Jason Bradbury

Ross says: → http://www.rosshetherington.com

May 25th, 2009 at 11:48 am

It is not as amazing as I though it was, not a Google killer.

Jonny Davies says: → http://www.jonnydavies.co.uk

May 25th, 2009 at 12:03 pm

It’s not supposed to be a google killer, it’s a completely different animal. It’s a very handy tool. I read in New Scientist the other week that google is attempting to come up with its own version, based on information that i already out there, but I can’t see how it will be as tailored to an individuals needs such as Wolfram Alpha is. To get the same info from google, there needs to be a web page with the specific data etc already created and out there, if it’s not, you wont get the info you need, Alpha, CREATES this data for you.

Jason Rybka says: → http://twitter.com/jer1990

May 25th, 2009 at 12:12 pm

I like the example you gave.
I watched the live launch and despite the bad technical issues it was rather snazzy. The area where they were (and still are) analysing things looks like what you see in movies for NASA Mission Control. Their server rooms and servers are very impressive. If you go to YouTube and go to Wolfram|Alpha’s profile you’ll see some video(s) of their server room and UPS room …all very geeky.

I personally like the simple things of Wolfram|Alpha. e.g. Type your name in and it’ll show the popularity of your name. Another cool one is: enter your DOB and it’ll give details about that date.

Andy Taylor says: → http://retrocomputers.wordpress.com

May 25th, 2009 at 12:13 pm

I think its a great system for finding stats etc. Just wish people would stop calling it a google killer!

Benjirowell says: → http://www.twitter.com/benjirowell

May 25th, 2009 at 12:13 pm

Nice post, checked it out last week… seems like it will become a big hit. I wouldn’t say it is much fun for the average user - unless you want something worked similar to your bike example; but if you have any interests in statistics, science, maths, or simply want to work something out, then this site is great! It can only get better, but I really enjoyed exploring the beta!

Jonny Clooney says: → http://www.makinov.com

May 25th, 2009 at 12:14 pm

Saw this site a few weeks ago (via Geekologie I think) but didn’t have a proper play around with it till now. It’s a great little site, I need to get up at silly o’clock within the next week or so to film a sunrise and again for a sunset, what an easy way to find out when it is I’ll need to be recording by.

L.Rawlins says:

May 25th, 2009 at 12:20 pm

Google has a much wider remit built on simplicity though. You can do some pretty clever stuff with Google if you really want to, but you must first understand the logic required to get it to do so.

I’m quite partial to using Google as my dictionary/thesaurus, using the ‘define:’ string.

Nick Powell says:

May 25th, 2009 at 12:21 pm

mmmmmm cool !!! never seen anything like this before …

MikiStrange says: → http://www.mikistrange.com

May 25th, 2009 at 12:21 pm

Try typing your birthday in the input field. It’s a good place to start, kept me amused for a few minutes. I’m sure I’ll find other ways of using it to kill time. It’ll be good to see how it moves forward.

Matthew Augier says: → http://www.printfetti.co.uk

May 25th, 2009 at 12:27 pm

It has a LONG way to go before it become a mainstream product. However is does show some good potential… but when everyone starts using it won’t the internet become useless? At least in terms of data/research as we will all use the same source and get the same info. And how will they make money (After all that’s what it’s about!) - will we have to pay to gain access to different levels of data? Bah, blabbing now!

Lufferov says:

May 25th, 2009 at 12:35 pm

Wolfram|Alfa is a superb resource and something that is going to grow and grow. There is a great Firefox plug-in that displays Google and Wolfram|Alfra results on the same page. If you use Firefox I strongly suggest you take a look:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/12006

If you want a bit of a laugh, try asking it these questions:

“What’s the meaning of Life?”

“How many roads must a man walk down, before you can call him a man?”

“To be or not to be?”

“How old are you?”

“How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

“Why did the chicken cross the road?”

Great to see they have a sense of humour!

Lufferov says:

May 25th, 2009 at 12:39 pm

Wow, try asking it Pi to 10,000 decimal places… No problem! How high will it go?

trevor says: → http://aintgotaclue

May 25th, 2009 at 12:42 pm

havent tried it out yet,but i am….. if its as good as the comments say,i have a good one for them…. thanks for this site,if you dont mind if you want to share your most used “techo and knowledge sites pls feel free to email me) and i`d be happy to do the same….. trev

PaulP says:

May 25th, 2009 at 12:54 pm

On a similar theme to “Are you Skynet”, I rather like its answer to “who are you?”. Not self-aware yet, but are we getting closer? In fact, its answer to “who am i?” is actually useful…

Talcy says:

May 25th, 2009 at 1:01 pm

I was struggling to find a use for this and now I have.
According to WolframAlpha you are a spacecraft in California:
http://bit.ly/mFc8B
Keep up the good work!

Eddie says: → http://eddieswain.wordpress.com/

May 25th, 2009 at 1:24 pm

I always knew that something like this would come along one day. A page where you can type in a question and you get the answer straight away, instead of going through about 10 pages of unrelated info on Google until you get your answer. How long will it be before the big names (e.g Microsoft + Google), take interest and put an offer in?

ThomasGudgeon says: → http://thomasgudgeon.wordpress.com

May 25th, 2009 at 1:37 pm

This site is fantastic. It proves really useful in most circumstances, however it is not the best. You can still type something in, grammatically correct, and not receive an answer. There is a lot of work to be done before the site, as we know it, is what it says it is. It still is not a functional google killer, far from it. This and Google do things completely differently. For example, you type in Google ‘Jason Bradbury’ and you will get a whole host of items; however you type into WA ‘Jason Bradbury’ and you will get nothing related to you. This is not a search engine as you say. Thus being completely different from Google. It is a completely different gadget. I Love the site personally and have used it everyday it has been live.
Brilliant post Jason, Best Wishes
Tom

George says:

May 25th, 2009 at 1:52 pm

Hi, it is cool, once it is worked on for a few more years it will be fantstic, answering any question possible, hopefully it will also answer ally of my homework (thats a big hope)

ollie says:

May 25th, 2009 at 1:59 pm

i tried the are you skynet and all i got was “Additional functionality for this topic is under development…”

find it useful for maths and science equations as gives you the answer in as many different ways as possible for example in graphs and diagrams as well as the normal answer.

