Air Force invests in information discovery

Cymfony Inc., a commercial developer of media analysis software, won three contracts from the Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate for solutions that will improve intelligence gathering.

The three contracts, awarded through the Small Business Innovation Research program, total more than $2 million, the company said.

Under the terms of the contracts, Cymfony, Newton, Mass., will develop information extraction, text mining and analysis software to assist in Air Force Intelligence and Homeland Security Department efforts.

Cymfony chief executive officer Andrew Bernstein said the awards demonstrate that the company's information extraction technology is well suited to government use.

"In today's world of heightened security and improved legislation, Cymfony [provides] organizations in both government and commercial settings with?technology solutions that enable them to combine real-time analysis with actionable intelligence," Bernstein said.

The company was founded in 1996 to create software called InfoXtract for the federal government. It then turned its attention to the commercial market with a product called Dashboard, which helps media professionals measure, analyze and manage global brands, messages and perceptions.

The three programs that Cymfony will work on are a text mining solution for identifying hidden patterns in documents; enhanced extraction software to better pinpoint times and dates of events; and new extraction software to identify and address gaps in current information discovery technology.