Monday, May 04, 2009
Posted by Roberto
10:18 AM
1 comments
WOLFRAM ALPHA
The biggest internet revolution for a generation will be unveiled this month with the launch of software that will understand questions and give specific, tailored answers in a way that the web has never managed before.
The new system, Wolfram Alpha, showcased at Harvard University in the US last week, takes the first step towards what many consider to be the internet's Holy Grail, a global store of information that understands and responds to ordinary language in the same way a person does.
Wolfram Alpha will not only give a straight answer to questions such as "how high is Mount Everest?", but it will also produce a neat page of related information, all properly sourced, such as geographical location and nearby towns, and other mountains, complete with graphs and charts.
The real innovation, however, is in its ability to work things out "on the fly", according to its British inventor, Dr Stephen Wolfram. If you ask it to compare the height of Mount Everest to the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, it will tell you. Or ask what the weather was like in London on the day John F Kennedy was assassinated, it will cross-check and provide the answer. Ask it about D sharp major, it will play the scale. Type in "10 flips for four heads" and it will guess that you need to know the probability of coin-tossing. If you want to know when the next solar eclipse over Chicago is, or the exact current location of the International Space Station, it can work it out.
What the experts say
"Generally, I did not use search terms that clearly had no computable answer (and therefore would have stumped Wolfram). But I also didn't throw any softballs in areas close to the heart of its makers: physics, chemistry, engineering, and genomics. On hard-core scientific questions, it gives you tons of symbols and graphics and other information that would be useful to a researcher but obscure to most people. But on many common questions for which there is no obvious data element, you will not get much help. In any event, if its plans hold, you should be able to test it out yourself in two or three weeks."
- David Talbot, Technology Review
"If it is not gobbled up by one of the industry superpowers, his company may well grow to become one of them in a small number of years, with most of us setting our default browser to be Wolfram Alpha."
- Doug Lenat, Semanticuniverse.com
Worldwide network: A brief history of the internet
1969 The internet is created by the US Department of Defense with the networking of computers at UCLA and the Stanford Research Institute.
1979 The British Post Office uses the technology to create the first international computer networks.
1980 Bill Gates's deal to put a Microsoft Operating System on IBM's computers paves the way for almost universal computer ownership.
1984 Apple launches the first successful 'modern' computer interface using graphics to represent files and folders, drop-down menus and, crucially, mouse control.
1989 Tim Berners-Lee creates the world wide web - using browsers, pages and links to make communication on the internet simple.
1996 Google begins as a research project at Stanford University. The company is formally founded two years later by Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
2009 Dr Stephen Wolfram launches Wolfram Alpha.
In a recent article on CNN, by John D. Sutter, entitled "New Search Engines Aspire To Supplement Google" the author examines some recent new search engines. The author discusses: Twine, Hakia, Searchme, Cuil, Kosmix, Wolfram Alpha, Topsy, TweetMeme and OneRiot. Each of these are different, making your web search more personal, more visual, or connecting your search to new social networks like FaceBook and Twitter.
The new search engine from Microsoft called Bing, which is very similar to Google in many ways. To Bing or not to Bing, that is the question? There's a very informative article on Bing by Farhad Manjoo on Slate entitled: "Beware Google: Microsoft's New Search Engine Isn't Half-bad." Just Bing or Google to find it!
Google Trends on May 4
Top Search Terms in the USA right now
1. prejean photos
2. miss usa runner up
3. carrie prejean pictures
4. cinco de mayo
5. miss california pictures
6. michael savage
Sources:
An invention that could change the internet, by Andrew Johnson, The Independent
Wolfram Alpha and Google Face Off, by David Talbot, Technology Review
Labels: Wolfram Alpha Google Data-Centric Service Wolfram Research
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