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Netflix prize close to being awarded

by on29 June 2009

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More than 10 per cent better


A computing
prize which has baffled geeks for more than three years is close to being solved.

Netflix offered a million dollars to anyone who could come up with an algorithm that was better than the one which it uses to recommend movies to subscribers. The price was being contested by two teams of geeks, Team Pragmatic Theory and Team Bellkor in Chaos who joined forces and submitted an algorithm that was 10.05 percent better.

Assuming the results are verified, that’s enough to edge the 10 percent improvement required to win the prize. Netflix has said that winning a 10 percent improvement on its recommendation algorithm for $1 million would be a tremendous bargain because it could help move higher numbers of movies and make the punters happy.

Thousands of teams tackled the problem for more than three years, sharing their results and algorithms along the way.
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