Friday, July 31, 2009

A Computational Knowledge engine for factual queries!


"An ambitious long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone" is a sentence that needs to be deconstructed word for word to understand what Wolfram Alpha (www. wolframalpha.com) is all about. Described as a computational knowledge engine, the brainchild of scientist Stephen wolfram is not a search engine, according to its creators; although it would be easy to mistake the lone text box interface for representing one. It would be simpler to understand Wolfram alpha as a service provided over the Internet for obtaining answers based on "factual information rather than opinion," said Conrad Wolfram, director of International strategy, Wolfram Alpha. "There are many pieces of factual information important for every day life." This includes the weather, the number of calories in your lunch or financial calculations for your shares. A search engine would provide you with a lot of relevant links, and you would need to scout for the answers. Wolfram Alpha computes the exact answer for you, he said, explaining how a computational knowledge engine would be relevant in the life of an average user.

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