New Search Engine answers questions

IIMII

New search engine to go live

Irish Times
Fri, May 15, 2009
Internet users are expected to get their first glance of a new type of search application which is likely to revolutionise the way people get information online today.
Unlike Google which retrieves webpages based on supplied keywords, Wolfram Alpha is, according to its developer Stephen Wolfram, a “computational knowledge engine" which promises to deliver specific answers to questions.

While it is not being officially launched until Monday, internet users will be able to follow a live webcast later today which will show the service going live.

Rather than being a search engine as we traditionally know it, the online service allows users to posit specific questions which it answers by retrieving the response from structured data.

Therefore, if an individual wants to know what the population of Dublin was in 1932, how many internet users there are in Asia or how much the movie Godfather II grossed at the box-office, for example, Wolfram Alpha will tell you.

It works almost like a cross between a search engine such as Google and an encyclopaedia and as well as offering responses to scientific questions also covers.

Rather than replacing search engines, the service is expected to co-exist with them and serve as an additional source.

The online service has been developed by Stephen Wolfram who also developed Mathematica, a leading application for doing complex math on desktop computers.

Wolfram Alpha is expected to handle about 175 million queries a day, or five billion per month.
© 2009 irishtimes.com

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0515/breaking47.htm

MrJoeSoap

Questions like...

"Why was this posted here?"

Stercus Accidit

Google can do that too.

You simply put 'wiki' after your search term.

Spastafarian

MrJoeSoap wrote: »

Questions like...

"Why was this posted here?"

Because this is the internet?

3qsmavrod5twfe

I wonder what its going to do when I start inputting questions like:

How long is string?
Why does cheese?
What time should I leave work at today?

In the words of some random Dub in the Amstel ads - "This is going to be great!"

AnonoBoy

First question I'm going to ask it:

Where's all the white women at?

Schism

But then... Who was phone?

phasers

First question:

your gay lol

ShooterSF

Search engine:
Did you mean you're gay!?

.

Turd Ferguson

I accidently 99mb rar file. What do I do?

chin_grin

I think I'll ctrl+c, ctrl+v the word "copypasta" in to it a million times and see if it crashes..........Then I'll be king.

phasers

Turd Ferguson wrote: »

I accidently 99mb rar file. What do I do?

search engine wrote:

An Hero

.

chin_grin

phasers wrote: »

.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo! BOOM HEADSHOT!

Rabies

phasers wrote: »

First question:

your gay lol

oh ha ha ha... I get it now. Where is the question.

I see




weirdo!

phasers

Rabies wrote: »

oh ha ha ha... I get it now. Where is the question.

I see




weirdo!

reported for personal abuse

speedboatchase

Why?

CreepingDeath

I've been expecting this sort of search engine for a while.
There's been open source natural language parsing engines avaliable for a number of years.

But I wonder how they'll treat
a) Religious questions
Eg. Does God exist, or how many Gods are there ?

b) legal questions
eg. Who killed OJ Simpsons wife ?
The search engine may commit libel if it doesn't say "allegedly" or "nobody has been convicted".

Should be interesting though !

chakotha

Might be good. They're serious folk. They wrote Mathematica 10 or more years ago. We did it for a while in college.

It will do symbolic mathematical calculations as well as numerical. You can throw all sorts of integrals and things at it and it will do them symbolically. Very clever stuff.

http://www.wolfram.com

So this new project has probably been in development for some time. Look forward to seeing it.

IvyTheTerrible

There's an interesting piece about it (called "Alpha") in the New scientist, I'll look it up.

Seemingly it's more reliable than wikipedia because the data is verified but there are problems with certain searches.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227075.600-ask-alpha-quizzing-the-worlds-first-answer-engine.html

IIMII

MrJoeSoap wrote: »

Questions like...

"Why was this posted here?"

Because 'here' will give you an idea of the sorts of mad questions that will be asked.

Keith186

Will be interesting to see how it works alright.

You can ask questions on Google too using the * function but this should work better.

e.g. tullamore is in county *

Works ok for basic stuff

Stercus Accidit

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

Google can do that too.

You simply put 'wiki' after your search term.

am i missing something?

how many people live in dublin

hardly an answer

ElBarco

What about the burning issue of the day - where did I put down my keys?

Mr Benevolent

hardly an answer

Too lazy to move your eyes down the screen?

1,661,185

Four-Percent

phasers wrote: »

reported for personal abuse

Overreact much?

Graham_B18C

Confab wrote: »

Too lazy to move your eyes down the screen?

Ah yeah but ya had to look for that, I want a nice search engine that brings an answer to me on a nice little platter! Right there, no looking!

ScumLord

Whatever happened to ask.com?

I'd like to ask it,
what do you think of this?
I am Amn't I?
Can you find me a decent source of weed?

dsane1

AnonoBoy wrote: »

First question I'm going to ask it:

Where's all the white women at?

If you go to the golden pages online directory and type in your question ,you will get the answer !

ScumLord

dsane1 wrote: »

If you go to the golden pages online directory and type in your question ,you will get the answer !

Ireland?

