The Wolfram|Alpha Thread!

trogdor9

So by now you have surely heard of "Google killer" Wolfram|Alpha on Slashdot or your favorite tech news site. The best introduction to what Wolfram|Alpha is can be found here.

They plan to "try" launching it tomorrow, and they will be webcasting their efforts at 7:00PM Central (that's 8 Eastern). They plan to have it entirely launched and stable by Monday.

What are your thoughts on this? The media loves to call it a "Google killer," but of course we know better - it's a computational knowledge engine that accesses its own database and does calculations with it, not a search engine that looks for other websites. But is it as revolutionary as it seems? Will this "change everything," or is it just a bunch of irrational hype that the real product can't live up to?

chaosof99

I don't think Google can be killed at this point anymore considering the userbase they got hooked up with G-mail alone. Regardless, I found it surprising that Wolfram is stepping into the search engine business. So far I only knew about their mathematics programs.

Andrew

Regardless, I found it surprising that Wolfram is stepping into the search engine business.

The media loves to call it a "Google killer," but of course we know better - it's a computational knowledge engine that accesses its own database and does calculations with it, not a search engine that looks for other websites.

Let's just hope it's actually as responsive and accurate as displayed in the screencast. It sounds like Wolfram is in it for the long run and that he intends to get plenty of third party and user support to expand upon it. This is only the beginning, but I'm hoping it grows because it's very impressive.

Walker

I think "Google Killer" is a little too hyperbolic, but if it works as well as the video would lead me to believe I think people will start using the Google search engine less. Right now Google acts middleman that points you in the direction of whatever information you're looking for, but what Wolfram seems to do is cut out the middleman so it can work with the raw and provide more useful results. If people want to compare the alcoholic beverage production of Iceland and Poland divided by the average number of times Kim Jong-Il sneezes in day they'll go to Wolfram. However, from what I've seen I don't know how it would handle queries like "men's wavy hairstyles" or "screenwriting advice", where the information the user is looking for isn't quantifiable.

Σπεκωσποκ

Coining something as a "________ killer" is dooming it to mediocrity and failure. Look at all the WoW-, Halo-, Google-, iPod-, killers, and you'll realize the sum total of all of them is less than that of any single one of the things they were supposed to "kill".

Starfox

I hope it is a Google killer. We would have something better than Google.

Look at all the WoW-, Halo-, Google-, iPod-, killers, and you'll realize the sum total of all of them is less than that of any single one of the things they were supposed to "kill".

While you are right that most stuff labeled "x-killer" turns out to be crap, I think you just don't remember any of the actual killers by that name. CD killer? We just call it iPod.

misakyra

I can see a lot of potential use for something like this, if it works as well as it did in that demo.

And yes, calling it a "Google Killer" is completely misguided, since it appears to serve a different function. If I just want to go to a website, but don't know the exact URL, Google would be the better choice to find that. If I'm doing a research paper on popular websites and want to compare two or more, I would use Wolfram Alpha.

Of course, the media loves to take things and compare them to popular things that are marginally similar, so comparing any website that processes information to Google is bound to happen.

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lackofcheese

I watched the screencast, and was very impressed. I'm very much looking forward to the release.

Cramit

It looks like Wolfram|Alpha is a solution to a different problem then google. Google helps us find sources of information. Alpha looks like a way to find specific information. We have been shoe-horning google into a answer finder, but that is not what it is best at; it only shows us where we might find an answer. I hope that Alpha is everything that the demo makes it out to be and if it is it will find a place along side google, not replace it. Saying that Alpha is a google killer is like saying that the iphone is a laptop-killer. They each have there own uses.

trogdor9

The live webcast of Wolfram|Alpha being brought online for the first time can be found here in about eight minutes from the time of posting. I'm more excited than I should be right now.

lackofcheese

Hmm. The lack of data relating to energy (e.g. production / consumption) is disappointing.

kiwi_bird

This is really awesome.

flux

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=oppenheimer-volkoff+limit

Doesn't seem to know everything though :P

Apreche

Just tried it. Fail.

I guarantee this is not something that people will use, or that will become popular in its current state. It's a lot of hype without a lot of usefulness. Unless you happen to be interested in one of the few things it knows about, its a waste of time. People will try it out for the novelty factor, and then it will fade from memory.

kiwi_bird

Just tried it. Fail.

I guarantee this is not something that people will use, or that will become popular in its current state. It's a lot of hype without a lot of usefulness. Unless you happen to be interested in one of the few things it knows about, its a waste of time. People will try it out for the novelty factor, and then it will fade from memory.

I completely disagree with you. I, as a student, already can see Wolfram being extremely useful to me. And as you said, it may not become popular in its current state, but it was just launched yesterday, so I don't see why it has to fail in the long run.

Apreche

Just tried it. Fail.

I guarantee this is not something that people will use, or that will become popular in its current state. It's a lot of hype without a lot of usefulness. Unless you happen to be interested in one of the few things it knows about, its a waste of time. People will try it out for the novelty factor, and then it will fade from memory.

I completely disagree with you. I, as a student, already can see Wolfram being extremely useful to me. And as you said, it may not become popular in its current state, but it was just launched yesterday, so I don't see why it has to fail in the long run.

That's exactly the problem. It launched before it fulfilled its potential. The launch is the one time you get all this media coverage and attention. If you can't capture and build a user base and community during launch, then you're doomed. Even if you fulfil your potential sometime in the future, you won't have any users then. And that's assuming that you can survive that long without users sticking with you along the way. If it ever does live up to the hype, they'll have to relaunch to get people to remember them.

