Stephen Wolfram is getting very close to the launch of the Wolfram Alpha ‘knowledge engine’. Today he is chairing an interactive webinar of his engine so far.
So, if Wolfram Alpha is to be a Google killer, just how does the knowledge engine compare with Google itself?
As a knowledge and data manipulation device, Wolfram Alpha looks to be superb. Frankly I can imagine myself using this every day. But as a search engine replacement?
There has always been talk of users not visiting websites in the future, but that everyone will have a personal "agent" which will go out and collect and manipulate all the data about any presented question, formatting it in a manner that the user can read.
This will range across the board, from buying a ticket to an Exeter City game to a full blown knowledge search.
Wolfram Alpha seems to be a good step towards that paradigm. As has been joked already, it is Tim Berners Lee’s pedantic web all over again, but perhaps a practical one? From initial glances, Wolfram Alpha certainly looks promising.
In the mean time, I am going to listen to the rest of this webinar – so far it has followed my previous experiences of the engine quite closely, but I look forward to the Q&A.
Q. Will Wolfram Alpha only be available in English?
Currently only to be presented in English – future plans to automate identifying of languages, but for now enough of a challenge to simply manage English.
Q. NASA has been using ”NGC1333 IRAS 4a” to test various systems – be curious how it would do here
I was most impressed how the engine compared data between this satellite and nebular.
Q. How does Wolfram|Alpha deal with biases in authorship? For example, how would one ensure neutrality on a page like ”Israel”?
This seems to be a Curation issue, Stephen insists that a level of human intervention will always be required. I find the avoidance on bias to be a major issue for WA, just as it is for Wikipedia.
Q. Will Alpha be freely available or a subscription service?
Both, all that has been shown to us will be free, but there will also be a pro model.
Q. Will there be an API?
Yes, information about the API is already available, but there will be several levels of API available.
Q. What is the anticipated business model?
Corporate sponsors, corporate partnerships, targeted advertising, vendor specific information based on queries and subscription based APIs and professional version, including using WA technology to build bespoke engines. For web search and companies with search and news based models a partnership model looks very good. Currently WA is a hot topic within the industry and some obvious companies.
This did sound a lot like a purchase model, so perhaps not so much a Google killer as a Google acquisition?
Q. Could a company or manufacturer contribute data about their products?
Essentially the answer was yes.
Q. If there is an emphasis on client side processing, how does Wolfram Alpha cope with accessibility standards and the DDA?
No answer.
A thoroughly enjoyable demo, but I still need to see the live product before I can really pass judgement.
Tags: wolfram alpha