IBM Says New Software Will Help Predict Natural Disasters

coondoggie writes "IBM says it has patented a natural disaster warning system, which uses analytic techniques that accurately and precisely conducts post-event analysis of seismic events, such as earthquakes, as well as provide early warnings for tsunamis, which can follow earthquakes. The invention also provides the ability to rapidly measure and analyze the damage zone of an earthquake to help prioritize emergency response needed following an earthquake."

Comments

Re:Oh Really?

[TapeCutter]

"So they are claiming to be able to predict the unpredictable?"

No, that's just the all to familiar sensationalist headline.

Re:time scale and prior information density

[DarkKnightRadick]

The thing is, they can't. As others have pointed out from actually reading TFA, the software is to help prioritize disaster relief efforts, not predict the unpredictable.

Let me know how your fortune telling pans out (even so-called weather prediction is actually just a forecast based on statistical models that generally do not hold up, hence why such "predictions" can only be made with a degree of certainty leading up to a probability of 0 (for a non-event) or 1 (for an event) at the time predicted.