temporal analytics engine

"goes beyond search" by "looking at the 'invisible links' between documents that talk about the same, or related, entities and events."

The idea is to figure out for each incident who was involved, where it happened and when it might go down. Recorded Future then plots that chatter, showing online "momentum" for any given event.

The "How People Use It" page on Recorded Future's website makes absolutely no attempt to hide The Creepy:

Research a person
Monitor news on public figures to...
Identify future travel plans; spot past travel trends and patterns
Search for communication with other individuals; graph their network
Monitor career history and announced job changes
Find quotations and sound bites in the news and blogs
Discover future and past strategic positioning
Uncover public political ties and family relationships

Exclusive: Google, CIA Invest in 'Future' of Web Monitoring (Wired Danger Room blog)

Google Alarm Firefox add-on

Get notified when Google is monitoring your web browsing

Google Alarm shows notifications, plays sound effects and keeps running stats about the % of websites you've visit with Google bugs present. Stay alert – install Google Alarm today.

Try to look away

Google Bends Over for China

Washington Post-Google promised to "obey Chinese law" and avoid linking to material deemed a threat to national security or social stability, said Zhang Feng, director of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's Telecoms Development Department, at a news conference.

China renewed Google's Internet license after it pledged to obey censorship laws and stop automatically switching mainland users to its unfiltered Hong Kong site, an official said Tuesday.

It was Beijing's first public comment on its decision to allow Google to continue operating a China website following a public clash over censorship. The company closed its China search engine in March but still offers music and other services in China.

Looking for a few good IT

"US security officials say the country's cyberdefenses are not up to the challenge. In part, it's due to a severe shortage of computer security specialists and engineers with the skills and knowledge necessary to do battle against would-be adversaries. The protection of US computer systems essentially requires an army of cyberwarriors, but the recruitment of that force is suffering. 'We don't have sufficiently bright people moving into this field to support those national security objectives as we move forward in time,' says James Gosler

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

How google works

Germans taking on Facebook and google privacy

SlashDot "Not only are Germany and Facebook not friends, they might end up opponents in a courtroom. Germany has begun legal action over privacy. A German data protection official accuses Facebook of illegally saving personal data of people who don't use the site and haven't given permission to access their private information. Germany, which has also launched an investigation into Google over its Street View mapping program, has some of the strictest privacy laws in the world."

Things 2dolist - Crack the "Cyber Command" logo

From da Boing2

The U.S. Military's new "Cyber Command" logo contains a hidden code. Noah Shachtman at Wired News says, "Help us crack it!"

Related reading today: Bruce Schneier says "The Threat of Cyberwar Has Been Grossly Exaggerated."

As usual I have to agree with Bruce...

AI - paradoxical mix of intelligence and stupidity

Boing2: While strong AI still lies safely beyond the Maes-Garreau horizon (a vanishing point, perpetually fifty years ahead) a host of important new developments in weak AI are poised to be commercialized in the next few years. But because these developments are a paradoxical mix of intelligence and stupidity, they defy simple forecasts, they resist hype. They are not unambiguously better, cheaper, or faster. They are something new. What are the implications of a car that adjusts its speed to avoid collisions … but occasionally mistakes the guardrail along a sharp curve as an oncoming obstacle and slams on the brakes? What will it mean when our computers know everything — every single fact, the entirety of human knowledge — but can only reason at the level of a cockroach?

I mention these specific examples — smart cars and massive knowledge-bases — because they came up repeatedly in my recent conversations with AI researchers. These experts expressed little doubt that both technologies will reach the market far sooner, and penetrate it more pervasively, than most people realize.

But confidence to the point of arrogance is practically a degree requirement for computer scientists. Which, actually, is another reason why these particular developments caught my interest: for all their confidence about the technologies per se, every researcher I spoke to admitted they had no clue - but were intensely curious - how these developments will affect society. - "new developments in AI"

Prince Says Internet Is Over

SlashDot - "According to the artist currently known as Prince, 'The internet's completely over.' At least that what he says in an interview with the British newspaper Mirror. Quoting Prince: 'The internet's like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you."

Google has only indexed .004% of internet?

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MAC - the truth hurts