New York – A revolutionary new search engine that computes answers rather than pointing to websites will be launched officially today amid heated talk that it could challenge the might of Google.
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Wolfram Alpha, named after Stephen Wolfram, the British-born computer scientist and inventor behind the project, takes a query and uses computational power to crunch through huge databases.
The service can compute the distance between two cities, the population of a country at a specific date and the position of the Space Shuttle at a given moment. The user does not have to search through links provided by the engine; the answer comes immediately and, if appropriate, is accompanied by charts or graphs. What it does that Google, at the moment, cannot do is provide answers to questions that have not been answered already.
The new service, available at wolframalpha.com, was previewed several months ago amid industry speculation that it could be a “Google killer”. Dr Wolfram, however, is at pains to point out that his brainchild is a “computational knowledge engine”, not a traditional search engine.
A physics prodigy who earned a PhD aged 20, Dr Wolfram, 49, founded Wolfram Research, in Illinois, which develops advanced software called Mathematica, used mainly by scientists. Mathematica has built up a number of databases and Wolfram Alpha is an attempt to bring them to a wider audience. The service is free but the company plans to include advertising eventually and to offer paid versions with extra features. Dr Wolfram said that Wolfram Alpha was a “long-term project” and he hoped to broaden the databases that it uses.
Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, the website, said: “They’re saying they’re not trying to wipe out Google, but they feel they do the kinds of searches that Google doesn’t handle. If you’re trying to get facts, this might be a handy kind of encyclopedia for you.”
Last week Google previewed a new experimental service called Google Squared, which will automatically produce spreadsheets of information from search terms.
Not a tbreat to google maybe to wikipedia, two different programs
Sorry but it has a long way to go before it can be used for anything remotely useful. It only has the data which has been processed by their staff (basically nothing). Though it will change the Jewish date to the secular date. And considering they only give facts interesting to note the borders of certain countries the 3 country solution).
I think we’ll all just hold our breaths and wait for google squared to come out. Then we might actually be able to find some useful information.
Microsoft used to be the king of all kings. Look at them today. The stock is in d’rerd. They are stuck in developing new products so no one is interested anymore in microsoft. Google will fall one day as well. Just give it sometime.
I’m sorry no one has all the answers only hashem just from the way they talk they won’t last
A program that has all the answers?
Big Deal!
I’ve got teenage children at home and belive me, they got all the answers!
It has a long way to go. It doesn’t give you all relevant info yet and most words you put in you get “Wolfram|Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input.” It’s also not a threat to Google but rather a competition with Wikipedia which is a non profit entity so…..
chacha answers all the questions.
Wolfram’s been around for many years – their Mathematica program is great if you’ve got kids taking calculus in college (it’s used by engineers and misused on Wall Street as well).
If they’d market this thing as a super online calculator instead of a Google killer, they’d have a winner.
Actually #10 , chacha is manned by people, which means that when you text them a question, a human then goes and searches the internet to find your answer. That’s not very efficient if you have the search submission rates of google. The desire is to automate the process.
I triedt it.
Google has nothing to worry about.
Not a challenge to google at all. Wolfram seems to be a useless hyped up calculator. thats all.
im waiting for the day when we have torah collaboration translation commentary comments postings and links and clickers!