Does the intelligence visualization technology in Quantum of Solace really work?
November 17th, 2008UPDATE: CrunchGear recently published a post on a UI inspired from Minority Report that was created by a company called Oblong.
I saw the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, over the weekend. Although I thought that the movie lacked the normal amount of gadgets commonly associated with a James Bond movie, there was a particular scene that made me think of the technology and visualization software that I use in my coursework at Penn State.
Analysts show Bond and M a new lead at MI6 HQ with an interface that displays geographical data integrated with suspect profiles. It’s no surprise that the interface resemables Microsoft Surface (product placement?). I wish my i2 Analyst Notebook graphs could look this snazzy.
The current visualization analysis industry standard in the U.S. Intelligence Communitys’ A-Space and much of law enforcement in the UK and Canada is i2 Analyst Notebook (the same software that Security and Risk Analysis majors are using in SRA 231: Decision Theory and Analysis). My own experience with this program has been somewhat of an annoyance. Much of the problem lies in the inability to quickly assemilate and categorize the data for analysis in these visualization tools. I’ve heard from some professionals that Analyst Notebook is more often used as an investigative or forensic tool after a crime or event has occurred.
James Bond may make it look easy, but it takes a lot of hard work and critical analysis to create a valuable intelligence product. The interface for presentation to a decision maker is only the icing on the cake.
Tags: analyst notebook, i2, intelligence analysis, intelligence product, james bond, quantum of solace, visualization technology