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Reddit's new 'predictions' feature turns polls into a game
Reddit has launched a new feature called Predictions, which can make polls more fun by giving you tokens to bet with.
Twitch viewers can bet their channel points on predictions
Twitch has introduced a new feature called Predictions for creators who want to encourage viewer participation on their channels. Predictions allow creators set events wherein viewers can use their Channel Points to predict an outcome. For instance, the host can broadcast a pizza-eating challenge with a prediction asking viewers if they think they can finish a table-sized pizza in 15 minutes.
Facebook is opening its experimental predictions app to all users
For better or worse, Facebook's Forecast will crowdsource users' predictions about important issues like the 2020 election and COVID-19.
Google Maps is improving travel ETAs with DeepMind AI
Google Maps' traffic predictions are 50 percent more accurate in some cities thanks to DeepMind's AI.
Hopper app now predicts hotel prices around the world
Hopper could already tell you the best time to buy tickets for a flight. Now, it can hook you up with the best prices for a hotel stay, as well. After initially only providing prices for hotels in New York City during a beta run, the popular travel app is now applying its powerful prediction engine to hotels around the world. Users will be able to book rooms through the app at the ideal team for more than 270,000 hotels across 230 countries.
Computers trump chemists by studying failed experiments
In science, the pursuit of truth requires constant experimentation and, inevitably, a few failures along the way. But that's okay, because learning from those failures is often necessary in order to uncover a new, remarkable breakthrough. Now, a team of researchers from Haverford College is trying to speed up this trial and error process with a machine-learning algorithm, capable of predicting successful chemical reactions.
Amazon's web services are smart enough to make predictions
You no longer have to run a tech giant (or work in a lab) to take advantage of learning computers. Amazon has launched a machine learning feature for Web Services that lets any developer use this computer intelligence to make predictions. Instead of having to sift through data yourself and spend ages fine-tuning algorithms, you let Amazon's servers comb through the info and create predictions largely on their own. This potentially saves you a ton of time, especially if you're running a small outfit that can't afford a lot of servers -- Amazon claims that it took 20 minutes to solve one problem that previously took 45 days.
Microsoft came remarkably close to predicting all 24 Oscar winners
Cortana isn't the only part of Microsoft that's interested in predicting the future. David Rothschild, an economist with the company's New York research lab, was behind the team that successfully guessed six of last night's biggest Oscar winners, including the awards for best film, director, actor and actress. In fact, across all 24 categories they only slipped up on four -- original screenplay, original score, animated feature and film editing.
Police are using software to predict where crime will happen
Police are unlikely to ever have a Minority Report-like ability to get inside would-be criminals' heads, but they may already have the next-best thing. Developers like PredPol are offering "predictive policing" software that tells cops where and when crimes are likely to happen based on the location, the nature of the crime and the time of day. The software knows that there's a good chance that a burglary or gang slaying will lead to similar activity in a given area, or that you'll see drunken fights outside of a dive bar in the early morning. Theoretically, police just have to patrol these areas more often to stop crime before it starts.
Cortana's now predicting the outcome of Premier League matches
Microsoft's Cortana has already proven itself to be quite the oracle. Last summer, the Windows Phone assistant accurately predicted almost all of the World Cup's knockout matches, and since then it's started guessing NFL games too. Of course, now that the Super Bowl's all wrapped up, you might have thought Cortana was ready to take a quick break. Well, think again. For its next trick, the Halo-inspired tool is tackling the UK's Premier League. Using Bing-analysed historical match data, Cortana will now happily predict the victor for any upcoming fixture. It's just a bit of fun, although based on its stellar track record, Microsoft's assistant could prove useful when deciding your next football bets.
Korean investment firm forecasts Guild Wars 2 expansion
This year's biggest trend thus far in the MMO space is to talk about the Guild Wars 2 expansion as if it's already here. But it's not! It hasn't even been announced yet. Gamers are speculating on whether or not it even exists. This didn't stop Daewoo Securities from predicting that NCsoft's income will see a nice boost in Q3 thanks to the sales of the presumed Guild Wars 2 expansion. Daewoo Securities is not an official NCsoft source, of course, but it sure does throw another bit of kindling on the fire. ArenaNet will be at PAX South very soon to discuss the future of Guild Wars 2, and while the word "expansion" hasn't been used, the expectation that it's going to be the big announcement has been echoed by our own Guild Wars 2 columnist. Whether or not it'll be out by Q3 2015 is another story altogether.
