Wolfram Alpha

[jimtron]

Google challenger? Sounds cool.

From The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/an-invention-that-could-change-the-internet-for-ever-1678109.html):

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.
Although the system is still new, it has already produced massive interest and excitement among technology pundits and internet watchers.


he 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.Dr Wolfram, an award-winning physicist who is based in America, added that the information is "curated", meaning it is assessed first by experts. This means that the weaknesses of sites such as Wikipedia, where doubts are cast on the information because anyone can contribute, are taken out. It is based on his best-selling Mathematica software, a standard tool for scientists, engineers and academics for crunching complex maths.

[AgeGap]

Sounds cool.

But not Cuil (http://www.cuil.com/). Let's see how it goes! My idea of the ultimate search engine would let me put a picture in or let me hum a tune and throw out correct results.
I don't know if I like the idea of information being curated though.

[INRM]

I'd have to agree with AgeGap in that I don't like the idea of all that information being curated.

I'm also not so fond of some of the ideas floated in the article. For example there were suggestions of their incorporating A.I. to produce a self-organizing internet. I don't know if that's such a good idea.


INRM

[Soapy Sam]

I find your lack of faith...disturbing.

[geni]

But not Cuil (http://www.cuil.com/). Let's see how it goes! My idea of the ultimate search engine would let me put a picture in or let me hum a tune and throw out correct results.

Both exist. http://tineye.com/ for images for example.

[Beerina]

But not Cuil (http://www.cuil.com/). Let's see how it goes! My idea of the ultimate search engine would let me put a picture in or let me hum a tune and throw out correct results.
I don't know if I like the idea of information being curated though.

tineye.com is a reverse picture searcher. Feed it a link to an online pic, or upload one, and it will show you all the other copies, of any resolution, it knows, as well as other, similar pictures (such as photoshoot sets.)

In theory sounds good, but it's a bit touchy at the moment. Needs to be hooked to a gigantic search engine like Google to really build the critical mass of pictures it needs.




And I never was sure what the heck cuil was supposed to do. Presumably do better at sorting out crap, bogus sites in favor of ones more likely to actually be what you're looking for.

But then I thought that was what that patented algorithm did where the search engine monitored which links users actually clicked for each search term, and then pushed those towards the top of the list. Ideally, your list would be the ranked pages people clicked for that search term.

Was that Jeeves or something? Do they still have that patent?

[INRM]

Soapy Sam,

So what if I don't have faith?


INRM

[AgeGap]

Soapy Sam,

So what if I don't have faith?


INRM

It's something you just feel.
It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together

[Seren_]

Here (http://www.semanticuniverse.com/blogs-i-was-positively-impressed-wolfram-alpha.html) is an article written by someone who actually tried Wolfram Alpha for 2 hours.

He is impressed but also gives examples of what Alpha can't do.

It still looks cool, but it is not HAL 9000 (yet...).

[INRM]

Seren,

Good article...

For the Record: I don't think it would be a good idea to have an "intelligent" self organizing internet...

[tomwaits]

Won't work...because "Wolfram Alpha" is a stupid name.

[boooeee]

Won't work...because "Wolfram Alpha" is a stupid name.


Sounds like a Michael Dudikoff movie.

[Cavemonster]

Won't work...because "Wolfram Alpha" is a stupid name.

Google

[Dymanic]

Doesn't know what to do with my input. Using search strings that would produce thousands of hits with Google. That gets old real quick.

[Cain]

Page takes forever to load and then it crashed my browser.

[INRM]

boooeee,

The name Wolfram Alpha is most likely based on the name Memory Alpha which was in Star Trek...


INRM

[tomwaits]

Google

Google is a great name. Short, catchy, strange, easy to turn into a verb.

[Darat]

Doesn't know what to do with my input. Using search strings that would produce thousands of hits with Google. That gets old real quick.


I just tried to use it to find some statistics for a thread here (car accident mortality rates versus the rates for planes) - abysmal failure!

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Apparently the best country is the Netherlands!

Linky. (http://www50.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=what+is+the+best+country%3F)

:p

[Darat]

Apparently the best country is the Netherlands!

Linky. (http://www50.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=what+is+the+best+country%3F)

:p

Funny!

Have to say it seems to me that they are making many of the mistakes earlier search engines did, quite strange.

[Cuddles]

It's something you just feel.
It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together

What, Duck tape?

The name Wolfram Alpha is most likely based on the name Memory Alpha which was in Star Trek...

Or maybe it's based on the creator's name being Wolfram and it currently being the alpha version.:rolleyes:

[mummymonkey]

Well it failed at the first hurdle on what I'd have thought was a simple question.
"Who won the FA Cup in 1928?"

Google gave the correct answer as the first result:
"The 1927 FA Cup Final was won by Cardiff City, who beat Arsenal 1–0"

Wolfram didn't even try:
"Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input."

[Dymanic]

Ok, I think I see the problem I was having:

Wolfram Alpha is not a search engine. (http://www.macworld.com/article/140668/2009/05/alpha.html)

[Floyt]

Ok, I think I see the problem I was having:

Wolfram Alpha is not a search engine. (http://www.macworld.com/article/140668/2009/05/alpha.html)

Yup, that is actually quite important to realize :)
All it does is combine information it already has in its database. The applications should be quite different from that of a classic search engine.

I found it rather brilliant when it comes to astronomy, stats and maths.

[elgarak]

Yup, that is actually quite important to realize :)
All it does is combine information it already has in its database. The applications should be quite different from that of a classic search engine.

