"an online service that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer from structured data, rather than providing a list of documents or web pages that might contain the answer as a search engine would".
They don't actually search for stuff that may be stored somewhere else on the Internet, but finds information and makes calculations. A simple example would be to enter your birthdate. As you can see it gives quite a bit of calculated information on the date you were born.
The biggest news from Wolfram|Alpha is that they recently released an API for developers. The way it works is you would send a web request using the same search query you would enter into search box in their website. It will return the same results as well. The are ways that you can manipulate the results so they are useful to the information that you want. The downfall of the API is that it will cost you to use it. You can take a look at the Wolfram API site for more information.
The biggest news from Wolfram|Alpha is that they recently released an API for developers. The way it works is you would send a web request using the same search query you would enter into search box in their website. It will return the same results as well. The are ways that you can manipulate the results so they are useful to the information that you want. The downfall of the API is that it will cost you to use it. You can take a look at the Wolfram API site for more information.
Hmm I've never heard of this. I thought it'd be funny to type Google into the search and it actually pulled back some fastinating stats. It listed the GOOG financial stats, and pretty much every other dollar amount having to do with Google. This site is definitely going to stay in my bookmarks for the future! That's even neater that they released an API for it...maybe Kevin, Helen, and Dane can use it as the necessary fourth API for their group project!?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, nice post and thanks for the new brain food!
Michelle,
ReplyDeleteI've used Wolfram before but didn't know they made an API. Its a shame that they make you pay to use it. My main concern with their service is the accuracy of their data. Do you know where they pull their data from?
Colin,
ReplyDeleteThe site doesn't specifically say where they get there information. It did say that "Wolfram|Alpha contains 10+ trillion pieces of data, 50,000+ types of algorithms and models, and linguistic capabilities for 1000+ domains". It was originally started with a system they call Mathematica. Other than that I didn't see any information about where there data comes from.
It seems pretty cool. Actually I put my birth date in it and it just made me feel how old I am :). Actually it is a pretty cool tool. I put the name of my country and got bunch of information out. Actually it is pretty amazing, it pulled out information that I would never guess it would be on the internet. I really like the way this thing works
ReplyDeleteGreat post Michelle, also did a search like Ivaylo and searched Ajax.I found out there is called Ajax in Ontario, Canada with a population of just under 100000 people. It's pretty sweet because it gave me , the current city time, weather, city elevation, and surrounding cities.!
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