Wolfram Alpha

marksi · Mon 18 May, 2009 09.35

A new type of search engine. I'm quite impressed.

If you're looking for any type of statistical result to a query, it would appear to blow Google out of the water.

http://www02.wolframalpha.com/

Pete · Mon 18 May, 2009 09.45

tsk at you posting a few moment before me. Yay at the merge button.

Anyhow, I'm less than convinced.

Let's give it a go.

I want to know about the aurora borealis. So let's type in "northern lights"
http://www05.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=northern+lights

Assuming "northern lights" is a book | Use as a movie instead

oh, right. maybe it's like ask jeeves, you have to ask it a question.
"what makes the northern lights?"
http://www05.wolframalpha.com/input/?i= ... +lights%3F

Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input
Related inputs to try:
Books: northern lights
Miscellaneous: direction northern

oh. well I suppose it's a fact engine, having read the info a bit.
Type the city you live in, it suggests
http://www05.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=dundee

oh but that's just very basic crap from the little box on the side of wikipedia.

Well I suppose it's mathematical, let's try "2 + 2"
http://www05.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2+%2B+2

Input:2+2
Result:4
Number name:four
Visual representation: * * * *

Great

lukey · Mon 18 May, 2009 09.56

It's certainly interesting in its own right, but if I hear it referred to as a 'Google killer' one more time I may have to slap Maggie Mash around a bit.

I can't even really say it's competing directly, other than in the realm of Google's in-line calculation/unit conversion capacity which is hardly its killer app.

To put it another way, until it can take me directly to some obscure MSDN white paper, or the middle of a forum topic I vaguely remember reading six months ago, it's not even trying to compete with Google.

However, looking at it on it's own merits, it looks like it would have some potential. The first random bit of data to guess it might be able to handle was GDP, so throwing "united kingdom, france, spain gdp" at it gave me a nice table. So, erm, well done it.

marksi · Mon 18 May, 2009 10.59

I didn't call it a "Google killer" as the subject suggests!

Pete · Mon 18 May, 2009 11.01

sorry i was using it in a mocking tone, it seems to have take my thread's title insteaf of yours

marksi · Mon 18 May, 2009 13.23

Now I've decided it's got potential but is rubbish.

Type in "Northern Ireland".

Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input.

Spencer For Hire · Mon 18 May, 2009 15.12

marksi wrote:Now I've decided it's got potential but is rubbish.

I think you've hit the nail on the head there. Its knowledge base seems extremely limited at the moment. "How tall is Nelson's Column?" works, but "How tall is the Blackpool Tower?" doesn't.

As Hyma mentioned, it seems to be a bit like Ask Jeeves, except it's even poxier. Given time, if it improves people might use it as well as Google, but I can't see a search engine like this replacing it. Chances are if it looks like it's going to take off, Google will probably buy it anyway.

The name's really crap too. 'Google' is instantly memorable, catchy and easy for thickos to spell. Wolfram Alpha is too long, and sounds like an obscure Doctor Who baddie.

cdd · Mon 18 May, 2009 15.34

It's intersting, I never try to search this way but sometimes google surprises me with a nice "answer bar" at the top of the page. I went onto this really wanting to like it but I am rather unimpressed.

Why are the results pointlessly done as graphics? I mean "copyable plaintext" is all very well but I haven't yet seen what the graphics achieve other than a rather nasty font.

I tried this for example which should be right up its street - individually it has all this data -

mass of apple in KG * gravitational acceleration on earth * height of empire state building in Metres

But it wouldn't calculate it for me. It's no worse than google, but it's no better either, hardly the holy grail of computational knowledge.

It'll improve if people use it but as said above people probably won't.

scottishtv · Mon 18 May, 2009 19.19

I quite like how if you type in a date and year it'll tell you how long ago it was, in days, weeks etc. I've never thought of my life in numbers of days before. Still, got a couple of years to go before I celebrate my 10,000th day of life.

Gavin Scott · Mon 18 May, 2009 19.30

It all goes downhill around 13,629 - although I'm confident tomorrow will be better.

scottishtv · Mon 18 May, 2009 19.34

It's already going downhill - I just realised I've actually only got a year and a half.

Also, doesn't say much for the search engine if the only use I have for it is to work out another day to get presents.