Wolfram Alpha Launch Starts Tonight at 5pm Pacific: Here is What You Need to Know
Wolfram Alpha, the new "computational knowledge engine" from the makers of Mathematica is scheduled to officially launch on Monday next week, but starting tonight, Alpha will 'soft launch,' starting with a live webcast of the launch preparations tonight. After that, Alpha will gradually open its doors to everybody throughout the weekend. We have had a chance to test a preview version of Alpha for the last seven days, and we are quite impressed with what we have seen so far. Here are some resources for getting up to speed with Alpha, as well as some recommendations for getting started with this powerful, but sometimes frustrating new tool.
Update: Alpha is now up and running, though the team might take it down at any point during the weekend to fix any problems it discovers during its tests.
Wolfram and his team will chronicle the launch in a live webcast on justin.tv, which will start at 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern tonight. We are not quite sure how Wolfram will manage the gradual launch over the weekend, though we assume that if you are on the preview waiting list, you will get first dibs.
Some Things to Keep in Mind
Here are a few things to keep in mind as you start experimenting with Alpha tonight or over the weekend:
- Wolfram Alpha is not a general purpose search engine - it does not directly compete with Google and if you treat it like Google, you will inevitably be disappointed.
- Check out the copious examples from the home page - they will give you a good idea of the type of queries that Alpha can handle best.
- Here is one thing we can almost guarantee: you will be disappointed at first (especially if you were expecting a Google killer).
Alpha is a great tool, but it takes some time to learn its limits and strengths. Unlike Google, some searches simply don't return any results at all.
Using Alpha
Once you get access to Alpha, here are some tips for how to structure your searches and searches you should try:
- If Alpha doesn't give you the results you are looking for, try a different way of phrasing the query - sometimes even capitalization can make a difference!
- Try to search for anything that can be packed into data snippets (height of a mountain, chemical formulas, population stats, stars, planets, etc.) .
- Try combining two searches. Alpha usually does a great job with these kind of queries.
- Feed it some math problems. The fact that Alpha is based on Mathematica really shines through here.
- Do some test searches for food items or drugs.
- Let it solve some word puzzles for you. Just head to the "Words & Linguistics" section for some good examples.
- If you're a sports fan, look up some baseball or football stats: "passing touchdowns Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos."
Our Wolfram Alpha resources
Screenshots: See Wolfram Alpha in Action
Our Preview: Wolfram|Alpha: Our First Impressions
Wolfram|Alpha will be an amazing product, but it's quite different from Google and other search engines. Indeed, maybe it is actually wrong to call it a search engine at all (and Wolfram prefers to call itself a "computational knowledge engine"). If you wanted to know what sights to see on your next trip to New York City, for example, Alpha, from what we've seen so far, will not be able to help you.
Our Review: Mixed Emotions: Our First Hands-On Test Of Wolfram|Alpha
At the end of the day, Wolfram Alpha is a tool; and once you take some time to learn its ways, it can become a very powerful tool. While a lot of media outlets have compared Alpha to Google, we think that this is a moot question. Alpha simply doesn't want to be a Google killer and, in its current form, won't take market share away from Google. As we reported in our first look at Alpha a few weeks ago, Alpha will take away some users from Wikipedia (but it's no Wikipedia killer either), as it can give those users quick and easy access to a wide range of data.
For now, we expect Alpha to remain a niche player. It will be a highly valuable tool for a small subset of potential users. Though, hopefully, over time the team will add more and better databases to draw information from so that Alpha will become more useful to a mainstream audience as well.
Videos
Stephen Wolfram's screencast demo of Alpha.
First Public Demo of Wolfram Alpha at the Berkman Center:
Stephen Wolfram and colleagues discuss the launch preparations:
Setting up the Wolfram Alpha data center (one of five W|A data centers):
Other Wolfram Alpha Reviews
Technology Review (compares Alpha to Google):
Generally, I did not use search terms that clearly had no computable answer (and therefore would have stumped Wolfram). But I also didn't throw any softballs in areas close to the heart of its makers: physics, chemistry, engineering, and genomics. On hard-core scientific questions, it gives you tons of symbols and graphics and other information that would be useful to a researcher but obscure to most people. But on many common questions for which there is no obvious data element, you will not get much help. In any event, if its plans hold, you should be able to test it out yourself in two or three weeks.
Search Engine Land (very in-depth look):
Wolfram Alpha's edge may be that it's a unique repository of general knowledge that imitates a search engine (unlike Wikipedia, which has no search engine feel). Of course, the killer combination would be for Wolfram Alpha to be partnered with a major search engine. It's something Wolfram said is being considered, though there are no formal discussions at the moment. The focus is really getting the service opened to the public and seeing how the initial reaction goes.