In 2011, Gartner made this hilarious prediction about the iPhone
It's 2015, which means that every analyst that said "By 2015...." in the past decade needs a fact check. Let's start with this delicious little nugget from the soothsayers at Gartner, shall we? According to Gartner's 2011 report, which aimed to forecast the next four years of the smartphone market, the following is supposed to be true as of today: Android will be the #1 mobile operating system. - True. Congrats. Android will command a 48.8% market share. - False, 84.4%. Not even close, really. iOS will hold a 17.2% share of the market. - False, 11.7%. Closer-ish? Research In Motion (BlackBerry) will hold 11.1% of the market. - False, 0.5%. Research In Motion doesn't even officially exist anymore, so that's another mark against them. This one might be the most outlandish of all, in hindsight. And this one is my favorite: Microsoft will the be #2 smartphone maker thanks to its Nokia deal, with 19.5% of the market, beating iPhone. - False, 2.9%. Nowhere near Apple. The only thing Gartner's analysts had correct was that Android would have a comfortable lead in overall smartphone market share, and even that prediction was wildly out of whack. It's remarkable that a research firm can be this wrong and yet still be relied upon for their analysis. Note: The data used for comparison comes from the Q3 2014 figures by IDC, so the numbers may be somewhat different today, but certainly not enough to hold any of these false predictions remotely true. Big hat-tip to Terence! Thanks!
The Think Tank: Massively's MMO industry predictions for 2015
It's that time of year for looking ahead and trying to predict just what will happen in the MMO industry in the year ahead of us. Will we play it safe this year or predict all sorts of wild and crazy things that everyone can quote and laugh about next December? Magic 8 ball says yes. Go big or go home when it comes to predictions! Join the Massively staffers for this next-to-last Think Tank of the year and share your own predictions in the comments.
Ask Massively: Scoring last year's MMO predictions
One of my favorite things to do every year is go back to the previous year's staff predictions. What did we think 2014 was going to look like in the MMO world back at the end of 2013? How wrong were we, and where did we hit eerily close to the mark? I won't include everything, just some of the more prophetic and ridiculous ideas our current staff offered a year ago. Feel free to share your own fulfilled prophecies down in the comments.
Windows Phone's Cortana assistant now predicts NFL football games
Windows Phone's Cortana assistant raised some eyebrows during the World Cup, when it accurately predicted all but one of the knockout matches (that Germany-Brazil upset caught nearly everyone off-guard). Microsoft was clearly happy with that result, as it's now applying those oracle-like abilities to NFL football games. Ask Cortana (or Bing on the web) who's likely to win an upcoming match and you'll quickly get a favorite. You sadly won't be told why that team will emerge victorious, although the Bing crew notes that the decision is based on a combination of stats, previous match-ups, and subtler criteria like stadium conditions. It'll be a long while before we know whether Cortana is as good at predicting American football as it is the international kind, but you can at least get her prognostications right away.
Researchers teach a computer to predict teen binge drinkers
Intervention during someone's teenage years is frequently the key to preventing alcohol abuse in adult life. It's good to know, then, that a group of scientists has found a way to predict that abuse at an early age using computer modeling. The approach teaches the computer how to spot a likely teen binge drinker by weighing 40-plus biological and social factors that include brain structure, any enabling genes, past events and personality traits. If a 13-year-old is already smoking because of an addictive personality or family influences, for instance, it's more likely that this child will pick up a dangerous drinking habit a few years later.
What do you want Apple to announce today?
