From catching terrorists and screening passengers at U.S. airports to analyzing high profile crime cases, to helping law enforcement interrogate suspects and to detecting incidences of financial fraud, there’s a new company named V who knows the value of telling the truth.
 
With the stakes higher than they’ve ever been in a post-9/11 world, the U.S. government is focused on evaluating and implementing new technologies that will enhance homeland security to make America a safer place.
 
Unlike thepolygraph, V’s "truth detector" is a new technologythat detects emotions and stresses in the voice without the constraints of physically being hooked up to a machine. While complementary to the polygraph, the truth detector has something the polygraph doesn’t - portability and the ability to be used in narrative discussions.  Whether used at an airport or border screening site or on a laptop, V touts the near-perfect accuracy of its truth detector at nearlya 100 percent accuracy rate versus the 79 percent accuracy rate of a polygraph*. The company also claims the technology can accurately analyze telephone conversations and tape recordings giving it the versatility to detect the truth real-time or days, months or even years later.
 
Founded seven years ago by a developer in Israel named Amir Liberman, the technology was developed in Israel to help counter terrorism. In August 2000, Liberman founded a company named Nemesysco to further develop the technology. This summer, Nemesysco’s technology will be available for the first time to the North American market through its exclusive reseller - a new company named V.
 
V’s co-founders -- Dr. Richard Parton and David Watson - started the company in April 2003. A clinical psychologist and a lawyer, respectively, they quickly saw the compelling need for the technology, especially in today’s more security conscious world.
 
"There’s a general feeling in the marketplace that lie detection needs to be improved," said Dr. Richard Parton, founder and CEO of V. "It’s a major advance in the evolution of the polygraph similar in magnitude to the shift in television from black/white to color TV."
 
Relying on layered voice analysis (LVA) technology, it is also dubbed the "DNA of thought," because it uses 2,000-8,000 mathematical algorithms and 128 different parameters to determine if a person is telling the truth. It does so by analyzing vocal patterns to determine the emotional state of the subject, tracking voice patterns to identify various levels of excitement, stress, uncertainty and deception. A key advantage of this technology is that it can eliminate profiling because it is objective and can alleviate privacy concerns because it is non-invasive.
 
V is headquartered in Richmond, Virginia with offices in Chicago, Illinois and Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. "We decided to locate our company headquarters in Virginia because of its proximity to Washington, D.C., the hub of government, homeland security and law enforcement in the U.S.," said David Watson, co-founder. "If you want to sell to the U.S. government -- and for V it’s one of our top markets -- it’s critical to have a presence near Washington, D.C."
 
In addition to the more obvious applications for V’s technology in government, homeland defense and law enforcement, V also plans to target the commercial sector in the near-term. Possible commercial applications include using the technology in a call center environment for quality assurance purposes or in insurance to protect against false claims. Future markets will include the entertainment and media industries.
 
LVA is currently being tested by a Wisconsin police department as well as the Air Force Research Lab as part of a study of voice analysis technology.
 

* in a report prepared by Dr. John J. Palmatier, he writes: "When asked to render a truthful, inconclusive or deceptive opinion, and the inconclusive decisions were excluded; the voice analyst then achieved a 100% rate of accuracy... When the polygraph examiner rendered a truthful, inconclusive or deceptive opinion, and the inconclusive decisions were excluded; a 79% rate of accuracy was achieved." The interesting factor here was that the study was conducted in a manor that disallowed training for the voice operator, while all six of the polygraph technicians were fully trained.