There seems to be a bigger and bigger problem lately of people confusing potential with reality. It's very easy to come up with ideas or make things that have huge potential. Wii, iPhone, Wolfram, Spore, and Dwarf Fortress are all examples of things with huge unfulfilled potential. Success comes from actually achieving greatness. Having possibilities for greatness in the future doesn't mean squat.

The truth is that right now, Wolfram is not very useful at all. It is extremely limited in what information it has, and thus it is only useful to a very small subset of people in a small subset of cases. It's got a long way to go. It may one day get there, but I question whether it can stick around that long without something or someone propping it up.

kiwi_bird

First off, I looked at their site a bit closer and saw that they sell their technology to other companies. So I guess that's how they plan to get most of their revenue.

Even if you fulfil your potential sometime in the future, you won't have any users then.

I honestly don't think so. As Wolfram adds data and features that are useful to one group of people they'll start to use it, since there is no other online alternative that is as clean and "easy". And as more and more users join, Wolfram will become more and more popular.
Obviously I can't really know, but I do think that Wolfram will become very popular, at least with students.

Rym

I looked at their site a bit closer and saw that they sell their technology to other companies. So I guess that's how they plan to get most of their revenue.

Who are they going to sell to? Unless Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo buy it, they won't have much of a revenue stream. This wouldn't be useful for a corporation internally like the Google Mini is, either.

So far, I'm not impressed. Incorrect information seems to rule the day with regard to historical facts. (Unless the French Republic participated in the battle of Hastings...) I don't trust the answers it gives me, and independently verifying them is faster than searching here in the first place.

As Wolfram adds data and features that are useful to one group of people they'll start to use it, since there is no other online alternative that is as clean and "easy".

Considering how ambiguously it seems to handle most input, I'd hardly consider this easy.

Basically, it is currently useless. They will have to spend a lot of time and money to make it non-useless. Until they do, I have no further interest in it. The idea is sound, but ideas are worthless without implementation.

Starfox

Basically, it is currently useless.

And that's when it even works. Right now it's just the goggles:

Wolfram Alpha has temporarily exceeded its current maximum test load.

WindUpBird

For a math student or an engineer (I'm probably going into Mechanical or Bioengineering next year), I could see it being convenient. However, it only uses MathematicaLive to run computations, and I can buy a year-long student license for a Mathematica install for $17 with my student ID. I'd rather not buy 2 trades and have Mathematica on my HD than use Wolfram Alpha constantly. You can do more with the program itself, and you don't deal with WebUIs and their various flaws.

Apreche

For a math student or an engineer (I'm probably going into Mechanical or Bioengineering next year), I could see it being convenient. However, it only uses MathematicaLive to run computations, and I can buy a year-long student license for a Mathematica install for $17 with my student ID. I'd rather not buy 2 trades and have Mathematica on my HD than use Wolfram Alpha constantly. You can do more with the program itself, and you don't deal with WebUIs and their various flaws.

Well, I don't think the point of Wolfram Alpha is to compete with Mathematica. Sure, it has MathematicaLive functionality, but I don't think that's the primary purpose. The intended purpose is natural language search of real world data. The Mathematica functionality is there so that you might perhaps apply some formulas to combinations of said data. The problem is that the natural language search is poop, and the available data is not expansive enough to be useful to more than a very small number of people.

konistehrad

I dunno, I'm actually finding it useful already. I needed to convert a half-pound of powdered sugar to cups earlier and Wolfram was right on top of that. (It's 9 fl oz, for those interested).

EDIT: Ugh, then I finally saw the "overloaded" screen. There's no option to clear and return to the search menu? You're only presented the option to view the live stream? Bad form, Wolfram, bad form.

Apreche

I dunno, I'm actually finding it useful already. I needed to convert a half-pound of powdered sugar to cups earlier and Wolfram was right on top of that. (It's 9 fl oz, for those interested).

Google can do most unit conversions, but I don't think it can do that one because it would need to know the density of powdered sugar.

konistehrad

Google can do most unit conversions, but I don't think it can do that one because it would need to know the density of powdered sugar.

And to it's credit, Wolfram did.

Andrew

The real power of W|A will lie in it's ability to be updated by third party programs and it's API.

trogdor9

How can you call it useless when it can calculate nutritional facts for 1 solar mass of bacon?

In all fairness, I am relatively disappointed with it. The language recognition isn't quite what Stephen Wolfram made it out to be in the screencast. However, I am impressed with how it displays data for things it does understand; so it clearly has great potential. Unfortunately, I don't see myself using it very much in the near future.

Churba

How can you call it useless when it can calculatenutritional facts for 1 solar mass of bacon?

And gives you multiple options of how you want your bacon cooked, to boot.

Why do I get the feeling that somewhere, somehow, Douglas Adams is laughing?

trogdor9

Why do I get the feeling that somewhere, somehow, Douglas Adams is laughing?

Haha, yes, this does seem like something he would enjoy.

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How can you call it useless when it can calculate nutritional facts for 1 solar mass of bacon?

That would look deliciou-eh awesome on a T-shirt.

Dkong

This is more or less worthless as a search engine, and certainly not a google killer, but it's definitely cool!

And god dammit why did this have to come out AFTER I got done with calculus class. All the derivative and integration information (series expansions!) would have been really helpful.