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The Wolfram|Alpha Launch Team

Welcome to the Wolfram|Alpha Blog

April 28, 2009 —
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Our teams are working hard to meet our goal of having Wolfram|Alpha ready for you in just a few weeks.

Since Stephen Wolfram’s initial announcement, we’ve had the opportunity to show Wolfram|Alpha to some of the thousands of you who contacted us. Many interesting questions surfaced. We plan to use this blog to address those questions and the many more we expect you’ll have as you think about how you too can use Wolfram|Alpha.

We’ll also let you know about upcoming events around Wolfram|Alpha—like the first public preview that Stephen is giving this afternoon at Harvard Law School. Information on participating in the webcast and Q&A can be found here.

Finally, we’ll use this space to talk about ourselves, giving you a peek into our world, what we’re working on, what we’re thinking, and what you can expect from us as the stewards of this project.

So what is Wolfram|Alpha? To begin, we’ve named it a computational knowledge engine.

The heart of Wolfram|Alpha is a computational engine able to draw on terabytes of curated data and synthesize it into entirely new combinations and presentations. The stock of systematic, structured data in the world is vast, but finite, and the efficient processes developed for Wolfram|Alpha have allowed us to make real progress towards the goal of incorporating all of it.

Our overarching goal, the “higher purpose” of this project, is to make all computable, factual knowledge available to everyone. What Wolfram|Alpha does is compute on top of those facts—answering questions, solving equations, providing insights, projecting future behaviors, and more.

We believe the result is an extremely powerful way of harnessing the world’s knowledge and making it possible for anyone to benefit from that power.

Now, that said, Wolfram|Alpha doesn’t yet have all the systematic, structured, factual information on the planet, just a good start at some of the data—including that likely to be of high priority to professionals in various fields like chemistry, physics, biology, or engineering.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll start to share a few of the many uses of Wolfram|Alpha with you, and at launch, the product will be yours to explore. We’re certain that you can find innumerable ways to use Wolfram|Alpha, and we look forward to hearing about this.

We approach this project with a long-term horizon, a 20+ year timeline. We believe Wolfram|Alpha is always going to be a work in progress. And we’re going to be relying on you, our community of users, to point us in the directions of highest priority.

Many of the questions we’re getting right now have to do with the fidelity of our data and our ability to ferret out and relay truth. In a subsequent post we’ll talk quite a bit more about how we’re considering this task and the steps that we are taking to ensure that Wolfram|Alpha delivers on its promise to democratize knowledge for everyone. And we look forward to your feedback on that front as well.

In the meantime, please take the time to follow us on Twitter, join us on Facebook, or grab this blog’s RSS feed. Again, your participation and feedback is going to help us shape Wolfram|Alpha for years to come, and we thank you in advance.

As Hugh McLeod has said, “The market for something to believe in is infinite.” We are very thankful for all of your interest thus far. The number of you who are willing to believe in what we are building has been a real inspiration to us.

Welcome aboard this great adventure with us!

146 Comments

Looking forward to it…

Posted by Aaron April 28, 2009 at 2:19 pm

hurry up :D… we want to try it 😉

Posted by afovidius April 28, 2009 at 2:28 pm

I think its amusing that we have a Blog about something that isnt available yet….sounds rather Zen to me…

Posted by Ananth April 28, 2009 at 2:33 pm

I’m having trouble streaming today’s sneak preview. Will a video for it be available for download later on?

Posted by Andrew April 28, 2009 at 2:36 pm

I’m anxious!!!

Posted by Rafa Barbosa April 28, 2009 at 2:40 pm

Much needed innovation. I am hoping this will make a significant impact in people’s life who are searching for answers in the information universe!

Posted by Anand Raj April 28, 2009 at 2:41 pm

I am very excited by the imminent release of Wolfram/Alpha as pioneering innovator in the dissemination of ever expansive storehouse of human imagination, knowledge.

Posted by Marc Savoy April 28, 2009 at 2:57 pm

I can’t wait to take a look!

