An invention that might alter the internet forever

The fledgling system, Wolfram Alpha, showcased at Harvard University in the United States last week, takes the first step in the direction that many believe to be the Internet's Holy Grail – a global store of data that understands and replies to regular language in the same manner a human would.

Although the system is still new, it has already produced massive interest and excitement with technology experts and internet aficionados.

Computer professionals predict that the new search engine will an evolutionary leap in the development of the internet. Nova Spivack, an internet and computer expert, said that Wolfram Alpha could prove just as popular as Google. "It is really impressive and significant," he wrote. "In fact it may be as important for the web (and the world) as Google, but for a different purpose."

Tom Simpson, of the blog www.convergenceofeverything.com, said: "What are the wider implications exactly? A new paradigm for using computers and the web? Probably. Emerging artificial intelligence and a step towards a self-organizing internet? Possibly... I think this could be big."

Wolfram Alpha can not only give a straight answer to queries such as "how high is Mount Everest?", but it will also produce a organized page of related information – all accurately annotated – such as geographical location and nearby towns, and other mountains, complete with charts and charts.

The real innovation, however, is in its ability to sort information out "on the fly", according to its British inventor, Dr Stephen Wolfram. If you ask it to compare the height of Mount Everest to the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, it will tell you. Or ask what the weather was like in London on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated, it will cross-check and offer the answer. Ask it about D sharp major, it will play the scale. Type in "10 flips for four heads" and it will guess that you need to get the probability of coin-tossing. If you need to know when the next solar eclipse over Chicago is, or the exact current location of the International Space Station, it can work it out.

Dr. Wolfram, an award-winning physicist who is equations.

"I've wanted to make the knowledge we've accumulated in our civilization computable," he said last week. "I was not sure it was possible. I'm a little surprised it worked out so well."

Dr. Wolfram, 49, who was educated at Eton and had completed his PhD in particle physics by the time he was 20, added that the launch of Wolfram Alpha later this month would be only the beginning of the project.

"It will understand what you are talking about," he said. "We are just at the beginning. I think we've got a reasonable start on 90 per cent of the shelves in a typical reference library."

The engine, which will be free to use, works by drawing on the knowledge of the internet, as well as private databases. Dr. Wolfram said he expected that about 1,000 employees would be needed to maintain its databases updated with the latest discoveries and information.

Wolfram Alpha has been designed with experts and intellectuals in mind, so its grasp of popular culture is, at the moment, comparatively weak. The term "50 Cent" resulted in "absolute horror" in tests, for example, because it confused a discussion on money with the American rap artist. For this reason alone it is unlikely to provide an immediate threat to Google, which is working on a similar type of search engine, a version of which it launched last week.
"We have a lot amount of popular culture facts," Dr Wolfram said. "In some cases popular culture information is much more shallowly computable, so we can find out who's related to who and how tall people are. I fully predict we will have lots of popular culture information. These are linguistic horrors because if you put in books and music a much of the names collide with other ideas."

He added that to help with that Wolfram Alpha would be utilizing Wikipedia's popularity index to decide what users were likely to be interested in.

With Google now one of the world's top brands, worth $100bn, Wolfram Alpha has the potential to become one of the biggest names on the planet.

Dr. Wolfram, however, did not rule out working with Google in the future, as well as Wikipedia. "We're working to partner with all possible organisations that make sense," he said. "Search, narrative, news are complementary to what we have. Hopefully there will be some great synergies."
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