Amazing Austrians win Netflix prize, says newspaper

The June 28 edition of the Kurier (an Austrian daily newpaper) that I read on a flight has a story claiming that a team of Austrian programmers have won the Netflix award. That's consistent with the rumors that the winning team has been notified by Netflix, although no announcement has been made yet. That Austrian team is part of the BellKor team, which is one of the two contenders for the prize. So it is quite likely that these news are true. Amazingly, I could not find this information in English on the Internet -- what a hot blog this is! ;-)

It is sad though that BellKor was not at all mentioned in the article; it really looks like this was a primarily Austrian effort, which shows more than a little chauvinism.

Here is a link to the story (in German).