incisively one year ago , DARPAannounced a characteristically scifi - inspired mission : to make a hunting locomotive engine that could notice things on the deep connection that Google ’s crawlers would miss . The so - call Memex project is now well afoot , and for the first fourth dimension we ’re start a expression at the crime - defend hunt locomotive in action .
Pardon the clichéd Philip K. Dick character reference , but Memex looks a number like something you ’d see in Minority Report . The Pentagon ’s research agency offeredScientific Americanand60 Minutesexclusive look at the applied science , and the features sound dead intellect - bend .
On the surface floor , Memex works like a lookup engine that propagate its tentacle into the recondite web and darknet . Since the ilk of Google and Bing only index about 10 percentage of the WWW , this basic functionality is key to tracking criminal movements , especially those of human traffickers who assert the down in the mouth of profiles .
So take this scenario : If a criminal investigator has the inter-group communication to an ad posted by a human trafficker , the investigator would have a backbreaking fourth dimension finding other clues since human trafficker pull these ads before Google has a luck to index them . Memex circumvents that .
The next generation technology queries a much broad swatch of the internet , include bass web and darknet links , to receive connections between the hunt term and its results , not to refer connection between the issue .
After the initial hunt , Memex will then give rise a so - called “ information wake ” that designate all of the other Page that are related to the links that you dawn on but might not otherwise see . It expect like this :
That ’s just one fast one . The super - charged web dew worm are also able to pass over the social movement of human traffickers by watch where they station ads . Again , these are links that would mistake through Google ’s tracks . The cause can them be compiled into heat map or map of a criminal ’s movements :
thing get really futuristic when you take into account the up-to-the-minute Memex feature . The applied science is currently being beta test by two territorial dominion attorneys ’ business office , a legal philosophy enforcement agency , and a nongovernmental organisation . The next leg of testing , due to start with a broader group of beta examiner in a few week , is where things start to go more like Minority Report . FromScientific American :
One of the main target of this stave is to test new image search capableness that can study photos even when serving that might aid investigators — include traffickers ’ faces or a television sieve in the background — are obfuscate . Another goal is to try out different drug user interfaces and to try out with cyclosis architectures that valuate fourth dimension - sensitive data .
You hear that right . DARPA wants to catch felon by search at reflections in boob tube screens , the same path that Tom Cruise figures out the detail of criminal offence before they bechance . Of of course , Memex ca n’t see into the future . However , the thought is that the technology will stop human seller before they hurt more masses . All DARPA need now are those weird gloves , a way - sized screen , and some mutate , prophetical humans soaking in a special chamber , and the delegacy will finally be a full - on Philip K. Dick visual sense add up true . [ SciAm,60 Minutes ]
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