stephen wolfram

Wolfram Alpha Released! But Is It Useful?

Back in March we brought you news of Wolfram Alpha’s impending release and labelled as ‘the British take on Google’ it promised a whole new type of search engine, and one that could revolutionise the way we think about searching; so now its release has come does it live up to the hype? Could it beat Google at its own game?

Well the first thing to make clear is that it isn’t a ‘Google’ – it doesn’t search for web pages and it doesn’t merely redirect you to the information (although Google is doing more of its own data representation). What it does do it find the answers for you, which is something we haven’t seen before mainly due to limitations in our computation skills.

So what’s Wolfram Alpha like? Well much akin to Google it has a simple layout with a search bar at the top (note the ‘equals’ sign rather than a ‘search’ button which hints towards a more mathematical outlook) but when you search you are presented with information on your input, or an answer to your question (if it could interpret it).

Wolfram Alpha – The British Take On Google!

“A search engine with a relatively basic PageRank algorithm, bi-chromatic colour scheme, basic layout and a misspelt name? Yeah sure we can beat it; I mean it’s only Google.” The thoughts of many, but despite the attempts of numerous companies (Yahoo, AOL and AskJeeves spring to mind) Google is still the number one search engine by a country mile.

However it is noticeable that as of yet there hasn’t been a significant attempt from us British, but thanks to Stephen Wolfram – winner of the MacArthur genius grant (no, I am not joking!) in 1981 – we may have a serious competitor in the shape of Wolfram Alpha.