Many news sites (e.g., TechCrunch) have been hyping WolframAlpha as a threat to Google, and it's natural that people are trying Google-style search queries. However, looking at the examples at the site (http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples ), it's clearly not intended as a direct competitor to Google, and it's not at all surprising that it doesn't perform so well on the Google-style queries people are trying. My first take is that it's more like learning Mathematica: you need to learn how to ask it the right sorts of questions, and the examples look like a useful way of learning to do that.
No doubt many of the news outlets who've been hyping WolframAlpha as a competitor to Google will now denounce it as having failed, when it wasn't meant as a competitor at all. It's the news sites which have failed.
I'm not so sure the blame falls entirely on the news sites. As I've watched a seemingly unnatural amount of attention fall upon an unreleased product over the past few weeks I've come to the conclusion that we're being led around by Wolfram's PR firm. If that's the case and they were using 'google-killer' to pick up buzz, I think Wolfram deserves to fall on its face.
(That's not to say it's not an interesting product).
Because newspapers never misquote people or take things out of context. :)
Did it quote Stephen Wolfram as having said that, or just Wolfram? In fact, another source quotes Conrad Wolfram, who is apparently Stephen's brother, as having said that:
As mathematical queries give by far the most impressive results, this is essentially just a very elaborate advertisement for Mathematica -- just as NKS was.
Mathematical queries aren't the most impressive results because those have already been around in things like mathematic/maple/matlab for years. Symbolic integration is cool, but typing in ISS, and getting the current position of the international space station is cooler.
A New Kind of Science--it's a new scientific philosophy championed by Wolfram, and also the title of his book on the subject. A couple informational URLs:
This was also my first impression here. Try to compare things, it works beautifully!
-> http://tinyurl.com/qevs58
yes, it works also with "mars earth" but commands are way cooler :)
I just followed your link for the Mars to Earth comparison, and noticed a cool detail: it reported the current sky position for Mars for MY location, which I assume means that I.P. detection is being used to geographically customize answers. That is useful.
WolframAlpha is Not threat to Google it just have different target of people. It's more like online scientific encyclopedia + can preform complex math calculation.
Comments
Many news sites (e.g., TechCrunch) have been hyping WolframAlpha as a threat to Google, and it's natural that people are trying Google-style search queries. However, looking at the examples at the site (http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples ), it's clearly not intended as a direct competitor to Google, and it's not at all surprising that it doesn't perform so well on the Google-style queries people are trying. My first take is that it's more like learning Mathematica: you need to learn how to ask it the right sorts of questions, and the examples look like a useful way of learning to do that.
No doubt many of the news outlets who've been hyping WolframAlpha as a competitor to Google will now denounce it as having failed, when it wasn't meant as a competitor at all. It's the news sites which have failed.
I'm not so sure the blame falls entirely on the news sites. As I've watched a seemingly unnatural amount of attention fall upon an unreleased product over the past few weeks I've come to the conclusion that we're being led around by Wolfram's PR firm. If that's the case and they were using 'google-killer' to pick up buzz, I think Wolfram deserves to fall on its face.
(That's not to say it's not an interesting product).
I herd it was a Google-killer, but it turns out to be a Google Calculator Killer
It really does kill Google calculator! It does symbolic stuff, like Mathematica. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=y%3D+y^2+*+x^2+sin%28x%...
Wow, college math homework beware.
That's true, it's one hell of a calculator.
W|A is good at dealing with huge numbers, unlike Google Calculator:
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=9999999999999999-100...
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=9999999999999999-100000...
i can never get my php shell to work right so having simple math commands like floor() handy will be awesome. I think i'll tokenize them in Launchy.
From my newspaper today. Direct quote from Wolfram - "It will change how people search online".
I don't think it's the news outlets fault if the founder is making outlandish claims.
Because newspapers never misquote people or take things out of context. :)
Did it quote Stephen Wolfram as having said that, or just Wolfram? In fact, another source quotes Conrad Wolfram, who is apparently Stephen's brother, as having said that:
http://current.com/items/90053264_googles-search-engine-riva...
As mathematical queries give by far the most impressive results, this is essentially just a very elaborate advertisement for Mathematica -- just as NKS was.
Mathematical queries aren't the most impressive results because those have already been around in things like mathematic/maple/matlab for years. Symbolic integration is cool, but typing in ISS, and getting the current position of the international space station is cooler.
NKS? Just curious.
A New Kind of Science--it's a new scientific philosophy championed by Wolfram, and also the title of his book on the subject. A couple informational URLs:
http://www.wolframscience.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_kind_of_science
Aaronson rips NKS a new one in this review: http://scottaaronson.com/papers/nks.pdf
A New Kind of Science
This was also my first impression here. Try to compare things, it works beautifully! -> http://tinyurl.com/qevs58 yes, it works also with "mars earth" but commands are way cooler :)
I just followed your link for the Mars to Earth comparison, and noticed a cool detail: it reported the current sky position for Mars for MY location, which I assume means that I.P. detection is being used to geographically customize answers. That is useful.
>which I assume means that I.P. detection is being used to geographically customize answers.
Yeah, the screencast a couple days ago mentioned this. They use it for more mundane stuff, too - like guessing which Springfield you mean.
WolframAlpha is Not threat to Google it just have different target of people. It's more like online scientific encyclopedia + can preform complex math calculation.