I found it rather brilliant when it comes to astronomy, stats and maths.
But it already sucks when you go into physics.

From a marketing perspective, this is a devastating error, which is unfortunately all too common for new web services: The service is announced, but is not yet fully developed. People try it and find it does not do what they want. A few months later, the service is matured and would do what people want, but then no one wants to use it anymore, because everyone has tried and remembers only their bad experience from the start-up time.

[nathan]

I found it rather brilliant when it comes to astronomy, stats and maths.

Epic fail.

'main sequence stars' -> input interpretation '100 brightest main sequence stars' -> computation timed out.

very well, let's try '10 brightest main sequence stars' -> 'wolfram alpha isn't sure what to do with your input'.

If I can't even feed it back its own interpretations, how can I learn how to use it?

[geni]

Epic fail.

'main sequence stars' -> input interpretation '100 brightest main sequence stars' -> computation timed out.

very well, let's try '10 brightest main sequence stars' -> 'wolfram alpha isn't sure what to do with your input'.

If I can't even feed it back its own interpretations, how can I learn how to use it?

It has real problems with absolute magnitude. Regardless of what I hit it with it always seems to pull a list of stars by apparent magnitude then list them by absolute magnitude.

Wikipedia does slightly better but you would be lucky to type in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_luminous_stars it is however one click away from [[Brightest stars]].

[Angus McPresley]

Stephen Wolfram is my pet peeve. Yes, an entire person is my pet peeve. It probably has something to do with the big fat book of his on my bookshelf that I bought because not enough scientists were brave enough in their reviews to call it crap. Because he's Stephen Freaking Wolfram! And maybe I also dislike him because his ego is big enough to cause gravitational lensing.

So I'm both predicting and kind of rooting for Alpha to fail. I've played with it, and there's some fun stuff you can pull up, but I can't imagine dressed-up search results will have that much staying power.

[AgeGap]

Stephen Wolfram is my pet peeve. Yes, an entire person is my pet peeve. It probably has something to do with the big fat book of his on my bookshelf that I bought because not enough scientists were brave enough in their reviews to call it crap. Because he's Stephen Freaking Wolfram! And maybe I also dislike him because his ego is big enough to cause gravitational lensing.

So I'm both predicting and kind of rooting for Alpha to fail. I've played with it, and there's some fun stuff you can pull up, but I can't imagine dressed-up search results will have that much staying power.

Not a fan then.

[INRM]

I'm quite sure most of the problems with Wolfram Alpha will be fixed and this device could be totally misused to gather enormous amounts of information on people.

Dr. Wolfram even said this was a potential problem, but he rationalized it as being acceptable because he wouldn't do that.

[Soapy Sam]

I confess I have been unable to get a straight answer from it with regard to anything.
It appears the AI crowd have finally mastered politics.

INRM- I'm not sure if you got the joke earlier. I was quoting Darth Vader's response to a sceptic of "The Force". You seemed to similarly lack faith in AI. (As I do myself.)

[INRM]

I didn't understand exactly the intent behind the joke, but when I responded, it was actually meant in a joking manner as me and almost everybody on this forum are atheists.


INRM

[rjh01]

This is a new search engine (not sure if that is the right phrase) with a difference. You give it a question and it tries to give you the answer.

Like give 2+2, it will give you 4. Very basic. But put any maths question like that and it will give you the answer.

Give it the name of a city it will give you basic information about that city.

What it to scare you? Put in Where am I? It will then tell you which is your ISP and the physical location.

Put in James Randi and it will tell you he is born 7/8/1928 (sic) and a magician.

Put in a name of a public company and it will give you stock prices. It will even compare stock prices.


This is something new so it is very basic and primitive. But the potential!

Link http://www.wolframalpha.com/

[Darat]

See: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=141875

[nathan]

aah! the text box results are not real text boxes -- they've broken cut-n-paste, and one has to do a non-default dance to cut and paste results. Gits!

[integral]

aah! the text box results are not real text boxes -- they've broken cut-n-paste, and one has to do a non-default dance to cut and paste results. Gits!

I think it might be there way of preventing scripting languages (python, ruby, etc) from scraping search results.

[nathan]

I think it might be there way of preventing scripting languages (python, ruby, etc) from scraping search results.

Hm, if they really wanted to stop scraping, why not, um, disconnect from the internet?

[Cuddles]

Well, I thought I'd give it a try for myself and see what happens.

Like give 2+2, it will give you 4. Very basic. But put any maths question like that and it will give you the answer.

Well, it did give me 4, so not a bad start.

Give it the name of a city it will give you basic information about that city.

Swansea. Well, it got the location right, but appears to have lost almost 1/4 of the population and thinks the closest cities are Birmingham and London.

What it to scare you? Put in Where am I? It will then tell you which is your ISP and the physical location.

No host found.

Put in James Randi and it will tell you he is born 7/8/1928 (sic) and a magician.

Well, it says he's a magician and gives date and place of birth. However, it completely fails to tell you what his real name is, even though a search for "Randall James Hamilton Zwinge" gives exactly the same search result and is therefore clearly known.

I'm rather less than impressed.

This is something new so it is very basic and primitive. But the potential!

To be honest, I just don't see what the point is. Even assuming that all the information had been correct and rather more complete, what's the big deal? I can find out exactly the same stuff just as easily from Google or Wikipedia. And yes, Wikipedia is actually quite a common port of call for professional physicists. OK, having another venue available to find things out that is done in a slightly different way wouldn't be a bad thing, but the hype over this being some amazing new idea that's going to change everything is just bollocks. It does exactly what other things already do, except it doesn't do them as well.