WWDC is looming over our heads, ready to pounce later today, and there's no shortage of predictions floating around the web. It seems like a given that we'll get our first clear look at iOS 8 and the next OS X, but beyond that, it's a bit of a tossup. Announcing new hardware at WWDC isn't a well established habit for the company, though they've done it on occasion in recent years. Both the iPhone 4 and Mac Pro made their first official public appearances at the annual conference, so a device debut certainly isn't out of the question. If Apple is indeed hard at work on a wrist-worn wearable, a larger iPad, or any other top-secret gadget, the company's trending of holding special events for especially big product reveals suggests they'd save those for a later date. Of course, Apple isn't usually in the business of dropping $3 billion on an acquisition either, so there's an hint of unpredictability in the air already. I put the question to you: What do you most want to see from Apple today? %Poll-88365%
Feedback Loop: WWDC predictions, Dropcam Pro impressions and more!
Ring in the weekend with the latest edition of Feedback Loop. Apple's WWDC kicks off on Monday and we try to predict what will be announced, share impressions of the Dropcam Pro, discuss the viability of DIY data storage, talk about our favorite task management apps and wonder where all the good Windows 8 apps are hiding. Head past the break to find out what Engadget readers like you are saying.
Stanford turns to Twitter to track earthquakes
It's easy to tell when an earthquake hits an area full of Twitter users -- there's frequently a rush of panicked tweets within seconds of the ground shaking. If Twitter and Stanford University have their way, though, those posts could be useful for more than just alerting friends. They've conducted research showing that geotagged tweets can help model the effects of a quake while it's happening. When you combine geological data with the volume of related tweets within a given radius, it's easier to determine the intensity of tremors and accurately track how they spread.
How Apple eventually delivered on Gil Amelio's promise
Nobody really talks about Gil Amelio any more. Serving as CEO of Apple for just over a year, his tenure is overshadowed by the return of Steve Jobs and the eventual rise to greatness that the company is still enjoying today. But Gil Amelio was a smart man, and he identified a lot of what was wrong with Apple's game plan and message at the time, as is evident by this internal address that he put out just weeks after becoming CEO. Looking back, it's remarkable how accurate Amelio was regarding how Apple could get its groove back, and he paints a near perfect picture of the company Apple would later become, even without him at the helm. "We need to do some financial house cleaning, ridding ourself of some assets and infrastructure which just don't figure into our future game plan." That meant killing off a lot of the seemingly random product categories that Apple had begun to unsuccessfully dabble in. Jobs is often credited with actually delivering on this promise -- axing unpopular projects like the Pippin -- but it's clear that Amelio saw the problem and had at least partially begun the culling process. "The essence of our plan is simple: We're going back to our roots." Amelio certainly delivered on this, not only in terms of product focus but more literally by bringing back Steve Jobs... who would eventually lead a coup to oust him. "We think computer-based tools should be fun as well as fulfilling. This means we must put the customer -- the Apple user -- at the center of everything we do, and frankly, I think we've lost sight of that." Amen! Apple was at a strange crossroads in 1996. The company's scattershot approach was clearly a failure and a new direction was needed. The user-first model is something that Apple would eventually grasp on to and has yet to let it go. "We must simplify our line of products while differentiating them through innovation, deliver greater perceived customer value, increase the clarity and intensity of our marketing message, improve the value proposition for our family of third party developers, and simply and strengthen the organization while rebuilding many of our basic business processes." This reads like a list of things any current CEO could propose today if they wanted their company to be more like modern-day Apple. Apple knocked each and every one of these ideas out of the park. Today, Apple's product line is fairly simple but sets itself apart from the competition with unique features and overall quality, perceived customer value is what drives Apple's premium product pricing, its marketing is world class, third party developers flock to Apple's devices, and the company's business processes, while sometimes opaque, are serving it splendidly. "You will see a world full of graphics and visualization. You will also see new breakthroughs in the area of usability from Apple. Up until now, we've had to learn our computers. In the future, our computers are going to learn us." Is this man a psychic? Gil Amelio's days were numbered as soon as he completed the deal that brought Steve Jobs and NeXT into the fold, so his opportunity to deliver on these promises was practically non-existent. Despite this, everything about his vision for the future of Apple eventually came to fruition, and the company is now thriving. How much Amelio actually played a role in the turnaround can obviously be debated, but his eerily accurate predictions can't be denied.
