Wolfram Alpha, the new “Computational Knowledge Engine” is the brainchild of British-born physicist Stephen Wolfram and is already being touted as a Google killer (oh, really?) by experts. This free program aims to answer queries directly, instead of directing the user to sources where the required information might be found. This technology will be available to the public from the middle of May this year.
Users can use Wolfram to look up simple facts – such as the height of Mount Everest – or crunch several data sets together to produce new results, such as a country’s GDP. Once the search is over, the results will not only give a detailed answer to the query but also a lot of other related information that might be of interest. Additionally, the results that the user receives are assessed by experts and are made available only after a thorough verification. This is unlike Wikipedia, which thrives on user-generated content. Wolfram Alpha is incidentally based on Stephen Wolfram’s Mathematica software, a standard tool for scientists, engineers and academics for crunching complex math.
At a recent demonstration of the technology at Oxford University, Dr Wolfram said the “trillions of pieces of data” were chosen and managed by a team of “experts” at Wolfram Research, who also code the information to make sure it can be read and displayed by the system. Dr Wolfram said he has been working on Alpha for several years. However, he imagines that it will continue to evolve. “In a sense we are at the beginning,” he said.
Could the time soon come when the phrase, “Google it,” will be replaced by “Alpha it.” ?
How does it work?
The new tool uses a technique known as natural language processing to return answers. This allows users to ask questions of the tool using normal, spoken language rather than specific search terms. For example, a relatively simple search, such as “who was the president of Brazil in 1923?” will return the answer “Artur da Silva Bernardes“. This technique has long been the holy grail of computer scientists who aim to allow people to interact with computers in an instinctive way. You can learn more about Wolfram Alpha here.
Few things:
1. In the world of SMS texting, where people have unknowingly habituated themselves by writing cryptic messages, do we thing users (most of them) will care about writing questions?
2. Hmm..did Cuill.com also get similar hype?:-)
3. trust & loyality is another key factor.
I wonder when would people stop calling every new search engine a google killer
Trust and loyalty comes through time and good service. Lets wait and watch
And it will definitely not be a Google killer, but a supplement to it, changing the way we search