Test Driving the Wolfram Alpha 124
SilverMind writes in to note a blog entry at Byte Size Biology describing in detail a few hours spent with Wolfram Alpha (which we have discussed before). "After playing around with Wolfram Alpha for a few hours, I can safely say the following: it's different, it's incomplete, it's idiosyncratic, and it's funky cool. And no, it will not dethrone Google, nor does it aim to do so."
Video of Alpha in action (Score:5, Informative)
There is a video called A Sneak Preview of Wolfram|Alpha [youtube.com] on YouTube that seems to have been filmed at a talk Wolfram gave. After watching it I think I have a decent idea of what it's like to use, and just how very different it is from every other search out there. I can't wait to try it.
And to see what happens when you search for "Rick Astley".
I'd also like to see if it can convert things like 1 GB into Libraries of Congress. Google's unit conversion doesn't include the LOC, sadly.
AI exercise? (Score:5, Informative)
Something that Wolfram might not directly telling you.
Not A Search Engine (Score:5, Informative)
For those of you who aren't gonna RTFA, I would like to reiterate something that is stated in TFA, because it seems, from reading comments on previous articles about Wolfram|Alpha, that people think this is a search engine and is trying to compete with the likes of Google and whatnot. I also get this from a couple articles from various tech sites that I've read who search for... things... on W|A and compare the results to Google and claim that Google is superior. [slashdot.org]
People, W|A is not a search engine in the conventional sense. It is more of a knowledgebase. It is a computational engine. Rather than finding websites that tell you about what you're trying to learn about, W|A gives you the information you're looking for on their site, pulled from a large 20-someodd-year-old database of verified scientific facts that began with Wolfram Mathematica. If the info you're looking for isn't directly present in the database, W|A will compute it for you if it has the necessary data dependencies. W|A is not the same as Google and is not trying to compete with Google, so to those of please stop trying to pass off side-by-side comparisons between W|A and Google as journalism. That's not to say, though, that Google won't try to buy them out or even start up their own academic knowledgebase to compete with Wolfram... and yes, that would be Google entering Wolfram's domain, not the other way around. [/rant]
Anyways, I think W|A looks awesome and I will surely poke around when it launches on May 18 (I think... correct me if I'm wrong please).
Re:Video of Alpha in action (Score:5, Informative)
Like other singers, it lists his full name, date of birth, place of birth, and a timeline of his life. There are no events on the timeline, and it extends all the way until 2010, so apparently he's at least got one more year to try to top Never Gonna Give You Up.
By the way, here's [youtube.com] a screen capture video of me putting this search into Wolfram Alpha.
Re:What a giant viral marketing campain... (Score:3, Informative)
According to wikipedia, its supposed to go public on the 18th. That's a bit more than a week and a lot less than half a century.
Re:What's the point? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, at least this reviewer understands what Alpaha is and presents it clearly, unlike the other 2 (or is it more?) stories Slashdot has run on it where the article writers (and most of Slashot readership!) seem to think it's a search engine.
CORRECTION: Google owns Youtube, not Yahoo (Score:2, Informative)
doh! (Happy Monday)
No-one makes jokes in base 13 ! (Score:3, Informative)
No-one makes jokes in base 13 !