Google labs have just launched a pretty interesting thing: It’s not exactly predictions yet but it sure looks like it.
You suggest a set of words and Google “predicts” you the following ones!
I tried it out with: W. Bush/ Clinton / Bush / Reagan / Carter and the results were very impressive, I leave it to you to try it out:-)
This is were it happens: http://labs.google.com/sets
The interest is obvious for anyone looking for key words relevant to his content. You’re following me..?
Watch Michael Arrington, Ouriel Ohayon, Loic Le Meur and Robert Scoble make their predictions on the U.S elections during the TechCrunch 50 conference in San Francisco.
You can make your predictions on MyPronostic.com and don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS feed of the blog on the top of the page.
So what is your prediction for the US election?
Watch the teaser here: http://blog.mypronostic.fr/?p=47
And tell us what you think!
Mypronostic.com is happy to announce all Turf fans the opening of horseracing predictions, today September 3rd.
Every day make your forecasts for the French Quinté+, Tiercé and more. Don’t hesitate to consult the experts prédictions or just become an expert yourself : Your predictions have a value for turf bookmakers.
Coming soon, Irish and British horse racing, you can’t miss that!
The PronosTeam
The U.S. has dominated the medal count for the past three Summer Olympics. Most experts predict that rising China will clean up in Beijing, but a Wall Street Journal forecast differs.
By DARREN EVERSON
August 8, 2008; Page W1
With all due respect to the myriad political and environmental issues surrounding the Beijing Olympics, the Summer Games are still games. And there’s one basic question that needs to be answered: Who is going to win?
China, according to the small band of experts that specialize in predicting the outcome of the Games. There are 302 gold medals at stake and most of the academics, economists and sports experts that have crunched the numbers favor the Chinese to win the gold-medal count for the first time, edging out the Americans. But they still have to play the games. Luciano Barra, a longtime Italian Olympic official, did an event-by-event projection of medal winners, based on the results of the most recent world-championship competitions in each sport. He predicts the U.S. will handily win both the gold-medal count and the overall-medal count, which includes silver and bronze. A Wall Street Journal forecast predicts likewise.
With China a rising economic and sports powerhouse, this year’s Games promise to provide the most captivating medal race since the Cold War. The count won’t be decided in star-studded, low-medal events like basketball. Nor will there be many pivotal head-to-head clashes between the U.S. and China, since the two countries’ spheres of sporting prowess mostly don’t intersect. Instead, for clues on who’ll win national Olympic bragging rights, look to the results in the lower-profile but medal-rich sports of rowing (14), shooting (15) and weightlifting (15). If the Chinese are cleaning up — they’re already strong in the latter two, and they’ve focused greatly on rowing — they could prevail in the end.
Women’s artistic gymnastics, a six-event sport and one of the few where China and the U.S. both possess top contenders, is another battleground. On the U.S. side, much is riding on star swimmer Michael Phelps, who could win eight golds alone.
Handicapping the Olympics is difficult because there are so many events and variables at work. Some forecasters focus on a country’s recent economic history and population, rather than the athletes themselves, to make their medal-count predictions. The Wall Street Journal did its own forecast, taking into account recent national and international competitions in every Olympic sport and interviews with experts. Then, instead of anointing an absolute first-, second- and third-place finisher in each event, the forecast assigned probabilities to the top medal contenders. The U.S. softball team, which outscored its opponents 71-6 in the last world championship, is a heavy favorite to win the gold, while the German women’s soccer team — which won the 2007 World Cup but has strong rivals in Brazil and the U.S. — is only a slight one. With the help of sports actuary John Dewan, owner of Baseball Info Solutions, we tallied those probabilities and ran 1,000 simulations to calculate the chances of a host of outcomes, like China’s winning the gold-medal count.
Our prediction: The U.S. will likely continue its Olympic winning streak, both in golds (47 to 38 over second-place China) and total medals (110 to 93, with China second and Russia third on both counts). The Americans’ strength lies primarily in swimming and track and field, where they are projected to get 29 golds. The Chinese athletes will likely do little in those two sports, which together account for 81 of the 302 available golds, diminishing their chance of winning the most golds. To be sure, our model might be overly influenced by the opinions of American observers, and injuries and disqualifications could affect the actual results. Yet, according to the simulations, there is only a 7.4% chance of China winning the gold-medal tally, which in most countries is considered the standard of Olympic supremacy. (Americans tend to focus on the overall count, says Darryl Seibel, a U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman.)