Posted by Candy April 28, 2009 at 2:57 pm

A great big thank you for what I heard on the webcast: That Wolfram Alpha will make expert knowledge available to all of us. Some of us are not *yet* experts.

Posted by Bruce Klutchko April 28, 2009 at 3:02 pm

Can’t wait! I am very hopeful.

Posted by Rudolf Csikja April 28, 2009 at 3:07 pm

Waiting for release date!!!
Hope it will give the impact that I aspect.

Posted by Djkiller April 28, 2009 at 3:12 pm

I am interested in seeing the beginnings of the project!!!!

Posted by Christian Carabali April 28, 2009 at 3:14 pm

You guys need to hurry. Can’t wait anymore. I feel like a sixteen years old kid waiting for his first date….

Posted by CantWait April 28, 2009 at 3:22 pm

Alpha to Omega – take the first step!

Posted by ed rich April 28, 2009 at 3:23 pm

Esta demorando pra entrar no ar!!!
Estou curioso….

Posted by Fabio Araujo April 28, 2009 at 3:35 pm

Very exciting times! Can’t wait to try this in it’s relative infancy, and then compare in a year..

Posted by Prun Bijral April 28, 2009 at 3:38 pm

Cheers!

Posted by ilian April 28, 2009 at 3:41 pm

I can’t wait to take a look!

Posted by Gustavo April 28, 2009 at 3:42 pm

Congratulations . . . this looks to be a very exciting resource.

Posted by George Washington April 28, 2009 at 3:42 pm

It’s nice to see you have recognized that this will be a work in progress and have established the 20+ year timeline. Hope it doesn’t stay in beta that long though. Looking forward to it.

Posted by tombob April 28, 2009 at 3:42 pm

History repeats itself. This search engine should find it easy to source future events and that will be the proof in the pudding for me.

Posted by eric swan April 28, 2009 at 3:43 pm

job,,,, well done Tim!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you made it…..such a splendid engine ever made…. cant wait to taste d sugar of it…love it…mates…!

Posted by Bilyaminu Auwal Romo April 28, 2009 at 3:44 pm

Likewise very excited to get my hands on this… hoping it’ll be expert, or become expert, in photography, among other things. So nice to see an are of AI bear fruit actual run of the mill people can get their hands on!

Posted by fyngyrz April 28, 2009 at 3:47 pm

Wolfram can say whatever combination of words as desired. It means nothing until he product is delievered. It means everything if it toppled Google!

Posted by Phil April 28, 2009 at 3:47 pm

Looks promising…. I will love to try it and see it evolve fast….Not asking for much??…..GREATE THING best look..

Posted by Ernesto Becerril April 28, 2009 at 3:49 pm

can’t wait to get the real ANSWERS and SOLUTIONS …

Posted by Poetra April 28, 2009 at 3:50 pm

Nice blog, now we wait for the launch…

Posted by tmw April 28, 2009 at 3:51 pm

But can it find Sarah Connor?

Posted by HappyCthulhu April 28, 2009 at 3:53 pm

This will be very interesting for students and teachers. We are all very excited by the imminent release of Wolfram Alpha

Posted by Bernard Vuilleumier April 28, 2009 at 3:56 pm

I can’t wait for this! Wolfram|Alpha sounds as if it has the ability to help with problems that cannot be solved with Google. Keep up the good work! I look forward to the fruits of your labor.

Posted by Daniel April 28, 2009 at 3:57 pm

We live in Turing testing times.

Posted by Ian Springham April 28, 2009 at 3:57 pm

Patiently awaitling a fresh new engine.

Posted by dalepbaker April 28, 2009 at 3:57 pm

i can’t wait to try…..

Posted by harry_508 April 28, 2009 at 4:01 pm

Best of luck to the team. Can’t wait to see the results.

Posted by Brendan O'Connell April 28, 2009 at 4:04 pm

I am really excited about this and waiting for seeing it.

