Wolfram Alpha Vs. Google

CEans,

The uninitiated will be pleased to know that Wolfram (Creators of Mathematica Software) are ready to launch the Wolfram Alpha ( called the 'answer engine' ). The official launch date is May 18, 2009.

Here's the link: Wolfram|Alpha: Computational Intelligence

Wolfram has already made it clear that they are not rivaling Google. Their's is an 'answer engine' which gives you the answers for every typed question. For example you may type "Who invented V8 engine?" and you may get relevant answers.

However think about this. Searching is essentially about finding answers to your questions. So do you think Wolfram Alpha could beat Google in the long run? I know - it's too early to make predictions.

What's your take?

Replies

silverscorpion

Well, it's to early to say. But still, I'd say it'll be difficult to surpass Google.

I'm saying that, we won't always have questions. So, a search engine would be better in those cases where we only have keywords..
In those cases where we have a specific question and want answer for that question, an answer engine like this wolfram alpha might be useful.

It's just a matter of what we want and what we have.
shalini_goel14

I agree with you Scorpion but looks like now we are supposed to type whole question instead of keywords. A kind of overhead involved but would be more useful for school students who are assigned such questions by their teacher to get answered and unfortunately parents of few don't know answers. 😉
sauravgoswami

It seems wikipedia has a competition,Google is only a search engine which give's you related links not answers,it will definately give wikipedia a tough time
raj87verma88

I agree with Saurav.
Ashraf HZ

Hm, I would probably use it differently than Google. Certainly not competitors. Ask.com would probably come close.

Since its a search engine and not a reference website, its probably not a competitor with Wikipedia too.
shalini_goel14

ash
Since its a search engine
To correct you, it is an "answer engine" 😉

sauravgoswami
It seems wikipedia has a competition,Google is only a search engine which give's you related links not answers,it will definately give wikipedia a tough time
Well ! I am sure it is going to fail to answer my questions as questions that I search start from "How.." . Anyways waiting to get my questions answered by it. Lets see 😀
silverscorpion

well, it might not give the exact answer for "How" questions, but it might point us to the answer. For that matter, even Google is not able to answer some questions of "How" type. I'm sure you have experienced that.

What is to be noted is, this is a new type of service and we have to wait and see how it is. Also, if there's a provision for dynamic improvement, like in Wiki, there'll be better service. ie, if the users are allowed to add questions and their respective answers, then the service will be even better. But this has it's own cons, like verification of the answer, et all.

Well, let's wait and see.
shalini_goel14

Well I get most of the answers myself 😉. Even sometimes google fails to answer my questions. 😉
sauravgoswami

It depends what your are searching,when it comes to technology google atleast gives you a hint!!!
Kaustubh Katdare

Come on folks! Have you heard - Google is fighting back with its own service - Google Squared!

😁
shalini_goel14

The_Big_K
Come on folks! Have you heard - Google is fighting back with its own service - Google Squared!

😁
That's why we say CE-InFocus should keep in mind that people reading posts here are humans not bots. We cannot catch up its speed of posting. 😉

For those who missed out-
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#-Link-Snipped-#
Kaustubh Katdare

@ Shalini: I pick up data from various sources 😉 . In focus just gathers the feeds from tech blogs and posts them on forums.
shalini_goel14

The_Big_K
@ Shalini: I pick up data from various sources 😉 . In focus just gathers the feeds from tech blogs and posts them on forums.
Well from the day I joined CE, CE is the only source of information so rely on CE-InFocus for majority of news here 😉
silverscorpion

well, Google squared seems to have redefined the way we search.

What do you think?? This idea of making the whole web into a single huge database??
Will it work? In the ever increasing web space, is it feasible??

I'm skeptical of this approach. What do you guys think??
shalini_goel14

silverscorpion
well, Google squared seems to have redefined the way we search.
Yep you are right but let's see how much useful this Wolfram Alpha is going to be and upto what level we can search answers of our questions. 😀
Kaustubh Katdare

I'm sold to WolframAlpha! It produces amazing results! 😀

Have you all tried it?
CEMember

Wow ! Wolfram Alfa, cool information 😁

Good for you Good Admin.

shalini_goel14
Well ! I am sure it is going to fail to answer my questions as questions that I search start from "How.." . Anyways waiting to get my questions answered by it. Lets see 😀
Hey Shalini, I tried my very first question starting from "How to.." only but could not get answer.
My question was "How to search an image by image ?" 😔 and they are saying "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input." 😔 How could they forget that all users are not as intelligent as them while developing. Did I feed anything wrong in their system? 😕

FIRST impression is the LAST impression,..very bad impression I got. 😔
Rohan_sK

I have to still visit the site and try something out for myself, but as a the above posts are suggesting there seem to be Pros and Cons equally probable.
Let me give it a try and throw a sharp question at it, and lets see if it can satisfy my query. I'll write my review about it , lets see if its really worth the hype created!!
Kaustubh Katdare

@ CE Member - It's not a typical search engine. Try searching for something like 'Bangalore' weather or try feeding it with your birth date 😀

... and see the kind of information it generates.
CEMember

The_Big_K
@ CE Member - It's not a typical search engine. Try searching for something like 'Bangalore' weather or try feeding it with your birth date 😀

... and see the kind of information it generates.
Ha ! Good for you man, I don't have enough time to waste in searching for such useless things. 😀
durga ch

I came to know from a local paper that Alpha actually has millions of algorithms to give USEFUL results, it doesnot give related result links like google

instead gives out results computed depending on the entry. Its really interesting 😁
i aint sure if its any competetion to google though!
shalini_goel14

@CEMember It is just a computational engine man, don't expect answers of your stupid questiosn from it. OK 😉

@durga Ya ! Good as a computational knowledge engine but I didn't like the time it takes to give me information.

Anyways , have you guys checked this -Awesome 😁 . I am going to use it for my all searches from now onwards.
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silverscorpion

wow, I love this.

Really good add on. This is why Firefox has an edge over the other browsers.
All FF users, You've got to try this for sure!!
shalini_goel14

silverscorpion
wow, I love this.

Really good add on. This is why Firefox has an edge over the other browsers.
All FF users, You've got to try this for sure!!
yes you are exactly right about FF. I loved that feature. Does Any other browser provide that?
patraanjan23

if u want search results.. nothing is better than Google. Wolfram Alpha is not that much user friendly... or u can say that it needs more appropriate keywords to search. and basically it is like a statistical search engine. but u can find any thing in Google.. So Google wins

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Wolfram Alpha Vs. Google

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