Super Bowl 2015: can tech predict the result?

Super Bowl XLIX is here with the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks battling it out for glory in Arizona, but can technology accurately predict which team will take home the Lombardi Trophy?

The game is set to be one of the closest clashes in years, with the Patriots' strong passing game and star Quarterback Tom Brady on one side and the Seahawks' incredible defensive backs and outstanding Running Back Marshawn 'Beast Mode' Lynch on the other.

Here are the computers' Super Bowl 2015 predictions...

Madden 15
The famous NFL sim game made by EA Sports has predicted that the Patriots will win. This year's annual Madden Super Bowl simulation reckons the Seahawks will be beaten in a 28-24 nail-biter after leading in the third quarter following a textbook touchdown run from Marshawn Lynch.

According to the simulation, Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady will score all four of the team's touchdowns and will also take his third MVP award.

The Madden prediction has called the Super Bowl result correctly 8 out of the last 11 times, so it's worth paying attention to.

Predictalator
It's good news for Seattle from the Predictalator as it calls a victory for the Seahawks at Sunday's clash. The advanced sports forecasting software plays every game 50,000 times before it's actually played, taking into account as many factors as possible.

The Seahawks won in 57% of the simulations with an average final score of 23-20.

Cortana
Microsoft's Cortana is picking the Patriots to win with an incredibly close score of 24-23. The Windows Phone virtual assistant made its prediction using algorithm from Microsoft's Bing search engine.

As well as using traditional game stats to predict the results, Bing Predicts also makes use of public opinion thanks to social data from Facebook and Twitter.

[ UFO fans spot tiny spacecraft orbiting asteroid as it passes Earth ]

Bing Predicts had a pretty good success rate, correctly picking both conference title games along with the winner of the 2014 World Cup, so it's hard to ignore.

Nate Silver
Using a model based on the well-established Elo ratings system, the famous American statistician says that the Seahawks are the favourites to win.

[ WhatSim card for WhatsApp offers free calls anywhere in the world ]

The system looked at various data from the playoffs including home field advantage and prior performance and then simulated the games thousands of times.The Seahawks were the eventual Super Bowl champions in 35% of the simulations, while the Patriots won in just 22%.

Silver successfully predicted the Seahawks as Super Bowl champions in 2014.

Siri
We asked Apple's virtual assistant Siri to predict the result and it told us that the Patriots are the likely victors. This was based on the 12-4-0 win/lose/tied game stats from both teams, with the Patriots getting extra credit for its 5-3-0 away game count.