Researchers Mine Old News To Predict Future Events

hypnosec writes "Microsoft Research has teamed up with the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to develop software that can predict events like outbreaks of disease or violence by mining data from old news and the web. The project, if successful, will result into a tool that would provide information that is more than just educated guesses or intuition. The team consisting of Eric Horvitz from Microsoft Research and Kira Radinsky from Technion-Israel Institute tested the program with articles from New York Times spanning over 20 years from 1986-2007."

Comments

Past performance...

[Overzeetop]

... is Not Necessarily Indicative of Future Results.

Do these guys not even read their own prospectus?

For example, did you know...

[Anonymous Coward]

There will be a Presidential election in 2016 and 2020

An NFL team will win the Super Bowl.

Many new TV shows will be cancelled each fall.

Old people will die.

Asimov was here

[Minion of Eris]

The shade of Asimov raises his head..... Does this seem a little like Psychohistory to anyone else? Where's the Mule?

Re:Consider..

[maxwell demon]

Actually, the weather report for the next day is pretty accurate most of the time.

Here, Let Me Save Them Some Time

[Nova Express]

Unrest in Middle East
African Regime Unstable, May Collapse
Congressman Indicted
Experts Say Hurricane "Extremely Dangerous"
Audit Finds Serious Misuse of Funds
Green Energy Firm Declares Bankruptcy
Apple's Latest Product Selling Like Hotcakes
Patch Released for Serious Windows Vulnerability
Unemployment Rises, Unexpectedly

There's your headlines for the year.