Bing has predicted the World Cup 2014 match winners ... so far

By John Callaham
published

Since first adding support for Microsoft's Bing predictions engine in Cortana a few days ago, Windows Phone 8.1 users in the US have seen Bing correctly predict all of the winners in the 2014 World Cup football-soccer matches.

As previously reported, Windows Phone 8.1 can now tie into the Bing engine so when a person asks, via their smartphone, if a team will win their World Cup match, it will display Bing's prediction. Its search technology has been used to offer those prognostications based on a ton of different factors, including previous win/loss/tie record in qualification matches, home field advantage, the weather during the game and much more.

Since this feature was added Saturday, Bing has racked up an 8-0 record in predicting the winners of the World Cup tournament. Of course, there are still plenty of games to go before the event concludes. The next matches will be held on July 4. Hopefully, Bing's track record will remain perfect.

Of course, if you ask Cortana directly, you might get this kind of response:

cortana

What do you think about Microsoft's Bing engine making these kind of choices and could we see it extended to other sports?

Source: Microsoft Bing

John Callaham
John Callaham
100 Comments
  • https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BrYmc9mIMAI2olC.jpg Posted via Windows Phone Central App
  • The bigger they are, the harder they fall!!!
  • hey!! i generally sign in from the pc with my google account but i am unable to do that from the app ...since you are using the app, can you plz help me out on this thing ??
  • I log in through the site not my google account.
  • Nice :)
  • Nice.
  • It's fun and so far so good the netherlands :)
  • As a Mexican this comment hurts my feelings :'(
  • Why doesn't my Cortana do it? I'm fully up to date, and im asking the same question as everyone else
  • As an Englishman I'm naturally disappointed in my national team. However, I'm hoping the Netherlands do win the cup because my daughter will win a prize in her schools sweepstakes. Come on Holland.
  • Hope Germany wins the cup
  • I know they will do it!!!!!!! ;-D
  • Me too! (even though I'm a South African :) Im shouting for Germany &Netherlands!!
  • Same as me!! Too bad for our hopeless bafana bafana
  • Yea well.... Here's hoping they qualify in 2022.... LoL
  • We will go in battle with our Steel Helmets! Too soon?   For some reason, maybe I ask the wrong questions to her, Cortana is only giving me websearches when I ask her about any predictions on the worldcup. :/ I do not get a result like in the head picture shown.  
  • Hey radde, to get the answer you simply ask her "who will win the Belgium USA game"
  • Well, at least cortana gave me a answer that she does not know. But if I ask 'who will win the German France game' I'm back to the good old web search. :|
  • Auf geht's Deutschland!
  • Deutschland uber alles!
  • Sorry Guys BRASIL BRASIL [<o>]  
  • I honestly thought Brazil would take it all, but I think I saw somewhere Bing predicted that Germany will take the world cup.
  • Pity it can't accurately predict the weather where I am
  • I don't think anyone can accurately predict the weather
  • I don't have Cortana, what do I type in Bing search for the predictions?
  • Paul octopus RIP
  • +625
  • It's just incredible that she predicted every game correctly. Hope that her predictions for Germany will be correct (yesterday it was 57,9% for Germany). 4th title, 4th title. ^^
  • Taking nothing away from predictions. You should also consider the fact that there were zero surprises in round of 16, all group winners went ahead. The predictions in CostaRica and Spain groups would have been incorrect for most prediction engines. I am expecting Colombia and Belgium to surprise and CostaRica to give Dutch a scare :)
  • Well, let's see how it'll end. I just hope that Germany will make it to the final and wins the cup. ^^
  • Me too! I'm so excited for Friday!!!
    Hopefully Klose will shoot Goal #16.
  • +520 klose klose klose klose... C'mon coach let him start against france
  • As much as I want to support Bing, I hope it fails. Brazil must go down against Colombia! I'n not colombian but i'll root for them all the way! ;)
  • +920!!
  • Dream about it  BRASIL BRASIL 
  • Well, because Corana is still US only and soccer is watched mostly by women in the US, I understand, I frankly don't care much. Anyway, The Dutch will be World Champion, don't need Cortana for that. (just kidding of course). Lets See If I can beat Cortana.
  • Are you saying soccer is a feminine sport in the US? Are you referring to some stat somewhere or are you pulling that out of your ass?
  • Definitely a AMERICAN Football jock pulling shit out of his ass!
  • No, I am Dutch. Don't care for Football and Baseball.
  • No, thats what i have been told (watching the game, not playing the game). Men like baseball and Football more. But perhaps women watch the games because off those beautiful men that play the game.
  • Lol are you high? Not just women watch soccer here in the states. Of course we love our beloved basketball and football, but come world cup time, all sports fans watch it.
  • France for victory!!
  • They will surrender to Germany... as ALWAYS!
  • I loled xD
  • Lol
  • Reverse gear! NOW! They have Panzers!
  • Aussie, I think it'll be Columbia.
  • I want to see this applied to FIRST Robotics tournaments!
  • If its Holland it's good, or else fuck off
  • I wonder if it takes into account of divers winning last minute penalties though. ;)
  • It was a real penalty, and even if not, any experienced attacker would take that chance. It is how football works. The Mexican was just stupid putting that leg there, and being too late for the ball.
