Google Ventures has just invested an undisclosed amount in Recorded Future, a company that is working to accurately predict the future.

As its name implies, the web application uses a wealth of quantifiable data from the past and present to forecast trends and predict outcomes. It likely has around the same level of accuracy, give or take, as a weather report.

Recorded Future offers alerts on topics such as financial markets, geopolitical news, industry changes, public figures, technology and information security. The app can be customized to return results for an individual or other topic, as well.

Predicting the future is big business in industries such as finance, marketing and bookmaking. The way the analysts in these areas make their predictions is also through quantifying and parsing massive datasets. Applying the same principles to other topics makes sense, and we're interested to see what Recorded Future does with this investment and onslaught of press and user attention.

Here's the company's demo, showing how its product works for users who want to know about the future:

In fact, we recommend browsing the company's YouTube profile for an in-depth look at their cool visualizations and case studies.

What do you think about Recorded Future? Can a data-based, scientific approach to prediction really give us insights about the future? Will you be trying out the app yourself?

[img credit: Svenstorm]