How many times have you used to the internet to calculate the answer to a simple mathematical problem, for help with calculus, or for information on the GDP of Gibraltar? If the answer's, "not often", then it's going to be quite some time before Wolfram Alpha crops up as your search engine of choice.
What Will You Ask?
If you are looking forward to the launch of Wolfram Alpha, let us know what questions you want to ask in the comments. We'll try to answer the most interesting questions (try to give us specific queries!) with links to screenshots from the Wolfram Alpha preview in the comments until about 3pm PST today.
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For the last time, WolframAlpha is not made to compete against Google
These are two separate tools.
However, I have heard some rumours recently that WolframAlpha may be in discussions to acquire Yauba (another impressive new search engine in alpha)
If this is true, the combination WILL be a tremendous threat to Google.
@sonny - exactly - hence the first bullet point: Wolfram Alpha is not a general purpose search engine - it does not directly compete with Google and if you treat it like Google, you will inevitably be disappointed
Frederic Lardinois I think that the first comment from Sonny Jones is a promotion of Yauba. I see the same promotion Yauba going on at TechCrunch perhaps it is Sonny Jones but in a different name.
I hope that this is my first comment on this topic here, but I want to make it clear to readers who may comment after me, to stop comparing apple & oranges. WolframAlpha is not the same as Google.
@Falafulu Fisi - thanks! I definitely got that feeling as well, but couldn't quite back it up.
I have read a number of reports that the including this one by Cnet here that the launch may be delayed due to technical snag.
Really great coverage of Wolfram/Alpha here Fredric.
Thanks
The demonstrations look impressive so far, but the thing that has been lacking from preview so far is any information on the quality and sources of data that Alpha uses. I see these impressive screens of figures and analysis pop up on the screen and I find myself silently intoning "[citation needed]".
It may be that I haven't followed the coverage closely enough. Where is the data sourced from? Is it grabbing it from standard Web-based sources such as Wikipedia and the CIA World factbook etc.? What happens if two sources have contradictory data?
Or is there a large team of data inputter and massagers behind the scenes at Wolfram HQ?
I believe that WA is using an inference engine (IE). IE operates on a knowledge database. What's the difference with Google? Google doesn't use an IE. What's the difference. A simple analogy is like this:
A person (a learner) can grab a book on Calculus, which he can look up on the table of content of index on different sections of the book on how to solve different calculus problems. Looking at a calculus book with all the details on it, doesn't mean that the reader will have a smooth read and be able to comprehend calculus concepts on his own. This is different from when the learner sits with a professor of calculus and they go thru the techniques of how to solve various calculus problems. The professor will teach the learner about various techniques and how they're being solved. He also teaches the learner of how to use inference from memory to be able to infer the right technique for use in certain calculus problems. Mind you that the calculus problems that students sit at the final exams are not necessary the same problems that have been taught to them during the semester. Those different problems that the students see at the final exam, can be solved by them when they infer from their calculus knowledge memory in their brain (knowledge base database) aboaut the correct technique to be applied. If their inference (or reasoning) processing is wrong, because they misplaced those knowledge in their memory or didn't store them, then of course, he will not answer/solve the calculus problem or perhaps retrieve a wrong technique to use.
So, Google is a quick reference (or a pocket book guide) for the user while WA is more like a human knowlegeable person that guides the user. It doesn't mean that the human knowlegeable person can answer everything, because you can't ask a doctor to advise you on MBS (mortgage-backed-security), since MBS is a different domain from medicine. There are various knowledge-based in existence today, but there is no universal one, ie, one that is knowlegeable about medicine, law, politics, science, blah, blah, blah,... I suspect that this is what WA is target to grow over time, ie, a multi-domain (working to become a universal one as time goes on) knowledge database. As knowledge grows over time (via knowledge acquisition), the system becomes more smarter.
WA is no Cuil, because Cuil is in the same domain as Google. WA is in a different domain.
BTW, I have developed FIS (Fuzzy Inference System) for various applications in the past and I know the capability of such systems. Today it is limited to specific domain, but if someone can make it multi-domain in one framework, that would be awesome.
While Sonny is right to point out that Wolfram Alpha is not (currently) competing against Google, let's not kid ourselves.
Convergence is bound to happen. Just as twitter, friendfeed, facebook, etc are starting to converge with similar features, it is a matter of time that Wolfram Alpha starts to converge with a traditonal search engine or search engines start to converge with Wolfram Alpha.
Companies are not static entities. Google 2009 is very different from Google 1999. As will be Google 2019. As competition intensifies for information, each side will add more features.