Posted by Eric April 28, 2009 at 4:06 pm

Great….Looking forward to launch or beta testing before.

Posted by DR April 28, 2009 at 4:07 pm

It’s the most ambitious project I ever heard. I just can’t wait to see it live. Give us some screenshots please 🙂

Posted by Alen April 28, 2009 at 4:09 pm

Could Alpha someday do some scientific research on its own by integrating information and concepts from other people’s research?

One example: It seems that some of the research related to gravitational frame shifting may also be relevant to detecting gravitational waves —
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0408097
http://arxivblog.com/?p=1279

Computers wouldn’t come with the same presumptions as humans. They could make surprising discoveries. Yes, I know some humans found some parallels between the two phenomena; but there may be a few connections to other phenomena that would seem very odd in a human cultural context.

Posted by David April 28, 2009 at 4:12 pm

Well, I am hoping to see it also useful to theologians. I’m just sayin’.

AMR

Posted by Ask Mr. Religion April 28, 2009 at 4:13 pm

Can’t wait! I looks like it will work really well. If it does, it’ll be a serious step forward in the evolution of the internet.

Posted by David Mc April 28, 2009 at 4:15 pm

Had difficulty logging in today. Please send or post a link to the archived video if possible. thx

Posted by Don Carli April 28, 2009 at 4:15 pm

A search engine of the type you’ve developed is way over due. With great marketing and press, I hope you torpedo Google out of the water. My only hope is that you won’t cave in too quickly to their invariable offer to buy you out.

I published a short article on my blog about the launching of Wolfram|Alpha and as soon as it’s available I will write a new one.

Posted by Jim April 28, 2009 at 4:17 pm

I’m looking forward to beta test it out. Keep us posted.

Posted by JorgeP April 28, 2009 at 4:18 pm

I suppose the most obvious field for Alpha to do original research is mathematics.

Perhaps Alpha will win the Millennium Prize.

Posted by David April 28, 2009 at 4:21 pm

huuuuurraaaayyy, its incoming 🙂 good luck !

Posted by Daniel April 28, 2009 at 4:21 pm

Hey guys, if you really get this thing rollin’, there’d be an awesome addition to google. The only problem is that it just works in english, and since my german e.g. has a completely different structure you’d have to write a completely new engine to process the language.. anyway, good luck! In german there’s kind a saying ‘jemandem löcher in den Bauch fragen’, means in english ‘to ask somebody holes in the belly’ and is used if you ask someone endlessly 😀 So that’s what we’re going to do with Alpha <3
~moritz

Posted by Moritz April 28, 2009 at 4:28 pm

Please be something that will kick googles anus 🙂

BTW is this a WordPress Blog?

Posted by awake April 28, 2009 at 4:33 pm

I have a couple ideas about how an effective “computational knowledge engine” would affect fields of our scientific culture highly complex and often divided into uncountable subfield all sharing some points of interest with each other but having a different point of view (and sometimes language) to them… medicine and law would really come to hand as examples here…

However I am eagerly looking forward to have my hands on Wolfram|Alpha before any speculation since at this point it could be anything and nothing at once… Keep up the good work (and please, do it fast 😉 )

Posted by Marco April 28, 2009 at 4:35 pm

Looking forward to it

Posted by Vasiliy April 28, 2009 at 4:41 pm

Hoping it’s better than the Sedgway… 😉

Posted by Lucas April 28, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Posted by Michael Scott April 28, 2009 at 4:50 pm

Congratulations to Wolfram on the completion of a long research and development project. The scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers, artists, and others of Femtobeam will await a way to participate with Wolfram and Wolfram/Alpha. One of our great concerns is that of an unsecured network with access to the human brain as brain interfaces develop. We hope that the truth and the search for it will expand to the human mind in an elective and safe way for children and adults everywhere. We hope communications technology is not used for the wrong purposes and your efforts to open up education and seek truthful knowledge will inspire people to choose a future of effort to ensure a better future for the next generation, as our grandparents and parents did. Democracy is all about choices and freedom of the individual. Nothing could be more important than the human mind and spirit, something the truth will surely find.

