Wolfram|Alpha: Our First Impressions - ReadWriteWeb
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Saved by 23 people (1 private), first by anonymouse user on 2009-04-26
- Ershad on 2009-05-23 - Tags Wolfram , search , engine
- Te-ix-te on 2009-05-10 - Tags Suchmaschinenforschung , recherche , journalismus
- Deborahjoy on 2009-05-06 - Tags search , engines
- Giacomoratta on 2009-05-06 - Tags wolfram , jblog
- Witthaus on 2009-04-30 - Tags Wolfram , search
Public Sticky notes
the goal of Alpha is to give everyone access to expert knowledge and the data that a specialist would be able to compute from this information
Highlighted by jbshirk
According to Stephen Wolfram, the goal of Alpha is to give everyone access to expert knowledge and the data that a specialist would be able to compute from this information.
Highlighted by aubreymcfato
Alpha is built around a vast repository of curated data from public and licensed sources. Alpha then organizes and computes this knowledge with the help of sophisticated Natural Language Processing algorithms. Users can ask Alpha any kind of question
Highlighted by jbshirk
Where Alpha exceeds, is in the presentation of its "search" results. When asked for how many internet users there are in Europe, for example, Alpha returned not just the total number, but also various plots and data for every country (apparently Vatican City only has 93 Internet users)
Highlighted by jbshirk
Another query with a very sophisticated result was "uncle's uncle's brother's son." Now if you type that into Google, the result will be a useless list of sites that don't even answer this specific question, but Alpha actually returns an interactive genealogic tree with additional information, including data about the 'blood relationship fraction,' for example (3.125% in this case)
Highlighted by jbshirk
Alpha is built on top of 5 million lines of Mathematica code which currently run on top of about 10,000 CPUs
Highlighted by jbshirk
Alpha, of course, doesn't hide its relationship with Mathematica. Indeed, according to Stephen Wolfram, Alpha is built on top of 5 million lines of Mathematica code which currently run on top of about 10,000 CPUs (though Wolfram is actively expanding its server farm in preparation for the public launch).
Highlighted by aubreymcfato
Mathematica, however, will also be one of the first programs to make use of the Alpha API, so that Mathematica users will be able to access Alpha's repository of data.
Highlighted by jbshirk
Alpha also has a sophisticated knowledge of physics and chemistry data
Highlighted by jbshirk
nutritional information, weather, and census data
Highlighted by jbshirk
Mathematica, however, will also be one of the first programs to make use of the Alpha API, so that Mathematica users will be able to access Alpha's repository of data.
Highlighted by aubreymcfato
eal-time financial data or weather information
Highlighted by jbshirk
Wolfram will release toolbars for FF
Highlighted by aubreymcfato
Public Comment
on 2009-04-28 by ryanschultz