  • Just some light hearted banter lol.  If it was outside the area it would have been a foul, so technically, yeah, it was a penalty.
  • Dude, remember the first league match between espanol n Holland, espanol got the penalty even the defender didn't touched its boot... Its football... N Holland is a fighter
  • Haha. LOL
  • So far no upsets in the round of 16, big names won eventually, if she had predicted the early upsets of England, Italy and Spain, I would say that's prediction.
  • Yep, this is like winning an NCAA tournament pool by picking straight chalk.  Yawn.
  • I'm telling you guys, Cortana only knows this because she's actually from the future!
  • THIS!
  • ^This! LOL!
  • Dude, don't ruin Halo 5 :)
  • ^Cool! This. I think its a cool feature. I hope Microsoft continues to build out Cortana's feature set as she continues learning via her neural networks. Apples venture in the neural network realm is going to increase Siri's capabilities, and according to Lee allow her to catch up functionally to Cortana and Google Now in six months. Cortana's lead needs to build out on various application scenarios to keep her in a unique and advantageous position.
    Microsoft's CORTANA is the FUTURE and That's Not All Talk
    https://jltechword.wordpress.com/2014/07/02/microsofts-cortana-is-the-fu...
  • Wow. Great article man. I hope Microsoft actually does that and makes Cortana completely cross-platform. The end result would be much like Apple's Continuity, which I think is actually pretty cool For example: User: [to phone] Cortana, start booting up my laptop Cortana: Ok User [send message to internal power system and begins startup] User: Cortana, unlock my front door User: [to laptop] Cortana, send a message to my wife saying I'm home Cortana: Okay User [transmits request to phone and sends message] That's something I'd really like to see. Here's to Cortana OS!
  • I wish Bing would predict when US carriers are getting the official WP 8.1 + Cyan release. How much longer do we have to wait? All summer?
  • Its brazil or Netherlands only
  • If i ask a "who will win..." question, I just get web search results
  • Yeah, I've never seen a prediction. I've asked a few times.
  • Yeah, same here. I've tried several different ways to ask, but I just get web search results.
  • Try https://twitter.com/ebin_5/status/484198644455731200
  • It wasn't working for me until yesterday... it seems to be on a random/slow rollout.
  • Try saying "predict who will win"
  • Try ' who will win Germany or france'
  • Its Netherlands or Germany that will take the cup.
  • I don't get this card in the screen shot, what are you ask asking/typing to get the predictions?
  • Cortana: There is no "points" in the Fifa World Cup.
  • Yes there is, during group stage :D (I know you meant for winning)
  • No, if you ask cortana "who will win the world cup" she says "the team with the most points" even though there are no points past the group stages.
  • It's a joke.  The team that plays in the final with most points always wins.  The points aren't referring to group stage points.  It's referring to the points in the game itself.
  • Okay, so what exactly do I ask her?
  • For those that where wondering as well what to ask because it isnt anywhere in this article: "who will win country1 country2 game?"
  • Thanks. She's pretty damn picky. You'd think saying, "Who will win the World Cup match between France an Germany?" would work. It just yields Bing results.
  • Anyone going to start betting due to the predictions?
  • The funny thing is she tells us the team with the most points will win the Cup.. Last time I checked we don't work with points during this competition, but the simple score for every game decides... Points are accumulated by every country but that is only for the purpose of deciding the new ranks
  • Gambler:  I wanna make FIFA bet. Bookie: Sure, who do you want?  Wait is that a Windows Phone? Gambler: Yes. Bookie: NO BETS FOR YOU!!!
  • Just you wait. In a couple months she'll be counting cards too
  • I was thinking of taking Cortana to the horse tracks or maybe greyhound racing..  Win/Win because if I am not 'predicted' the right results, I can go to court against Microsoft for false advertisement and loss of financial capital:) lol
  • Oh and yes I would love to see Bing and MS expand this feature! My android friends are pissed their precious"google now" isn't anywhere near to doing this just yet :D
  • I love asking her before every game, but the command should be more flexible it's one sentence only make more
  • beware of Argentina.
  • Will like to see this in action during the 2014-15 NHL season. See if its better that that octopus during payoffs.
  • I knew the US was going to lose yesterday because Cortana told me a few days ago. Kinds creepy in a weird kind of way.
  • I seriously doubt they predicted Costa Rica will end up in quaterfinals.
  • Cortana the new Paul octopus
  • Wow! Bing is as good as Paul the Psychic Octopus
  • pure amateur comments here. THE ONLY CHAMPION WAS, IS, AND WILL BE ARGENTINA.
  • Queries are handled better when you ask the "who will win the [1] [2] game?" question while following the order of the home/away position of the matches: FRA-GER, BRA-COL, ARG-BEL, NED-CRC.
  • I think France will be the winner this year
  • Sorry to disappoint you, but Zidane left the team back in 2006 just after finishing the World Cup in Germany ;)
  • That's because every favorite has won! I bet it didn't predict Mexico dominating Netherlands only to lose on a obvious terrible call!
  • She didn't. She predicted the Netherlands over Mexico, and as well she was right on every other round of 16 game, as the service was rolled out to Cortana actually shortly before the BRA-CHI game.
  • VIVA Microsoft VIVA Brazil!!!