There’s a new search service on the block, widely reported to rival Google as search engine of choice. WolframAlpha is the brainchild of Stephen Wolfram, and it sells itself as a “computational knowledge engine” rather than a search engine. The idea is that rather than providing a list of sites to help you with your query, it will bring you the answer from its knowledge base. It definitely has its strengths when looking for facts and figures. View some the examples of what it can do with certain topics including mathematics, statistics and data analysis, and web and computer systems.
Like many others, I have been testing it over the last few days but often being answered by “Wolfram|Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input.” Another criticism has been the fact that at the moment it has a US bias. Time will tell whether the service will improve or interest fizzles out but it is still an ambitious project worth keeping an eye on. You can follow what others are saying about it on Twitter. Let me know your thoughts if you have tested it out.
