscribe to Recorded Future can be only $ 150 per month. The creators of the resource are positioning it as a tool for business analysts, investors and PR people, journalists, politicians and intelligence agencies. On him supposedly already signed up more than a hundred large companies and government agencies worldwide. While the program mostly indexes resources for English, Arabic and Chinese, but the developers promise to teach it to other languages. However, it has many critics. Steven Aftergood, director of the Project for the Study of secret government activities in the Federation of American Scientists, said that making predictions using Recorded Future is not worth it. "The future is woven out of a huge number of totally unpredictable factors" - he said. Such programs, he said, perfect for fans of science fiction, but not for those who make socially relevant decision. Since it does not quite agree renowned American programmer and mathematician Stephen Skiens. He believes that Recorded Future - is a huge step forward in terms of speed and visualization forward-looking information, but adds that such programs can only be a support tool for professionals. "Artificial intelligence is not yet ready to replace the man who had just experienced analyst can make a forecast based on data found by the program - says Skiens. - And not the fact that he will be fine. Predicting the future, we still tychem finger to the sky. " However, as it turned out, American audiences are concerned not so much the accuracy of predicting the future, as the safety of their personal information at this time. Judging by the statements of Recorded Future on the forums, then ordinary citizens until they see this project just another proof of Google collaboration with the secret police. This issue has become particularly relevant after the so-called scandal WiSpy, broke out this spring. Google employees photographed the streets and houses in cities around the world for their new mega Street View. It turned out that, in addition to images, they collected the coordinates of access points Wi-Fi and recording personal information, which is transmitted over unsecured networks Wi-Fi. Google took up arms against the authorities of several EU countries, the company's office in South Korea were searched. Conspiracy alleged that the company collects the data to a special version of Recorded Future, which will use the CIA experts. The American non-governmental organization Consumer Watchdog, involved in the protection of consumer rights, sent to Congress a request for a hearing in the wake of the scandal WiSpy. Human rights activists do not believe that the CIA would be to invest in a project that uses only information available to all. LOOKING FOR TALENTS These search engine Yahoo allow to predict the popularity of songs: