May 18, 2009, 4:51 PM ET The Geek’s Search Engine?
By Andy Jordan Wall Street Journal http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/05/18/wolfram-alpha-the-geeks-search-engine/?mod=rss_WSJBlog?mod= A new Web “search” engine is out, and it’s called Wolfram Alpha (geeks might prefer to call this initial version Wolfram Alpha Beta, but only they might find that funny). The makers are actually quite sensitive about making sure it’s not called a “search” engine. They call it a “computational knowledge engine.” It might also be called “the geek’s search engine.” It doesn’t mine the Web for pre-existing facts. It mines limited databases that the Wolfram Alpha team has amassed, curated and vetted for accuracy. Then it performs computations on those facts, giving you new, original data. Makers say it’s a Web engine that “answers questions.” Wolfram Alpha logged nearly 14 million queries during a pre-launch testing period over the weekend, during which time Twitter users tweeted information about a California earthquake on Sunday using searches from the engine. It’s rather useful for financial calculations, for instance. Say you want to figure out what your monthly payments might be for a 30-year, fixed-rate loan at 5.2% on a $1 million house. The engine will tell you in seconds your monthly payment would be $5,491, though it will get confused if you try to put that in the form of a question. It will also figure out the distance from the Earth to the moon, at the precise moment you’re looking. Founder Stephen Wolfram also developed the Mathematica computational software package that has been used for years by mathematicians and engineers. Wolfram Alpha is the latest iteration of his quest to reinvent science. His 2002 book “A New Kind of Science” seeks to reduce even the most complex riddles of science into simple formulas, and has come to be known as “NKS.” Mr. Wolfram takes that philosophy and, with Wolfram Alpha, hopes to make all the world’s knowledge computable. Such a bold claim might be met with a healthy dose of skepticism, but he remains undaunted, going ahead with the launch of an engine that he admits isn’t anywhere near finished. He wants to unleash it, in hopes the general public might not only get as excited as he is, but help in the data curating process. While there will inevitably be much comparison to Google, and even Wikipedia, Mr. Wolfram is not anxious to duplicate those engines, and even sounds open to pairing with other search engines on the Web. In fact, Sergey Brin of Google once interned for him and has apparently been shown a preview version of Wolfram Alpha. -- ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 Mail: antunes at uh dot edu *********************************** * POST TO MEDIANEWS@ETSKYWARN.NET * *********************************** Medianews mailing list Medianews@etskywarn.net http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
