May 15, 2009: at night(5PM PDT) Wolfram Alpha should be launched. because of hardware and weather problems the engine was published online some hours later.
The idea of the tool is that it brings expert-level knowledge to everybody. Anyway my first query was quiet obvious - "How to make pancakes?". What i would expect is the recipe that explains how to do pancakes but the engine replies with a complete information about pancake's content
I tried to look for personal learning environments, which are important for my work as well as network analysis. I got nothing as an answer. There are a lot of other unsuccessful request that spoil the impression. I like Eden Shochat comment about cloud computing
Anyway Wolfram Alpha succeeds when i was searching for linear algebra
The tool is from masters for masters. you can do a lot of cool things easily:
- computing basic operations on matrixes
- finding semantic information about a date
- computing how fast the distance between two cities can be reached cologneOdessaLocation
The Wolfram Alpha will play a huge role as a supportive tool for learning, same as Wikipedia, but providing deeper, non-novice knowledge . Though the usefullness of the tool, there is no or minor commercial benefit. Will Wolfram Research devote time to more common problems, e.g. "how to make pan cakes?" or will they focus on virtual services.
Even the engine seems to have a future, one has to spend some time to undestand its logic - so it is neither user-friendly nor enough intuitive. I advice to visit Examples before starting with searching.
Have you found what you search with Wolfram Alpha?
