Let me start this off by apologizing for being late on this. I read about this thing a few weeks ago, but just pushed it along since it hadn’t been released yet. However, Wolfram Alpha is now live and boy, is it something. Hit the jump for some more links and my thoughts on what many have touted as the new google-killer.
Is WA a google killer? I say no.
Wolfram Alpha is extremely powerful. It searches and computes the massive amount of data that are available online. It will present them in such an easy to read format that your everyday 12 year old kid could interpret the data results. For a little more information on the site, check out the founders Intro Screencast. So, as to whether this is a Google-killer or not, I can safely say it is not. WA is about systemic knowledge and computation of that knowledge (a fun tool is the ability to export these results into PDF format).
In fact, when you type in a basic search like “intelligent design,” nothing comes up. It actually has a link to search the web for “intelligent design” and that link takes you to a Google search for the topic. So they are obviously not quite the same as Google. The focus of WA is to be able to compute data and present facts. Google’s main function on the other hand is the search of webpages. We can use it for basic math, etc. but when I fire up Google, I’m looking for and through webpages, not data.
I think the two will work great together when trying to get a big picture overview of a topic. Ars Technica warns about the “one-way has arguments,” and I think that’s a legitimate concern. People will be able to use this data to slant their arguments, but no more than the crazies already do, in my opinion. I think WA is going to present a powerful tool for using Web 2.0 and it’s vast amount of data. It’s a fledgling site, but it’s already extremely powerful and I can’t wait to see it grow. I’ve included some of my favorite searches below. It’s pretty amazing what you can search for.
Monday Thoughts: Wolfram Alpha
Let me start this off by apologizing for being late on this. I read about this thing a few weeks ago, but just pushed it along since it hadn’t been released yet. However, Wolfram Alpha is now live and boy, is it something. Hit the jump for some more links and my thoughts on what many have touted as the new google-killer.
Is WA a google killer? I say no.
Wolfram Alpha is extremely powerful. It searches and computes the massive amount of data that are available online. It will present them in such an easy to read format that your everyday 12 year old kid could interpret the data results. For a little more information on the site, check out the founders Intro Screencast. So, as to whether this is a Google-killer or not, I can safely say it is not. WA is about systemic knowledge and computation of that knowledge (a fun tool is the ability to export these results into PDF format).
In fact, when you type in a basic search like “intelligent design,” nothing comes up. It actually has a link to search the web for “intelligent design” and that link takes you to a Google search for the topic. So they are obviously not quite the same as Google. The focus of WA is to be able to compute data and present facts. Google’s main function on the other hand is the search of webpages. We can use it for basic math, etc. but when I fire up Google, I’m looking for and through webpages, not data.
I think the two will work great together when trying to get a big picture overview of a topic. Ars Technica warns about the “one-way has arguments,” and I think that’s a legitimate concern. People will be able to use this data to slant their arguments, but no more than the crazies already do, in my opinion. I think WA is going to present a powerful tool for using Web 2.0 and it’s vast amount of data. It’s a fledgling site, but it’s already extremely powerful and I can’t wait to see it grow. I’ve included some of my favorite searches below. It’s pretty amazing what you can search for.
General Motors vs. Ford Stock comparison.
Travis County income per capita.
GDP USA
Doppler Shift (yea, it calculates Doppler Shift…amongst other crazy math, physics, and engineering problems)
Spring Maximum Force (for my engineering buddies)