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.
ticTOCs is a great new resource which can help you keep up-to-date in your area of research.
It has been designed specifically for researchers and academics, and currently contains tables of contents (TOCs) from 7,742 journals. Registration is free and you can then choose which journals you are interested in. When a new issue is published, you will receive details of the tables of contents in your ticTOCs account.
Many journals also have RSS feeds you may wish to subscribe to if you use an RSS reader, and you can often register to receive e-mail updates.
Please ask at your nearest Learning Centre to receive more information about keeping up-to-date with current research.
An audio treat today from one of the many podcast search engine sites. Podanza hosts a range of podcasts covering various subjects. A technology highlight comes from David Pogue of the New York Times who reports weekly on new technology. David also writes a blog on the same subject.
Today is RSS Awareness Day so I thought it would be useful to celebrate this by sharing some information on RSS (Really Simple Syndication).
Some of you may already be familiar with RSS feeds and even use the RSS feed on the SCIT blog. For those that aren’t, RSS is a simple way of subscribing to your favourite web content. You can use a desktop RSS reader (Outlook 2007 and ThunderBird have RSS feeds integrated to their e-mail applications), or you may prefer to use a web-based RSS reader. Bloglines and Google Reader are both popular RSS readers which you may want to try. Once you’ve got your RSS reader sorted you can subscribe to any RSS feed (usually an orange button like the one on the left column). BBC News website has RSS feeds you may be interested in, and almost all blogs have an RSS feed to subscribe to. You can also set up RSS alerts for searches from some of our databases such as Computer Source.
There’s a great video demonstrating the basics of RSS from YouTube:
Hot Topics are a series of short essays about emerging subjects in computing and computer science. They provide a readable introduction to the topic, are regularly updated, and contain references for further reading.
The BBC offer you a guide through the digital world with Digital Planet, a weekly programme reporting on technology stories from around the globe. It covers a multitude of topics about technology and society, new communication tools, the online environment, politics and ethics to name just a few. You can tune in on the web or download the podcast.
If you’re blogging yourself, sharing photos and files through sites like flickr or engaging in a little shameless self promotion on social networking sites like myspace, then you are probably well versed in the phenomenon of Web 2.0. Although much of what constitutes Web 2.0 is not really that new, it is interesting how things like blogs and wikis are being used as educational tools. If you really want to unpick Web 2.0 and its value in education, then this weighty report from the JISC should do the trick.
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.
Posted by Helen Curtis 
Posted by Jo Alcock 
Posted by Helen Curtis 
