Cortana Has Predicts The 2014 World Cup Final

Cortana is now 14-0, and is on an unprecedented prediction streak. She has successfully picked the Winners of the last 14 matches of the World Cup in Brazil. Her semi-finals match predictions were her biggest test, and she passed with flying colors.

As for the World Cup finals game, we now have the winner picked! Cortana cautiously predicts that Germany will win the 2014 World Cup over Argentina and Brazil will take 3rd place. 

This World Cup has been a wild ride for Soccer fans and for Microsoft machine learning engine. Can Cortana get away with a perfect 16-0 record? If so, this is a huge win for Microsoft’s Windows Phone Personal Assistant Cortana and Bing’s machine learning software.

Bing is Google’s main competitor, and although most people are using Google for their internet searches, this is not because Bing is inferior, but because of habit. The term “Google it” is synonymous with looking things up on the internet, and this is very hard for Bing to overcome.

Microsoft’s prediction engine has recently been putting a positive face to Bing, and this is something that Bing needs. Regardless of what happens with Cortana’ s prediction, this recent publicity is an example of how Bing’s presence will grow in the mind of consumers.

Will she be proved wrong this time around or will she further cement her growing reputation as the most outstanding predictor of World Cup games since "octopus Paul.

If this prediction does come true, then it will be Germany's first World Cup title since the country's win was against Argentina in the 1990 final.

Following last night's semi-final which Argentina won on penalties, jonesarena asked:

"Who will win the match between Argentina and Germany?"

Cortana, which is available on Microsoft's Windows Phone 8.1 software, replied:

"Probably Germany. But you never know what can happen in the beautiful game..."

Cortana vs Paul the Octupus

The digital assistant's count of accurate predictions has exceeded those of Paul the Octopus - the sea creature which supposedly had psychic abilities and went on to predict the winning team in eight of the matches at the lat World Cup - including the final.

Cortana's gets its predictions from Microsoft's Bing search engine, which has been configured to offer World Cup predictions. Also worth noting is that the predictions aren't restricted to just sports events. The search engine has also forecast the outcomes of several reality-TV shows, including The Voice, Dancing With The Stars and American Idol.

How Does Cortana Predict World Cup 2014 Match Outcomes?

"The process of predicting outcomes of sporting events is unlike voting show predictions, as popularity and some sentiment signals do not play similar roles in determining who wins a contest", said Microsoft in a blog post.

"Rather, the actions and performances of a handful of individuals solely determine who wins, loses, or ties. For the tournament, our models evaluate the strength of each team through a variety of factors such as previous win/loss/tie record in qualification matches and other international competitions and margin of victory in these contests, adjusted for location since home field advantage is a known bias."