Bing's World Cup Predictions are only for English regions
Companies like Microsoft showcase computer technologies that can be used to predict outcomes of events regularly. The football World Cup 2018 starts today and it should not come as a surprise that Microsoft took the opportunity to predict the outcome of all group stage world cup matches.
When you search for world cup predictions on Bing, you may get a neat listing of all group stage matches of the World Cup 2018 and predictions on which team Bing thinks will win the game.
Predictions are not up for all games but they are provided for most games. There are not that many surprises as Microsoft's AI concluded that favorites such as Germany, Brazil, or France will win their group stage games.
Tip: You can also search for matches directly and may get predictions for those even if the full list of matches and results does not provide those at the time.
Bing predicts, for example, that Spain will win against Portugal, when you search for FIFA World Cup 2018 Portugal vs Spain 15/06/2018. Just replace country names and the date to get predictions for other matches.
But this article is not really about the World Cup or match predictions but about Microsoft's constant neglecting of users who don't live in the United States.
Bing is a global search engine that provides localized results and is even used as the default (and only) search engine of the Windows 10 operating system if you keep web search functionality enabled.
If you search for world cup predictions, you get the neat listing of game predictions by Bing only if you use the United States version of Bing or have set Bing to another English-speaking region. If you search using localized versions of Bing, you don't get the list if predictions at all. It is as if they don't exist, and that is even if you have set the interface language to English.
It can't be something technical that prevents Bing or Microsoft from displaying results
You can switch to United States in Bing to use the United States version; it is highly suggested that you do as it is quite common that Microsoft publishes new features only (or first) there.
It can be something small like predictions on who is going to win the World Cup 2018 in Russia, but also major changes that add new features to Bing.
Do the following to switch to another region:
- Go to Bing if you are not on the site already.
- Select Menu > Settings.
- Click on Country/region, or load https://www.bing.com/account/general directly.
- Select "change your country/region" on the page under Country/Region.
- Select United States - English.
- Scroll down and click on save.
Bing is switched to United States in the process. You can select a different English-speaking region instead and will get the predictions as well but you will still miss out on new features that are more often than exclusive to the U.S. version of Bing.
Now You: Is Microsoft shooting itself in the foot by restricting features to certain regions? And, which team is going to win the world cup?
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Some predictions seem a little too obvious, even if you are not a football fan like me, but Spain vs Portugal is really debatable IMO.
Well we will see how accurate the predictions are ;)
What’s the aim of predictions unless a proof of concept of AI capacities?
Be noted that an accurate prediction is not a proof of a prediction’s reliability.
After Irma and her crystal globe here we are with Bing and its silicon AI : both should compete :=)
Anyway, let the games be played. World Cup 2018 is on grass and on air!
betting, would be my guess.