predict

Before you head out for your next vacation, you may want to consider what your photos on Flickr reveal about your travel plans. A new study published in the Royal Society Open Science journal used machine learning algorithms to model the mobility of individuals.

By analyzing the embedded timestamp and geographic information within photographs, the researchers were able to accurately predict where a person is most likely currently located and where they may be headed in the future.

Remember those weird floating "precog" psychics in the movie Minority Report? They could foresee crimes before they even happened, allowing law enforcement to prevent them from ever becoming a reality. While that kind of sci-fi foreknowledge will almost certainly never exist, scientists are working on an eerily similar system that uses cameras and artificial intelligence -- a system that they hope will be able to "see" crimes before they even occur.

Did you know that your morning cup of coffee can help you predict rain? It’s a trick used by …