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May 15, 2009

Simon Chester

Does Wolfram|Alpha Make Google Obsolete?

I have seen the future of search – and this demo of Wolfram|Alpha is so mindboggling in conception and ambition that when the site launches I want to experiment at length, when it launches on Monday. It's essentially about fusing an analytical engine on top of search, drawing data from the web and then crunching it in a myriad of different ways. "Wolfram Alpha is like a cross between a research library, a graphing calculator, and a search engine." "Wolfram Alpha can generate and compute vast amounts of data and present it using visual charts, spreadsheets and datasets in a dynamic fashion. "

Its inventor sees it as complementary to Google - rather than a Google-killer. But it does seem like the future of search.

There are reports of a delay in the launch of the site and some observers are not super-impressed.

Yet anothern early experimenter confessed that "I Am Not Smart Enough for Wolfram Alpha":

After playing with the very early version of Wolfram Alpha for a few hours, I agree that it's not your average search engine. What is it? I'm not sure I'm qualified to say: Not only did I not understand all the answers I got from Wolfram Alpha, I couldn't even comprehend some of the questions I could ask it.

Wolfram|Alpha

While the underlying purposes are entirely different, I confess to wondering whether this makes Lexis/QL and Westlaw/Ecarswell look crude.

Simon Chester's involvement with legal information goes back to the Seventies when he taught legal research at Osgoode Hall and served on CLIC's board - that was the Canadian Law Information Council. He has practiced law on Bay Street for almost thirty years and speaks and writes widely on legal, technology, ethical and professional issues.
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2 Comments on “Does Wolfram|Alpha Make Google Obsolete?”

  1. JC says:
    May 15, 2009 at 11:06 pm

    The site is not going live on Monday. Going-Live date is today. IT's live right now!!! Check it out!!!

  2. Simon Chester says:
    May 16, 2009 at 12:00 pm

    True enough JC it has launched, though it's apparently close to overload. See the live feed of the control centre here.

    Curiously enough it couldn't tell me the distance from yyz to MAA. Which Google gave me in under a second: 13404 km.

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