Either way, Wolfram Alpha is in a good position, as they can either use their stock backed by the amount of excitement about the service to buy a search engine like Sonny above suggested, or a search engine will try to buy them, as others have suggested. All I will say is that this would be a much better move for Microsoft than wasting $100 million plus on a skin for wikipedia (like for Powerset)
Great, now kids everywhere really won't have to do their math homework. ;) Why wasn't I so lucky?
@Sonny Where did you hear such a rumor?
@Falafulu Fisi Fabulous analogy! Thanks!
@Eric - thanks - we'll keep an eye on this and see what happens at 5pm or if there are any updates on the Wolfram blog. Might just be jitters before the 'great reveal' :)
Wow. I have been waiting for this for a while. At the end of the day, Google is great for what it does - but this is a big step forward for artificial intelligence. How else are we going to get Cylon-quality robots if they cannot learn to digest large amounts of data and answer our queries. Uh. Hmmm... Is Wolfram's next step to create "Toasters" that will destroy all of us? What has happened before...
Can't wait to create Wolfram Alpha custom commands with Mozilla Ubiquity. Wolfram will help me a lot searching for stats.
I mean, imagine launching Ubiquity and typing "wolfram europe population". Amazing.
I'm much looking forward to a logical and computational sorting of information, book-like, rather than a purchased ordering. I wonder if now or someday Wolfram Alpha will handle regular-expression searches.
Try Wolfram Alpha now: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/
Finally it comes!
This site has a Google ranking of 8????????
Wow...I need more drugs.
Susan Boyle had the number one YouTube video of all time at roughly 56 million hits except for this site suddenly telling people there are YouTube videos with over 100 million hits.
What a pile of crap.
Are we really all this stupid just for advertising bucks?
Patrick
Patrick said...
I am an idiot
Would you care to elaborate what did you search for?
If anything it is a statistical search engine, with some extra information, such as searching for a famous person can reveal their age on the entry.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/atomic1fire#1320d
|
May 15, 2009 9:41 PM
Don't worry, it doesn't know Skynet.
yet...
"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that..."
yeah, right
Chris Lee,
Good post. Yes, people do forget that products evolve and that companies often buy other companies when the combination becomes even more compelling.
The issue with WolframAlpha is that the queries it handles cannot really be monetised. How many advertisers are really going to bid on a query like "the average body temperature of the fruit fly"? And unfortunately a subscription model tends not to work well on the public Internet.
It would make perfect sense for Wolfram Alpha to either build its own search engine or buy one of the new ones that are out there. I think the best ones would be www.hakia.com, www.yauba.com, or www.kosmix.com. All of them seem to have solid technologies and would work very well with WA. (Hakia and Yauba already seem to have an advertising program in place, whereas kosmix still seems to be pre-revenue.) Another option would be for them to integrate Yahoo BOSS which is an API to access Yahoo's search index. The downside is that it may be quite expensive if you send a lot of querires to Yahoo, since it is not free. A third option would be for them to simply build their own search engine. It is not easy, but, come on, if you developed mathematica, I am sure it cannot be that hard for someone like SW!
I think there is a lot of potential with WA, I agree with the above comment - a combination/partnership of some sort makes the most sense looking forward.
I am also curious about WA's "special sauce" - how easily can it be imitated by some other company? What is really distinguishing about it?
I think search business models require getting two things right - 1) the usefulness to users, i.e. the search algorithm and 2) usefulness to advertisers. The second depends very much on the type of economics involved in ad buying. Google success depended just as much on its auction-style of selling ads as it did on superior search results. Google got the data crunching and the economics right - I think that's why they became dominant.
Any next gen search businesses will have to hit both of those nails.
Just as I thought, creating Ubiquity commands is awesome.
I had reasonable expectation for WA, but came away quite disappointed. I tried a few simple well known nouns, it failed miserably: "vmware", WA "interpret it as Voxware" a complete different company with 1/1000th market cap. "dvcs" found nothing? The coverage and freshness is not even comparable to the simplistic Wikipedia search, let alone Google.
WA met my lowest expectation: a giant calculator. I think they (like most semantic (mostly deterministic inference stuff) guys) don't have a clue to do IR yet. They got the presentation layer mostly right though.
I'm waiting for a search company with Geoffrey Hinton as Chief/Principal Scientist.
important information is very clear and understandable one, that was truly
Wolfram Alpha does have it's quirks when interpreting queries.
For instance, I typed "caffeine ld50" and got nothing.
But typing in "caffeine molecule ld50" brings me all the available data on caffeine, including ld50.
Strange.
Really there is no such comparison between Google and Wolfarm Alpha... one is Orange and the other is Apple ;)
Really there is no such comparison between Google and Wolfarm Alpha... one is Orange and the other is Apple :))
there are so many search engines which can help one in finding Hotels, finding places to Party, i must say Google has become a part of our everyday use.
Diana