The Wolfram Alpha search engine will be launched this month, and it could possibly revolutionise the web. It is not the regular run-of-the-mill search engine, it is a new system of software which will be able to understand questions and then provide tailored answers. This will be the first search engine of its kind on the internet.

Don’t mistake Wolfram Alpha for Google. It is completely different. It is a store of information which understands and responds to language like any other person. It is what people (especially students!) have fantasised about.There was a sneak peek of the Wolfram Alpha, last week at Harvard University (Videos below)

Although the system is still new, experts believe that this is a massive leap in the development of the internet- that this is part of the natural evolution of the internet. Computer and Internet expert, Nova Spivack, suggested that Wolfram Alpha could be as important as Google:

“It is really impressive and significant…In fact it may be as important for the web (and the world) as Google, but for a different purpose.”

Wolfram Alpha will not only give a straight answer to almost any random question such as ‘How long is the Amazon river?’, but it would also neatly produce relatedand sourced information. Therefore in this case, it might also provide a list of towns nearby the Amazon river or tributaries running off the river.

However, the most impressive feature of the Wolfram Alpha is its ability, as its inventor Dr. Wolfram put it, ‘to work things out on the fly’. You are not limited to asking a simple, straightforward question. Ask it to compare the heights of the Empire State Building and the Petronas Towers, and it will do it. Ask it about Chile’s interest rates the day the Berlin Wall officially came down, it will cross-check and find the answer. If you imply a question within a statement, e.g ‘20 dice rolls for five 6’s’, it will guess you want to know the probabilities of dice rolling and will figure it out.

One burning question might be- ‘Is this like Wikipedia? Is the information trustworthy?’ The answer is that it is not like Wikipedia in that sense, because the results that you receive are assessed by experts and are made available only after a thorough verification. So there is no need to doubt any information in the Wolfram Alpha.

Dr. Wolfram, 49, who got his pHD in particle physics when he was 20, adds that the launch of the ‘computational knowledge engine’ later this month is only the start of the project. However, it is already touted as the ‘Google Killer’, and has raked up plenty of hype before its proper launch. But with Google being one of the world’s top brands, worth $100 billion, maybe Wolfram Alpha has the potential to be one of the biggest names in the planet.

My view is that Wolfram Alpha can’t be a Google killer because frankly, Google doesn’t have anything like this (apart from maybe their new public data search). But in any case Google will lead the market for normal search engines. Wolfram Alpha is something different, I would see it more as Wikipedia’s competitor, than Google’s.

What are your views on the Wolfram Alpha? It is overhyped or is it proof of the ‘evolution of the internet’? And is it going to be a ‘Google Killer’?

Wolfram Alpha

A Sneak Preview of Wolfram Alpha (Excerpt):

Dr. Stephen Wolfram’s Talk in Harvard University (Full):