Wolfram's "answer-engine" still has much to do to outdo giants Google!

Wolfram Alpha- student’s antidote for homework!

The newly-launched “knowledge engine” was created and developed by Wolfram Research. The service is named after Stephen Wolfram, a British physicist who played a major part in the building of the engine and in announcing it publically.

The service itself is a student’s dream. Unlike Google, which lists web pages that could provide an answer, Wolfram Alpha users insert their question, for example if a GCSE student has forgotten how to work out momentum for his Physics homework, Wolfram Alpha will give these solutions:

As you can see, the "knowledge engine" gives accurate data including the general equation and the ability to change around the input values to their satisfaction

In addition to helping students complete difficult questions, Wolfram also targets online business personnel as, with the help of Alexa statistics, has the ability to distribute accurate data concerning a website suppling users with info like the number of daily page views . Taking TechCombo as an example, the “answer-engine” develops data including domain information and site rank, as you can see below.

What else can you search successfully on Wolfram|Alpha?

Well, apart from answering the hardest Maths/Science questions and site info, you are able to see other structured data including:

- Interesting points in time like birth dates.

- Up-to-date stats and figures considering famous countries and landmarks.

- Stock comparison of companies such as IBM and Dell.

- Appealing little statistics that may make you giggle.

- Intriguing scientific data such as, how many calories you can burn whilst mowing the lawn.

There are a number of other features concerning the hyped up answer-engine. So, please feel free to add to the list by commenting below.

You can use the Wolfram|Alpha service here.

Our Opinion

Pros

• Huge database displaying a wide range of information in a sophisticated and easy-to-use way.
• Trustworthy professionals adding to the large database daily. Taking into account the queries that had been rejected for you and others.
• Beneficial tool for scientists, students, teachers, researchers and the general public.
• Mathematical calculations are by far Wolfram’s most advanced tool giving just about the correct method and answer to every question.

Cons

• Very slow when processing data that you have processed.
• Many of your initial searches will give you this irritating message saying, “WolframAlpha isn’t sure what to do with your input” showing the database may be accurate but other questions are not accounted for. Thus, showing up with nothing.
• In Firefox especially, the engine regularly crashes your browser.

Conclusion

We all know this will never live up to the high expectations of Google but I anticipate this will take many of Wikipedia’s visitors as it is effectively a more accurate and detailed edition of the online encyclopedia.

I feel that this shall be a huge success as the service is such a great idea, giving the public a reliable yet sophisticated engine. Though, the fact that the servers are frequently slow, and taking masses of time to respond will drive users away. However, this could be solved by bringing in more servers allowing for more bandwidth usage.

In time we will see how the service will develop, especially as it has been so hyped up over the last couple of months. I anticipate that Wolfram Research will perhaps release an “iPhone app” as they have an app for just about anything! But, overall I see Wolfram|Alpha becoming a great achievement, a site which will attract much traffic and will commercially gain lots of wealth.

Thank you for reading. Do you have any advantages or disadvantages to add? Or perhaps a query? Feel free to comment below.