Posted by Robin L. Ore April 28, 2009 at 4:51 pm

Today there are ab/10 perspective PC approaches to rationalize the Web-3 Semantics approach (search/ logical machine)/ Wolfram’s Alpha seems to me most sophisticated & long going. I am not applied mathematics engineer would prefer not computation rather sematic multifolded location. I do believe the most advantage would achieve the command who most correctly shows/depicts the claster of solution tasks as well surely the commercial demand. I am scholar & really vision that rather van guard approach would produce positive simplification. It would surely lead to big lock-outs in IT sphere but as well greatly enlarge the opportunities for high-level investigations. wonderful results, new investment-research-investigations sphere still not available..it’s scholar-business in it’s approach but really it lies more in the sphere of parasemantic magics. I greatly admire Your mission & surely later write You more papers. We life in wonderful times when germeneftic studies enlarge our inner vision
Sincerely Yours, DeMin L.Igor Moscow

Posted by igor impersky April 28, 2009 at 4:57 pm

I can’t wait to see what a positive impact this will have within our education system. Let’s hope it illuminates inquisitive minds everywhere.

Posted by Nick April 28, 2009 at 4:58 pm

Do you use the Cyc inference engine or something like it?

Posted by David M. Cotter April 28, 2009 at 4:58 pm

    We do not currently use the CYC inference engine. We continue to explore integrations with other technology and expect the community to also do that via the forthcoming API.

    Posted by The PR Team April 28, 2009 at 9:02 pm

Congrats to all the Wolfram guys on making it to the final round of this huge undertaking. Can hardly wait. Wolfram|Alpha or BUST!

Posted by Jan April 28, 2009 at 5:01 pm

I’m very much looking forward to the launch! It micht change the way we use the internet in more ways than Google or many others have.

Posted by Robert April 28, 2009 at 5:15 pm

I can hardly wait to give her a spin! I just hope the answer isn’t 42 !

Posted by Matthew Byrd April 28, 2009 at 5:21 pm

A huge step towards semantic web World.

Waiting to see it…

Posted by Amr Gawish April 28, 2009 at 5:31 pm

Sounds like a 1 – n relationship, or ‘1 to many’ to me, how are you going to embed this ?, will it scale to qubit requirements && evolutionary fit ? …. another license to print 1’s name

Posted by axonis April 28, 2009 at 5:32 pm

The 20 year timeline should be extended to the infinity symbol. As long as knowledge is pursued this will be an expanding application. Come to think of it, the word application is not exactly appropriate either for what this can and should endeavor to become. The goal as I hear and interpret the descriptions is to become an learning entity that lives to provide information to all those that would inquire of it. We should all come together and develop/create a name or moniker that can become synonymous with information conveyance. I look forward to watching this thing grow and to see how my daughter will one day use it. To those that are working to develop this: we look forward to seeing the fruits of your labor for your entire careers.

Posted by JRGood April 28, 2009 at 5:49 pm

Can’t wait to try it out, sounds very promising!

Posted by Max Maton April 28, 2009 at 5:51 pm

Thanks for all the hard work, and best of luck for the launch.

Posted by Malcolm April 28, 2009 at 5:58 pm

You wrote : “Our overarching goal, the “higher purpose” of this project, is to make all computable, factual knowledge available to everyone.”
Will it be available to use data written in other languages (for exemple french) ?
Anyway, thanks for fulfilling my dream…

Posted by Manuel Casteja April 28, 2009 at 6:04 pm

I am from China!
I love America!!

Posted by claudia April 28, 2009 at 6:10 pm

Really looking forward to use this new interface. It’s been a long time since we have had something so radical in approach.

Posted by Ron McIntyre April 28, 2009 at 6:31 pm

Don’t forget about Mars.

