This is straight out of Minority Report. Police in Yonkers, N.Y., are using a computer to predict crimes, and it’s actually working.

According to the computer’s analysis, there would be a robbery between 8 p.m. and midnight on Wednesday on South Broadway.

“He predicted it and he was right,” Police Commissioner Robert Taggart said.

Anthony Jimenez, 17, of Gastonia, N.C., and Richard Pino, 20, of 108 Highland Ave., Yonkers, were arrested and two guns confiscated after a 25 year old woman was robbed of her cell phone at 8:44 p.m. Wednesday at South Broadway and Ludlow Street, police said. They were charged with first-degree robbery and first-degree criminal use of a firearm, both felonies. — Live Science

So police had a couple of guys watching the area, and the victim was able to quickly find the police officers. Police apprehended the subjects just a few blocks away.

More news coverage is available from The Journal News. A brief overview of the new technology, called “discovery informatics,” is available from Technovelgy. It has already found uses in biology, medicine and pharmacology. This is the first known report of it being used successfully outside the biological sciences.