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Is Wolfram Alpha really the next Google?
15 May 2009 | 13.54 Europe/London
Wolfram Alpha has been heralded as the next Google by technology writers and bloggers around the world. It's due to launch later today – but what's all the fuss about?
Once you've seen it in action, it's clear Wolfram Alpha isn't intended to be the Google-killer certain journalists have hyped it up to be – it's not really a search engine in the orthodox sense. Instead it can do things like solve complex mathematical or chemical equations and answer the sorts of questions Google can't even get a handle on – it's creator Stephen Wolfram has demonstrated this by asking it "weather in Springfield when David Ortiz was born" and actually getting a straightforward answer. (Whether or not it can tell us Brits who David Ortiz actually is or not is anyone's guess.)
In a screencast demo Wolfram makes his "computational engine" look up "Springfield" (if you're interested, the top result on Google is the Wikipedia entry on the home town of The Simpsons). After checking his IP address, Wolfram Alpha brings up data for the nearest city of that name – which turns out to be Springfield, Massachusetts – including a map of the United States locating it and information on what the current local time and weather conditions are.
Wolfram Alpha makes a lot of assumptions on what information you're after – like that you meant the Springfield in Massachusetts, for example. So if you type in "33g gold" it'll tell you things like how much that's worth in your currency (£698), how much energy it would take to melt it down (8.18kJ) or even how big a sphere you could make out of it, if you ever fancied doing so. Perhaps if you wanted to sell an old relic – like a famous painting, or your granny – it might be able to give you a valuation on that too.
So people like geographers and chemists may be in luck, but is Wolfram Alpha for everyone? Well, it's got a Google-style basic homepage, and it arranges its result in a simple and easy to understand layout. Exercise fanatics can find out things like how many calories they'll burn if they run for thirty minutes at four miles an hour, according the their height, weight, age and gender. Mortgage payers can find out how much they'll have to repay each month depending on how big their loan is and how long they've got to pay it back. And musicians looking up a certain chord can not only find out what scales it fits with but click to hear the chord played back.
Wolfram says his baby "is really a very ambitious and long term project which in many ways is just getting started." It certainly does have a lot of potential, even though with a name like Wolfram Alpha you can't really imagine your mum using it. While it'll probably appeal most to scholars to start off with, its release is by no means academic. Wolfram Alpha is due to be launched to the public at midnight.
Once you've seen it in action, it's clear Wolfram Alpha isn't intended to be the Google-killer certain journalists have hyped it up to be – it's not really a search engine in the orthodox sense. Instead it can do things like solve complex mathematical or chemical equations and answer the sorts of questions Google can't even get a handle on – it's creator Stephen Wolfram has demonstrated this by asking it "weather in Springfield when David Ortiz was born" and actually getting a straightforward answer. (Whether or not it can tell us Brits who David Ortiz actually is or not is anyone's guess.)
In a screencast demo Wolfram makes his "computational engine" look up "Springfield" (if you're interested, the top result on Google is the Wikipedia entry on the home town of The Simpsons). After checking his IP address, Wolfram Alpha brings up data for the nearest city of that name – which turns out to be Springfield, Massachusetts – including a map of the United States locating it and information on what the current local time and weather conditions are.
Wolfram Alpha makes a lot of assumptions on what information you're after – like that you meant the Springfield in Massachusetts, for example. So if you type in "33g gold" it'll tell you things like how much that's worth in your currency (£698), how much energy it would take to melt it down (8.18kJ) or even how big a sphere you could make out of it, if you ever fancied doing so. Perhaps if you wanted to sell an old relic – like a famous painting, or your granny – it might be able to give you a valuation on that too.
So people like geographers and chemists may be in luck, but is Wolfram Alpha for everyone? Well, it's got a Google-style basic homepage, and it arranges its result in a simple and easy to understand layout. Exercise fanatics can find out things like how many calories they'll burn if they run for thirty minutes at four miles an hour, according the their height, weight, age and gender. Mortgage payers can find out how much they'll have to repay each month depending on how big their loan is and how long they've got to pay it back. And musicians looking up a certain chord can not only find out what scales it fits with but click to hear the chord played back.
Wolfram says his baby "is really a very ambitious and long term project which in many ways is just getting started." It certainly does have a lot of potential, even though with a name like Wolfram Alpha you can't really imagine your mum using it. While it'll probably appeal most to scholars to start off with, its release is by no means academic. Wolfram Alpha is due to be launched to the public at midnight.