Posted by Professor Charles Forbin April 28, 2009 at 6:34 pm

That Harvard presentation video appears to be unavailable as of Tues Apr 28 at 7:37pm EST.Hope they fix soon.

Posted by Steve Kukla April 28, 2009 at 6:38 pm

Hi,

I am anxious to learn more about how this works!

Posted by Bob Marconi April 28, 2009 at 7:02 pm

Wishing you every success in your endeavour, I look forward to the day when computers and the internet begin to show their true potential.

Posted by Philip Walters April 28, 2009 at 7:11 pm

i like the mention of finite knowledge. It’s interesting that common vocabularies are from several hundred to several thousand words for basic existential ops. Adding specialist vocabs doesn’t greatly increase these numbers and large unabridged dictionaries are still quite finite. It seems quite possible that a finite # of persons could be recorded for a finite time and the files go far to generating substantial natural language capabilities.

Posted by wblakesx April 28, 2009 at 7:24 pm

When and where can we download today’s webcast?

Posted by Mike April 28, 2009 at 7:25 pm

I am sitting on pins and needles for this…My only concern is..I am in the mist of moving and..I hate the idea of missing the GRAND OPENING!@@~!!
Please….keep me in mind

Posted by towner April 28, 2009 at 7:26 pm

真的不错。

Posted by Yaosong April 28, 2009 at 7:36 pm

looking forward

Posted by axefmbs April 28, 2009 at 7:39 pm

hola
como ven me gustaria que pudierna mandar la informacion de este interesante proyecto en español a mi mail , pues es mi idioma natal y aun que me agrda leer en ingles desearia hacerlo mas comodament e en mi idioma gracias

Posted by manuel April 28, 2009 at 7:49 pm

Sukses juragan!
Kita tunggu perkembangan selanjutnya.

Posted by Ari Sudarmadi April 28, 2009 at 8:11 pm

Heard Stephen’s talk today at Harvard in which he demonstrated Alpha. Incredible! It takes your question and figures out what you likely want, searches out data from a constantly increasing data base that comes from many sources; does significant calculations with the data, and presents it in multiple interesting useful ways. He says that it will be free; presumably some interesting ads on the side bars and will likely be available from within Mathematica (there are some huge data bases available now from version 6 and 7). There were some wild inputs that gave wonderful outputs. I wish I could give them to you; note some of the inputs on the upper right in this blog.

Posted by Robert M Lurie April 28, 2009 at 8:48 pm

Just please don’t share the Cuil’s fate after an over-hyped launch! Please…

Posted by Mircea @ MyTestBox.com April 28, 2009 at 8:50 pm

i’m sure wolfram will much-much better than google.. congrats for the wolfram team..

Posted by gilang April 28, 2009 at 8:51 pm

Congratulations!

Posted by Endale Asefa April 28, 2009 at 8:53 pm

The time is NOW. Congratulations!

Posted by Ricardo April 28, 2009 at 9:08 pm

Congratulations. It is a great work and I am now looking forward to the official release. I for one am a die-hard fan of Mathematica and I am sure that this product will have just an enduring success.

Posted by Doc April 28, 2009 at 9:33 pm

….congratulation for Stephen and the team. Good luck and God bless you!

Posted by Gunawan Christianto April 28, 2009 at 10:44 pm

Look forward to the launch. When you’re ready I’ll have you as a guest on my Internet radio show.

Posted by Elaine Smitha April 28, 2009 at 10:54 pm

I have one question for the actual product. i hope you could answer it.
There was an old game before for windows 95 i believe or before it was based on traps bombs rockets and you had to build a system so that you could catch a mouse or something like that. Which are all the trap games available for windows since 1990 to the present?

by the way amazing all that has been said about the product, unfortunately i was not one of the “beta testers”. but i’ll wait congrats!

