In May 2009, Wolfram Alpha will be launching and may be the greatest evolution in search technology since the creation of Google. The technology behind Wolfram Alpha will allow you to ask factual questions and receive the answer to your question. You won’t receive links to documents to answer your question and you won’t be receiving canned responses from a database of information. This technology is actually designed to interpret your questions and formulate a response.
The technology has been created by Stephen Wolfram and was recently tested by Nova Spivack, founder and CEO of Twine.com. Wolfram Alpha is what they are calling a “computational knowledge engine” for the Internet. The technology is designed to answer factual questions such as “How many protons are in a Hydrogen Atom?” and “What is the average rainfall in Seattle this month?”. The technology consists of built-in models of fields of knowledge, data and algorithms that represent real-world knowledge. The fields of knowledge are of course science as well as many other areas of interest such as weather, cooking and music. You can ask it questions in plain language or abbreviated forms of notation.
There is no need to worry about this becoming our Skynet from Terminator. This isn’t quite artificial intelligence or at least it is not intended to be. This technology is not designed to become a competitor of Google and the new search engine of choice. Although, this technology could very well change the way Google interprets the data that is collected from your search query. This technology is far too technical for my comprehension and I would recommend reading the articles that I linked to for more information if you’re interested. From my limited understanding, this technology is amazing and may have a tremendous impact on information retrieval and the way we search the web.
