A few weeks ago, Microsoft helped to relaunch the official Eurovision Song Contest apps for Windows Phone and Windows 8.1. Now, the company's Bing search engine is trying its best to offer predictions on which country will win the contest.
Currently, the Bing Predicts website does not list Eurovision as one of the categories, but the predictions started around three days ago according to tips sent to Windows Central. Unfortunately, the Eurovision predictions do not seem to work for those in the U.S. and instead, is isolated to those in the UK and the rest of Europe. Considering the low-awareness of Eurovision in the States, this makes some sense.
The 2015 Eurovision finale is happening on Saturday, and in a press release issued on Monday, Microsoft said that Bing's engine was predicting Italy to win the whole thing. However, that has changed since the first semi-final was held, and now Bing is predicting that Sweden is the top country to win with a 17.2% chance.
So how does Bing figure out what the final results might be for Eurovision 2015? Microsoft says:
"The Eurovision Song Contest predictions are powered by Bing's Prediction Engine, a platform that consumes web and social data to draw on the collective wisdom of the crowd. Also, historical data from previous years' contests has been integrated to provide the context required to account for patterns that occur from competition to competition."
We will see if Sweden will indeed win on Saturday. In the meantime, you can check out the official Eurovision Windows Phone and Windows 8.1 apps right now:
Download the Eurovision Song Contest app from the Windows Phone Store (Free)
Download the Eurovision Song Contest app from the Windows Store (Free)
Source: Microsoft; Thanks, Dave D., for the tip and screenshot
