I have seen the future of search – and this demo of Wolfram|Alpha [1] 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 [2], drawing data from the web and then crunching it in a myriad of different ways. “Wolfram Alpha [3] is like a cross between a research library, a graphing calculator, and a search engine.” “Wolfram Alpha [4]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 [5]and some observers are not super-impressed.
Yet anothern early experimenter confessed that “I Am Not Smart Enough for Wolfram Alpha”: [6]
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.
While the underlying purposes are entirely different, I confess to wondering whether this makes Lexis/QL and Westlaw/Ecarswell look crude.