For example, a search for “newport beach” not only shows the current temperature and forecast but also provides easy access to historical temperatures, which also get charted: Below, my look.ĭo a search on Wolfram Alpha, and if it has matching data, it presents a ton of information on a single page, from figures to charts. I’d call it a “fact search engine” or perhaps an “ answer search engine,” a term that’s been used in the past for services designed to provide you with direct answers, rather than point you at pages that in turn may hold those answers.Įarlier this week, I talked with Stephen to understand how the service works. The service bills itself as a “computational knowledge engine,” which is a mouthful.

Wolfram Alpha is backed by Stephen Wolfram, the noted scientist and author behind the Mathematica computational software and the book, A New Kind Of Science. A Google-killer? Nope! But when the service launches, it should become an essential in anyone’s search tool kit.

Will it be as important as Google has become? Perhaps! A new search paradigm? Yes! Or at least a new way of gathering information.

Much attention has been focused on the forthcoming Wolfram Alpha search service.

Wolframalpha online