Posted by Andres April 28, 2009 at 11:03 pm

Looks good the “Early Bird” 😉

So now you can catch some G**gle Worm,as the Birds Early in the Morning allways do. First come First Serve the Big one s 😉

Good Luck
Greetings from Southwest Germany near Stuttgart
Guido

Posted by Guido Alexander Waldenmeier April 28, 2009 at 11:13 pm

Congratulation to the entire team for this fantastic job.

Cheers!

Posted by Alok Singh April 28, 2009 at 11:24 pm

Thanks for all the hard work, and best of luck for the launch

Posted by Jaime Bucheli April 28, 2009 at 11:58 pm

I’m french; but i write english.
I’m interristing by your progect, so i’m waiting the first May to see.

Posted by Shackdown April 29, 2009 at 12:06 am

where can i buy shares

Posted by Philip Jenkins April 29, 2009 at 12:14 am

Waiting for your official launch. Hope it will be soon.
Meanwhile, all the best!

Posted by Achal Narayanan April 29, 2009 at 12:23 am

Congratulations,
Great Work…
Is there a way one can be part of this project?

Regards,
Karan

Posted by Karan April 29, 2009 at 12:28 am

Thank you all for the hard work , wish you the best for the lauch.

Posted by George April 29, 2009 at 12:28 am

Thank you for creating W|A, it’s an act of supreme altruism to provide such a powerful innovation for free. If I can help in any way with testing or defect analysis..just let me know !

Posted by Mike Lee April 29, 2009 at 12:30 am

It’s time to start! 🙂

Posted by Exi April 29, 2009 at 12:50 am

We’re looking forward to this launch !

Posted by Dries Optimizer bvba April 29, 2009 at 1:25 am

Looking forward to test your product. Best wishes from Denmark

Posted by Jimi April 29, 2009 at 1:38 am

Gratulation auch von meiner Seite… Ich freu mich drauf!

Posted by Oliver April 29, 2009 at 1:42 am

Guys, congratulations – really curious to test it… you will implement some automatic screening of some high-impact-factor magazines?
And please don’t sell to Google for 3.000.000.000.000.000 $ !
Sure they will try to get you!

Posted by Claas April 29, 2009 at 1:43 am

Looking forward to trying out alpha first hand! One question that I know a lot of people would like to know will it have an API?

Posted by Sean McColgan April 29, 2009 at 1:47 am

Great work.I am from Bulgaria, Varna.Congratulation!!!

Posted by stanco angelov April 29, 2009 at 1:51 am

Congratulations! Simply Stunning. Have been waiting a long time for this. Alpha is more than a product it is going to become a Game Changer. The mind of Stephan Wolfram never ceases to solve questions and equations of the human existence. While, in academia I used Mathematica extensively in Clinical Trials Analysis, and as fate moved me to online marketing, I was shrewd enough to use this great tool for higher level analysis. At SiteMagnify, I believe we are one of the few online marketing consultants to use Mathematica for statistical analysis, for paid search and seo keyword traffic/quality correlations.

I look forward to the day in the near future were I can use Alpha exclusively to both search and solve questions. Thank you again. The general populace has no idea yet how indebted they will be for this great leap forward. Cheers. SiteMagnify,

Posted by SiteMagnify April 29, 2009 at 1:56 am

Saw the talk, looking forward to trying it out.
Keep on keeping on!

Posted by Pete Graham April 29, 2009 at 1:57 am

That’s certainly ambitious, and apparently certainly possible. I was interested to note the four cornerstones of the project did not include explicit reference to automated reasoning … can WolframAlpha conclude that “Socrates was mortal”, given that (I assume) it knows “All men are mortal” and “Socrates was a man” (and of course more complex reasoning requirements)? Right now we’re interfacing the SPASS automated reasoning system to large amounts of external data, in order to provide deep reasoning with access to large knowledge bases.

Posted by Geoff Sutcliffe April 29, 2009 at 2:11 am

I am really proud to live in these interesting and historic times! Please continue with this great work – it will change the world to the better!

