When police officers in Minority Report predicted who would commit crimes, and stopped them before they happened, it was considered so futuristic the film was set in 2054.

电影《少数派报告》中的警察能预测谁会犯罪，并在他们实施犯罪之前阻止他们。这样的场景因太过虚幻，所以被设置在2054年。

But, police in Berlin are considering adopting a similar software that predicts crimes and is named ‘Precobs’ - in a nod to the sci-fi film.

然而德国柏林警方最近在考虑采用与之相似的软件以预测犯罪行为，并将其命名为“Precobs”——以此向该科幻电影致敬。

Other forces, including police officers in two American states and London’s Metropolitan Police are also trialling predictive systems to catch would-be criminals.

美国两个州和英国伦敦警察署等一些国家警力也在试验预测系统，用以协助找到潜在犯罪人员。

Developed by a German firm, the software program predicts when and where a crime is most likely to occur, based on different sets of data.

这项软件项目由德国一家公司研发，基于对多组数据的研究以预测犯罪最有可能发生的时间地点。

It is being tested by police in the southern state of Bavaria.

德国巴戈利亚州（Bavaria）南部的警署正试用该软件。

‘The Berlin police is first waiting for the results of the trial run in Bavaria’ before deciding on on whether to acquire Precobs, a spokesman said.

一位发言人称：“柏林警方要先等待巴戈利亚州测验结果，然后决定是否采用Precobs系统。”

The name is a contraction of ‘Pre-Crime Observation System’.

“Precobs”的全称是“预防犯罪观测系统”（Pre-Crime Observation System）。

The ‘Precobs’ title borrows deliberately from the ‘precog’ term used in Minority Report referring to three psychics who predict crimes before they happen.

该词显然引用了电影《少数派报告》中的“Precog”一词，这个词指影片中可预知人们的犯罪行为的三名“先知”。

The 2002 movie starring Tom Cruise and directed by Steven Spielberg was based on a story by Philip K Dick.

这部2002年公映的电影由汤姆·克鲁斯主演，斯蒂文·斯皮尔伯格导演，改编自菲利普·迪克的小说。

The German Precobs system relies on data of the location, time and other details of past crimes, such as home break-ins.

德国的Precobs系统主要依据为先前犯罪行为发生的位置和时间等数据，如入室盗窃。

When a new incident is reported, the software analyses the data to look for a pattern that will point to a future target.

一旦有新案件被录入，该软件就会分析数据，找到可指出未来犯罪目标的犯罪模式。

It was developed by the Institute for pattern-based Prediction Technique in Oberhausen.

这项技术由德国奥伯豪森州的模式图预测技术研究所研发。

The initial results from tests on burglaries in the Bavarian cities of Munich and Nuremberg are ‘promising’, the state's interior minister Joachim Herrmann said in a progress report last month.

巴戈利亚州内政部部长若阿欣·赫尔曼（Joachim Herrmann）在上月的进度报告中讲道，来自慕尼黑和纽伦堡的部分巴戈利亚城市的入室盗窃案测试结果初步显示Precobs是“有成效的”。

But a civil rights activist voiced concern in Tuesday's Berliner Zeitung that personal data could eventually be used, instead of the currently anonymous information.

不过，一位民权活动家在柏林12月2日发行的报纸Berliner Zeitung中表示，虽然目前该系统使用的的数据是匿名信息，但他担心个人数据最终还是会被其利用。

（翻译：佳木China 编辑：Julie）