Wolfram Alpha has Google's attention

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Wolfram|Alpha

I am excited to see what Wolfram|Alpha is all
about. Unfortunately, I fear that it will turn
out to be nothing more than a glorified "Google
Calculator". Google already has functions
within Google Spreadsheets which allow you to
pull data regarding population, unemployment
rates, etc...

I feel that when Wolfram|Alpha comes out, you
will be able to enter a query such as "The
population of California in 1982 multiplied by
the number of stories of the empire state
building." It will come back with the result.
Awesome, but, so what?

I am sure the scientific community will find
that it shaves 10 seconds on an otherwise 2
minute research project, but that's about it.
If you type "Britney Spears" into
Wolfram|Alpha, it isn't likely going to tell
you the latest news about Britney Spears. If
you type "flu symptoms" into Wolfram|Alpha it
likely isn't going to give you qualified sites
that list the various symptoms of the flu. If
you type "How old is Bill Murray?" into
Wolfram|Alpha it IS likely to give you the
direct answer. Of course, so does Google.

So, really... I think that a lot of the basic
queries one might ask a search engine, Google
is already capable of answering directly. I
think more complex queries of information that
a statistician might ask, Google Spreadsheets
already does a decent job. And for the typical
searches that people perform, Google will far
exceed Wolfram|Alpha. Where Wolfram|Alpha will
shine is when you have scientists trying to
crunch a lot of really unusual figures. Not
exactly exciting news for the typical person.

Who knows. I could be wrong. However, I wrote
an AI program 20 years ago. It collected basic
facts from complex text, then retrieved these
facts in response to natural language
questions. It worked. But beyond this, most
people treated it as a novelty. It entertained
them more than anything.

So, as soon as Wolfram|Alpha is open to the
public, everyone will take their turns
playing... until the cool factor wears off.
Then, the Cuil factor will set in, and it will
be long forgotten.

Posted by: BIGELLOW   Posted on: 05/07/09 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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