In my wanderings I was visiting this page (http://www.aaai.org/Conferences/IAAI/2009/iaai09talks.php) and looked http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_Alpha up.
"The engine is based on natural language processing, a large library of algorithms and an NKS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science) approach to answering queries."
http://mashable.com/2009/05/17/wolfram-easter-eggs/
http://mashable.com/2009/05/17/better-wolfram-easter-eggs/
and it has a[n ironic] sense of humour: http://www18.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=comment+allez+vous%3F
but fear not, because http://www.sagerock.com/blog/wolframalpha-not-google-killer/
(jeepers, Wolfram Research, is there anything you're not involved in? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numb3rs#Representation_of_mathematics))
one neat thing, there's a built-in graph-generator for names... you can see how popular your name has been over the last 50 years or so.
( When (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bewitched) did "Bewitched" air? Just as I suspected... (http://www18.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Darren) :sigh: [ ps: potayto, potahto (http://www18.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Darin) ] ... never underestimate the power of the media (http://www18.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Seth). )
Not a Google killer, but pretty darn cool (http://www00.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=What+is+the+weather+in+Edmonton+Alberta) (and way cooler than "Cuil (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=cuil+pointless&aq=f&oq=&aqi=)", or that new Microsoft crap that has amazingly good marketing... can't even remember its name! Oh yeah, no wonder. (http://www.google.com/search?q=bing%20stupid%20name))
BZZT! Not even close man, Wolfram Alpha still bases results on structured data, at best it will be able to better understand questions but it's still based on layers of strictly deterministic responses (based on my understanding from reading articles these last 3 months or so anyway).
As for not being a Google competitor, well the launch was ridiculously hyped (and hilariously overloaded right off the bat). I think they wanted users to start associating Q&A with Wolfram Alpha rather than just plugging it into Google all the time.
It's a great look into the future, but for now it's just a toy.
A fun toy, with charts and graphs and tables and whatnot :)
Quote from: Darren Dirt on July 07, 2009, 01:30:22 AM
A fun toy, with charts and graphs and tables and whatnot :)
Well, that's true heh!