The U.S.S.R. dominated medal counts from 1972 until 1992, after which the Soviet Union’s former republics began fielding independent teams. Starting in 1996, the U.S. has won the gold- and overall-medal counts in the past three Summer Olympics. China has been gaining, though. After winning five golds in 1988, the Chinese have narrowed the gold-medal gap in each Summer Games since. The margin last time was 36-32, U.S. over No. 2 China.
Andrew Bernard, a professor of international economics at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, sees China nudging past the U.S. for the gold-medal crown, 37-36. He predicts the medal count based on a model that weighs four factors: population, per capita income, past performance and host-nation effect. Mr. Bernard claims 96% accuracy in the 2000 and 2004 Games.
Simon Shibli, head of the Sport Industry Research Centre at the U.K.’s Sheffield Hallam University, says that the Bernard model understates the gold-medal capabilities of countries that are taking a strategic approach to improvement — like China, which through its “Project 119″ campaign has aimed to improve its results in athletics and water sports. (The number 119 refers to the number of golds available in those sports in 2001, when the project began.) By using regression analysis — a statistical method of finding a relationship between variables — he projects China to top the gold-medal standings with 46 golds.
Mr. Barra, the official who was deputy chief executive of Italy’s 2006 Turin Winter Games, started doing his Olympic forecasts in the 1990s to gauge how his country stacked up. He takes a different approach. The U.S. should win the gold count over China, 49-38, he says, based on the results of the most recent world championships.
In swimming, Mr. Phelps’s individual haul is another big question. He has a chance to break Mark Spitz’s record of seven golds in a single Olympics. Mr. Spitz, who set the mark in swimming in 1972, says he thinks Mr. Phelps will succeed. But an unusual element could affect the competition this year: the time of day the finals will be held. In order to accommodate NBC and its American audience, swimming finals — which customarily occur in the evening — will take place in the morning, during U.S. prime time. That could throw top contenders off, because they are used to taking it easy during morning preliminaries and then going all-out during the medal-deciding finals at night. “If I were Michael, I’d be screaming bloody murder,” Mr. Spitz says. (Our forecast puts Mr. Phelps’s chances of winning eight golds at 22%.)
While the world awaits the Beijing Games, the betting world yawns. Las Vegas sports books can’t take bets on amateur non-collegiate events like the Olympics, says Jerry Markling, chief of the enforcement division of the Nevada State Gaming Control Board. Besides, “the interest just isn’t there,” says John Avello, race and sports book director at the Wynn Las Vegas. Bettors like to watch what they’re betting on, he says, and the Olympics often occurs several time zones away, making viewing live events arduous.
But elsewhere, there are betting odds on events and propositions. As of yesterday, Bodog, an offshore betting site, had China as a slight favorite to win the overall medal count. “I’ve got to put some money together,” joked Mr. Bernard, who has the U.S. winning the total count easily.
Write to Darren Everson at darren.everson@wsj.com
Just 2 weeks before Wimbledon starts, it is the opportunity to predict who among the best tennis players this season can become the new champions on grass-court. Will last year’s winners Roger Federrer and Venus Willims keep their title?
And what about Nadal?!
After French Open Roland-Garros tournament, this week the top ranked are competing on clay and grass-court, preparing the next big tennis event: Wimbledon.
So, don’t hesitate to make predictions on MyPronostic.com for this week’s tournaments: ATP Halle (Gerry Weber Open, Germany), ATP Queen’s (The Artois Championships), WTA Birmingham (DFS Classic), WTA Barcelona Kia, ATP Sopot (Orange Prokom Open).
you can now make your predictions for USA box offices :
THE event: “Indiana Jones and the Cristal Skull”
What will be the gross for this wk? will it beat all records for its frist week release? will it break all records time?
make a forecast!
Tennis season is batting its ground on clay!
Make your predictions for this week’s tournaments: ATP Casablnaca, ATP P örtschach, WTA Strasbourg, Istanbul Cup….
Will J-W. Tsonga manage to win his first final match this season? What about the French Marion Bartoli? Without forgetting the coming back of the Australian Jelena Dokic! WTA Strasbourg can be the beginning of her return to the women’s top just within a few days before French Open Rolland-Garros, make a forecast for her matches to come!
- Password and login will now be able to be remembered
- New navigation system on the left side with direct access to Events / forecaster and pronostics
- Deep research to see past events
- Best forecaster catergorized
- More info about a forecaster
- Availability to ask a forecaster about specific pronostic
- Navigation with past and forward button with your browser