The Madden 2010 Similator predicts a 35-31 victory for the Saints in SB44

Each year since 2004, EA sports has simulated the results of the Super Bowl using their marvelous John Madden Football software. The set the system in CPU vs CPU combat mode, and they give the system a fresh load of the very latest statistical facts about team and player performance.

How good is the result? The Madden simulator has accurately predicted the outcome each and every year since 2004 with the sole exception of 2007. This was the year that the Giants upset the Patriots. Nobody called that one, and that's why we still play the games.

With the ever increasing sophistication of the software, the growing power of the CPUs, and every improving statistics, the simulator has been getting more and more accurate each year. In the past two seasons the accuracy of results of the simulator have been astounding

1. The simulator accurately predicted a 4 point victory for the Steelers over the Cardinals last year, missing the final score by only 1 point for each team.
2. The simulator predicted a 31-17 victory for the Colts over the Jets in the AFC Championship. It missed by just 1 point. The final was 30-17.
3. The simulator predicted a 34-31 victory for the Saints over the Vikings in the NFC Championship. Further, the simulator called for a last second field goal by the Saints. It turns out the Saints won 31-28 by a field goal in sudden death overtime.

Now Madden says the Saints prevail 35-31. Tomorrow, I intend to show you a simple spreadsheet of team statistics which demonstrates why that prediction is:

1. Totally reasonable and plausible
2. Exactly what we should expect from an unbiased simulation based on stats.

As I said to you once before: If you would like a friendly piece of betting advice, you should take the Saints and the points. Either the Saints will win it straight-up, or the Colts won't cover the 4.5 point spread. Either way, you will win money.

So what is being predicted for the iTablet

What follows is a hard and fast summary of pundit words regarding the upcoming release of the Apple iTable on Wednesday. No attempt at attribution will be made.

The Apple iTable is a new portable platform for media consumption and communication. It is framed within the body of a 10 inch touch sensitive LCD screen. You will need to learn a lot of gestures to make it go. The iTablet will do everything the iPod Touch does, but it will add the following:

1. The ability to enjoy high resolution media.
2. The ability to take high resolution snapshots
3. A webcam that will enable video teleconferencing
4. Automatic support for a local wireless-N hub.
5. The ability to plug into an Ethernet gigabit hub.
6. The ability to truly read PDFs and eBooks of various formats.
7. The price will be $999.95 USD
   

This ends the summary of the punditry.

Such a machine would be impressive, but I don't know that it would be world changing. As Leo LaPorte has said, if Apple doesn't surprise everybody, this announcement will be a failure. They are going to have to more than anybody expects if they want to change the technological landscape again.