

Wolfram Alpha: An invention that could change the Internet forever - zeantsoi
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/an-invention-that-could-change-the-internet-for-ever-1678109.html

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lunchbox
>"Dr Wolfram said he expected that about 1,000 people would be needed to keep
its databases updated with the latest discoveries and information."

I'm sure Wolfram could partner with Amazon to crowdsource some of this data
gathering through Mechanical Turk. For example, collecting data on celebrities
(e.g. height, birth date, family relations). Turk users would fill out forms
and cite where they got the data from.

~~~
Femur
This is actually a really good idea and I wonder if Wolfram and Co. have
considered this.

Additional note: I get super pumped when I read something on HN and I think to
myself "Damn! That is a fine idea." It always makes me grin.

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systemtrigger
In the Q&A after his Harvard presentation last month Stephen said he would not
crowdsource Wolfram Alpha. In short the reason he gave is that crowdsourcing
is unreliable. Stephen used as an example the problems of Wikipedia where
rogue interests and non-experts manipulate results. He only wants great
curators of knowledge to sign off on the inputs. That way when you search for
something on Wolfram Alpha you can expect near certainty in the results.

The ontology of Wolfram Alpha is involved. Those professional researchers in
Champaign who understand how to talk to Wolfram Alpha are not getting their
data from simple Google searches and then citing their sources. This is a
complex process even for simple data points. If Wolfram Alpha has a need for
Mechanical Turk it would be to catch mistakes or _maybe_ do information triage
- but Stephen made clear he doesn't want quasi experts going anywhere near the
research department.

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jlees
A disturbingly tabloid headline. The article's premise is that it could change
certain aspects of search, though I'm sceptical - others have tried human-
curated 'knowledge databases' and we all still use Google and Wikipedia.

Plus, I think today's searchers - for the most part - speak search engine
lingo, and have certain expectations. I don't _want_ my search results to play
D# major if that's what I'm searching for, I probably want to see the notes. I
won't type in "10 flips for four heads", I'll type in "coin tossing
probability".

I can see kids doing homework projects having fun with this, but beyond?
Dunno. I'm quite happy for it to be a wild success and prove me wrong, I'm
just very sceptical this will happen.

~~~
chaosmachine
If Alpha lives up to its hype, I think we'll find incredibly useful (yet non-
obvious at the moment) applications for it, and one day we'll wonder how we
ever lived without such a service.

~~~
tokenadult
_If Alpha lives up to its hype_

That is the tough issue here. The hype has been immense.

~~~
jamroom
Agreed - it's been immense, and (unfortunately) I think I can predict what
will happen upon launch - someone will find a witty "search" or question that
WA should have no problem with (or they think it should have no problem with),
and WA will spit out some nonsensical answer, and it will get posted to every
site under the headline "Wolfram Alpha can't even answer this simple question,
how is it going to take on Google?". It will become a joke, and only those who
understand it will continue to use it, while the rest will dismiss it because
they likely won't understand it. I'm hopeful, but not too hopeful.

~~~
chris11
You are kind of comparing apples and oranges here. I don't think Alpha would
be really hurt if the majority of people found it useless.

All Wolfram has to do is to allow developers access to the API. I'm just not
totally sure how he will allow access to the program right now.

Google's search engine isn't incredibly useful to the person who doesn't like
using it. But Alpha has the possibility possibility of being useful to people
who wouldn't even visit the site.

At the very minimum, it has a lot of potential for search aggregation. Let's
say that someone wanted to create a site that aggregated travel information.
It sounds like a developer could basically create mini-travel guides on demand
for specific regions or towns. So you would quickly get info on crime, cost,
food, weather, and tourist attractions. Or you could actually just rank travel
places based on certain criteria. So if I wanted to find a cheap place that
currently had warm weather, beaches, and low crime, I might be able to get a
lot of useful information. I wouldn't need to use Alpha myself, somebody would
have just had to develop a site to aggregate the results.

I have no idea what it's killer use will be, but this has the potential to be
very useful to developers. So once developers start taking advantage of it, I
believe it would be successful.

~~~
jamroom
I agree - it's for sure an apples to oranges comparison, but unfortunately I
have a feeling that most users (and main stream media outlets) will gloss that
over and pronounce it the "non" Google killer. I also agree with you that the
potential lies in something we may not be able to envision at this point, but
if developers get turned on to the platform it might be really successful.

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andreyf
Sounds like that bad joke... the punch line being "and so modest, too!"

~~~
J_McQuade
Stephen Wolfram's not just modest - he's A _New Kind_ of Modest.

Seriously, though - I can't help but think that no matter how brilliant
Wolfram Alpha might be, it will never end up being as good as he thinks it is.
I hope I'm proved wrong, but that unpleasant feeling has definitely coloured
my opinion thus far.

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mickt
We keep hearing about, when is it going to be available (so we can see if all
this hype is true or not)?

<http://www.wolframalpha.com/> still says "Launching May 2009" and it's now
May 3rd.

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GHFigs
Perhaps your first query to Alpha should be "how many days in May"?

~~~
andreyf
I'd also be curious about "how many days _left_ in May"?

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skwiddor
This was the _front page_ of the print version of The Independent today
(Sunday 3rd May) !

