May 26, 2009 2:20 PM
WolframAlpha - new Internet research tool launches
Check this new site - in the construction phase, but with a trillion bits of knowledge so far:
Wolfram|Alpha's long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.
Wolfram|Alpha aims to bring expert-level knowledge and capabilities to the broadest
possible range of people--spanning all professions and education levels. Our goal is to accept completely free-form input, and to serve as a knowledge engine that generates powerful results and presents them with maximum clarity.Wolfram|Alpha is an ambitious, long-term intellectual endeavor that we intend will deliver increasing capabilities over the years and decades to come. With a world-class team and participation from top outside experts in countless fields, our goal is to create something that will stand as a major milestone of 21st century intellectual achievement.
How will this impact you and your children? To keep you up-to-speed and give you something practical to share with your family, I pulled this from From The Atlantic:
May 19 2009, 12:00 pm
Wolfram Alpha, Google and the Future of Search Engines
Wolfram Alpha, the new "search engine" that you should absolutely check out sometime today if you haven't, has been compared to Google and Wikipedia, or to some hybrid of the two. In short, the engine takes a term, like "vampire bat" or "May 19, 2009," and instantly produces a scientific report with details (like the size and weight of the bat, or today's moon cycle) culled from its extensive internal knowledge base. In other words, it's not a search engine, which produces articles as results. It's a knowledge engine that produces answers with explicit information. It's still a work in progress, but the unveiling is enough to make some question whether it will change the way we search the Internet.
Search engines have long advertised themselves as providing answers, when what they were really doing was providing direction. For example, Ask Jeeves, the first search engine I ever used, originally masqueraded as an e-butler providing answers to your questions, when all it was doing was using your key words to funnel you toward articles it considered relevant.
But Wolfram Alpha really does provide answers. No URLs come back in the results, only a page of often dizzyingly detailed and up-to-date information, like a research report culled by mad scientists with complete access to a universal library. For a telling example, let's compare search results on Google, Wikipedia and Wolfram Alpha for the search term "Pluto."
Google gives back a predicted waterfall of articles and pictures about Pluto, including the Wikipedia entry and some images of the planet and the cartoon dog. Wikipedia provides history of its discovery, formation, classification and controversy over its planet status. The Wolfram Alpha return is another thing altogether. It includes details you could find from Wikipedia, such as mass, radius and rotation period. But it also includes its current distance from the Earth and Sun and its current place in the solar system with respect to other orbits. Finally, the engine calculates its current sky position from the location where you just searched it (see below).The argument that something like Wolfram Alpha will replace Google, or marginalize Wikipedia is bogus, and completely besides the point, because the three engines fulfill entirely different functions. Google is a funnel; Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; Wolfram Alpha is more like a real-time world index.
Read entire article here.
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