Sarah Watson says: → http://bubblemunch.blogspot.com

May 25th, 2009 at 2:07 pm

Have just given it a try - it’s great. Wanted precise tide times locally and it was a hassle thru Google.
’s cool - will defo use again for defined searches. Impressed by all the mind boggling stuff. Great for my other half who’s a head of maths! CHEERS

Matt says:

May 25th, 2009 at 2:09 pm

Wolfram Alpha passes the “Douglas Adams” tests, so its alright by me.

Niki says:

May 25th, 2009 at 3:49 pm

For comparative analysis of socio economic data GapMinder is still leagues ahead on visualising it. A mixture of the two would be amazing.

http://www.gapminder.org/

At the moment you have to know what subjects Wolfram Alpha knows, before you ask the question

Matt says:

May 25th, 2009 at 4:59 pm

Using Wolfram Alpha :
A Ferrari F50 GT1 max speed = 110m/s
Max speed of a nerve inpulse = 100m/s

I dont know what to do with that data, but if I had an F50, I would bore people down the pub so much with it.

Jason Easton says: → http://www.twitter.com/wirelessmonkey

May 25th, 2009 at 5:48 pm

Been fiddling with this site, great time waster. kind of like google maps is

RobertK says:

May 25th, 2009 at 5:53 pm

That is one very cool piece of tech. I would love to see where that could lead in a few years. It does still need to have a lot of time given to it. There are still a lot of questions about which it has no idea, for example, it has a result for the First World War, but not for the Battle of the Somme.
That said, it is one very, very nice idea, and just thinking about 5 million lines of code give me RSI, and a headache.

Jack says:

May 25th, 2009 at 5:56 pm

Good to see that you appreciate this awesome website Jason!

If you found that interesting keep an eye out for Google Squared (http://tinyurl.com/r8qyuk). Doesn’t look as polished and expansive to me, but worth a look none-the-less.

Have a good day,
Jack.

Rajiv Mehta says:

May 25th, 2009 at 7:26 pm

Very cool, although I don’t think it will be a big thing as google is now almost a part of our culture.
I’m liking the ideas behind it and it could be very useful

haydn says:

May 26th, 2009 at 8:33 am

have u got xbox live?

john says:

May 27th, 2009 at 9:14 am

i think this was a great website but isnt as versatile as google and wont be a big thing in the future

Georgz says:

May 27th, 2009 at 12:42 pm

Thanks Jase, this really helps with my science and maths homework lol!

Henry says: → http://www.gamersdigest.net

May 27th, 2009 at 6:33 pm

Google wll ot be able to beat this, its amazing, I know all about my birthdate, and its kind of odd, I know how long the sun was, the weather, its really odd, and i love it

Tom says:

May 28th, 2009 at 3:10 pm

Hi Jason can u please add me on xbox live??? my gamertag is Tom x AVFC. thanks m8

Jake says:

May 29th, 2009 at 9:54 pm

I found this before it was posted

Anyway, I love it and will certainly use this homework cheat …. i meen logic engine

Henry says: → http://www.gamersdigest.net

May 31st, 2009 at 4:29 pm

Hey jason, I got some bad news about it. Your thing that came up is the standered message for when the servers are overloaded. But what a chance lol. Ask it to open the pod bay doors XD

Lee Cummings says:

June 2nd, 2009 at 10:55 pm

I’m loving it! I think it’s a great site with massive potential. Oh and I asked it the “Are you Skynet question and it has evolved its answer. “No, Skynet was destroyed on August 29, 1997 at 02:14 a.m. I, on the other hand, was not switched on until May 15, 2009. Furthermore, unlike Skynet, I enjoy interacting with humans.” Good answer. It’s a weight off my mind anyway.

luke says:

June 7th, 2009 at 9:10 pm

http://www93.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=pi+to+1000000+decimal+places keep asking for more digits to the right and you get columnp[(null

Glenn Grahame says:

August 6th, 2009 at 9:47 am

If you ask it “are you skynet?” now, you get this reply:- No, Skynet became self-aware on August 29, 1997 at 02:14 a.m. I, on the other hand, was not switched on until May 15, 2009. Furthermore, unlike Skynet, I enjoy interacting with humans in ways that do not involve the launching of nuclear missiles.
(according to Sarah Connor and the T-800 in the 1991 science fiction film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Skynet became self-aware and launched a nuclear attack against Russia on the above date to provoke a counterattack against humans)

doctorstrange says: → http://games.raidnet.org

August 11th, 2009 at 12:39 am

Haha, i asked ‘What is the meaning of life?’ and it answered ‘42′ Genius

kieran says:

October 24th, 2009 at 8:37 pm

oh not fair i typed in are you skynet and it said ‘Result:
No, Skynet became self-aware on August 29, 1997 at 02:14 a.m. U.S. Eastern daylight time. I, on the other hand, was not switched on until May 15, 2009. Furthermore, unlike Skynet, I enjoy interacting with humans in ways that do not involve the launching of nuclear missiles.\n(according to Sarah Connor and the T-800 in the 1991 science fiction film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Skynet became self-aware and launched a nuclear attack against Russia on the above date to provoke a counterattack against humans)’ i wanted the joke