My name is URL

I beta tested this.

imo it'll be mostly of use to academics and students, the algos behind it though are really sweet =p

Kinetic^

My name is URL wrote: »

I beta tested this.

imo it'll be mostly of use to academics and students, the algos behind it though are really sweet =p

Algos eh, take your gibberish elsewhere sonny boy!

ShooterSF

CreepingDeath wrote: »

I've been expecting this sort of search engine for a while.
There's been open source natural language parsing engines avaliable for a number of years.

But I wonder how they'll treat
a) Religious questions
Eg. Does God exist, or how many Gods are there ?

b) legal questions
eg. Who killed OJ Simpsons wife ?
The search engine may commit libel if it doesn't say "allegedly" or "nobody has been convicted".

Should be interesting though !

Don't forget blasphemy

Confab

Confab wrote: »

Too lazy to move your eyes down the screen?

i did a search of the results page and didn't find your answer. even then, you don't know it's a correct figure. this alpha thing promises to bring complete accuracy which i think is the biggest factor.

Rabies

phasers wrote: »

reported for personal abuse

I check the reported posts and couldn't find it.

You left me all sad on the inside

dlofnep

Isn't this what Ask Jeeves did/does? Is that even still around?

Turd Ferguson

dsane1 wrote: »

If you go to the golden pages online directory and type in your question ,you will get the answer !

And if you type in an answer, you will be given a question...try it

phasers

Rabies wrote: »

I check the reported posts and couldn't find it.

You left me all sad on the inside

I meant to the Gardaí

expect a visit later today.

Rabies

If they can afford to come vist me, then there is no recession in Ireland.

RATM

Bah! I just asked Wolfie how many bones has a grown up got and confused the feck out of it. It told me there are 206 bones in an adult body.

But everyone knows the real answer clearly is 'A childs got more bones than a grown-ups got, them bones, them bones need calcium, them bones them bones need calcium and that a natural law' but Wolfie doesn't seem to know that. Useless fecker.

Biggins

Personally still prefer http://www.searchme.com for my searches and any questions I need answering.

phasers

Rabies wrote: »

If they can afford to come vist me, then there is no recession in Ireland.

They'll use the opportunity for a holiday, they can write it off as a business expense

Discovery

Sounds like a good idea although it will take some doing to unsurp the likes of Google and Wiki. What most dont realise is that with Google half the stuff returned by wiki is very inaccurate. Better off using an online encyclopedia like Britannica.

Capt'n Midnight

how many times has a new challenger to google dissapeared ?

be interesting to try a new engine , but if it's anything like micrsoft's attempts ( seriously altavista / google have beaten microsoft own search engine for every search on technet I've done for the last 15 years )

how will it be paid for , google ads or wha ?

civis_liberalis

Almost everybody who has posted in this thread has completely missed the point of what wolframapha is. I can't really articulate what it is exactly... but for anyone who is interested here is a video that explains it in details.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html

I challenge anyone who watches it not to be impressed or at the very least, recognise the genius behind it.

And yes, you guessed it... I am Stephen Wolfram.

I found the FAQ's pretty interesting as well.

Jesus Wept

civis_liberalis wrote: »

And yes, you guessed it... I am Stephen Wolfram.

Can't say I did.

civis_liberalis wrote: »

I found the FAQ's pretty interesting as well.

Did you write them?

civis_liberalis wrote: »

I challenge anyone who watches it not to be impressed or at the very least, recognise the genius behind it.

That genius being ...you?


Anyhow.......

Seems like a useful site for some people.
I just can't believe you called it WolframAlpha, srsly.

AskJeeves gave me the same answer to my test question, it's a name I still remember after using it briefly 10 years ago

civis_liberalis

I wanted to call it "kick-ass alpha" but I was told it was less than modest. Wolfram Alpha was the obvious choice then.

Word of warning... giving any queries to WolframAlpha.com at the moment is likely to crash your browser. See to be working well enough now.

Aim is to have it live on Monday night Irish time.

Spastafarian

I just checked it out now and either it's not finished yet or it's fairly useless to the average internet user.

lostexpectation

anyone remember cuil ?

Chardee MacDennis

it's not a google competitor, it's a semantic search engine - in that it 'understands' the results and interprets them rather than sending you too a wiki page to read through it.

like ask it the weather the day you were born, or how many calories in an apple and a glass of coke. it's very interesting but is not going after googles market where cuil was.

The-Rigger wrote: »

Can't say I did.



Did you write them?



That genius being ...you?


Anyhow.......

Seems like a useful site for some people.
I just can't believe you called it WolframAlpha, srsly.

AskJeeves gave me the same answer to my test question, it's a name I still remember after using it briefly 10 years ago

are you serious? stephen wolfram is not posting on boards, the man is a genius - sure he created Mathematica.

lostexpectation

hmm doesn't answer some of my questions, just presumes everything is north america

a new kind of plagerism
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/19/dziuba_wolfram/

OldGoat

Much easier to post your question on Boards where it is automatically sifted into the correct forum of experts who will analyse your query, de-structure it down to its very basic levels, gather responses for each iota then reconstruct into a coherant reply which will in turn be summerised and a joke added for good measure.
In your Face Stephen Wolferam.

Question: Why do really brainy people tend to be called Stephen?
Do your magic Boards!