Every now and then some industrious soul will invent a new type of search engine. But inevitably, any new search engine is compared to Google. Specifically, “Will this one be the Google killer?” WolframAlpha is a new type of search tool that is causing quite a buzz, but the search engine’s creator, Stephen Wolfram, is not interested at all in comparing his software to Google.
In fact, Wolfram insists that his highly anticipated new search engine, known as WolframAlpha, is a different kind of search engine tool, and designed for different uses than Google. You see, WolframAlpha doesn’t actually index web pages. It also will not help you with your online shopping, or to find out where a new movie is playing.
WolframAlpha is designed to answer questions with the help of a huge database of queries and answers. For example, where Google would show you a collection of web sites relevant to the search “Eiffel Tower,” WolframAlpha would be more useful in answering a direct question such as, “is the Eiffel Tower taller and the Space Needle?”
In this sense, WolframAlpha is more of a personal service than Google, and is designed to answer questions that a real live human being might ask. And rather than providing a list of web sites which may or may not have the answers the user is seeking, WolframAlpha simply tells you the answer to your query — and that’s it. Simple and to the point.
The algorithm that WolframAlpha uses to spit out answers to queries is complicated in deed, and uses an advanced form of artificial intelligence. And because of its ability to provide plain language answers to a theoretically unlimited number of inquiries about the world, society, the sciences and even popular culture, many Web pundits are predicting that WolframAlpha has the potential to become a major online player, along the lines of Google, Yahoo and YouTube.
As the new search engine goes live, it remains a work in progress. The beta version of WolframAlpha, for example, cannot answer every question you can throw at it by any means. But the database behind WolframAlpha is growing all the time, and theoretically, could wind up being the largest independent database of verified information in the world.
And it’s important to emphasize that WolframAlpha deals only with “verified information.” Whereas a Google search could turn up lots of web pages related to your question, which may or may not prove reliable; a WolframAlpha search will answer with information that has been previously verified, giving it a higher degree of trustworthiness and veracity. This model could eventually make WolframAlpha an online authority, capable of accurately answering billions of possible queries — something Google could never hope to do.