Holger

Posted by Dr. Holger von Jouanne-Diedrich April 29, 2009 at 2:31 am

Congratulations. What you are doing is important and significant, both technologically and in terms of sharing and advancing human knowledge. Best wishes for your success.

Posted by Julian Brennan April 29, 2009 at 2:33 am

Hello, first of all sorry for my bad English, I could see only a few minutes, the presentation at Harvard Law School, (I lost the link and I am not longer able to connect), but so is enough to be fascinated by the genius and from work done by Stephen Wolfram and his group. Wonderful! Are enthusiastic in its potential. I can not wait to experience it personally.
There is nobody who knows how to review the entire video of the presentation?
Hi and greetings from Italy.

Posted by AleAlu April 29, 2009 at 2:33 am

Great news!

Posted by Hakan Ak April 29, 2009 at 2:55 am

You have a dream and one day it is going to work.

Posted by Karsten Johannes Martin April 29, 2009 at 3:00 am

Congratulations!
Looking forward for the next News.

Posted by nickpol April 29, 2009 at 3:02 am

Just like everybody else here I can’t wait to give it a spin, I wonder what effect your project will have on the SEO world?

Posted by Jeff April 29, 2009 at 3:18 am

Googles’ mantra “do no evil”, it will be interesting to see how this phrase develops in Wolfram?
EQ over IQ
All the best on this voyage

Posted by Paul Farquharson April 29, 2009 at 3:40 am

Looking forward to seeing it. I suggest you try to communicate the product a little better, in a simpler way. It all sounds very interesting, but you need to sell it better to all of us. Post a video of it working. We all really want to see it work.

Posted by Nuno H April 29, 2009 at 3:40 am

I’m looking forward to trying your conceptual knowledge engine my self. I hope my excitement whilst following your updates will be as cool when I get my hands it.

Good Luck

Posted by Louis April 29, 2009 at 3:44 am

Would have been good, if the Videographer from Havard would have shown the Demo-Screen more often. I assume the demo screen was more interesting than Stephen’s face 😉

Posted by Stefan April 29, 2009 at 3:46 am

Does Wolfram|Alpha works (benefitS-riskS blanceS) and what is its recent limitations (results of pilot phaseS)?
To what extent is Wolfram|Alpha evidence-based?
What are the potential effect modifiers of the comparative benefits and harms of Wolfram|Alpha?
To what extent is Wolfram|Alpha democratic, transparent and heterogen?
What are the indirect costs of Wolfram|Alpha?

Moniem Mukhtar

Posted by Abdel Moniem Mukhtar April 29, 2009 at 4:04 am

Congratulation and welcome!

Posted by Antonio April 29, 2009 at 4:23 am

Good work Stephen. I hope the project will be a success.

Posted by Milenko Vasić April 29, 2009 at 4:27 am

All the best with the project.

Now, if we can just link up the best ideas about learning and education with instant access to precise knowledge we might start realising our human potential – despite our human natures…

Posted by Noel Ferguson April 29, 2009 at 4:52 am

Can i suggest merely from a marketing perspective that you change the name from wolfram alpha to the answer engine. don’t search, answer. Best of luck with the launch

Posted by dan phillips April 29, 2009 at 5:34 am

Hello, i,m from spain, my question is if this service will work also into the spanish(from spain) even if i could work for you as help for some things like translating would like to know, any sugg. is wellcome, thx a lot for this job, so as long i can und. this may be a good chance for me to replace google wich since they become 1goal centered they are messing their first purpose and since does not work prop. on their results, what a pitty for them and what a chance for you!, thx again greatings from spain

Posted by Humano April 29, 2009 at 5:59 am

I would like to hear about the relationship between Wolfram|Alpha and the Semantic Web, if any.

Thanks, and good luck!

— Jack Krupansky

Posted by Jack Krupansky April 29, 2009 at 6:35 am

I am really interested in seeing how this impacts more traditional search engines. What I am most curious about is to see whether it gains traction with the general public. I think it is likely many folks would rather see a list of related documents (ala semantic search) rather than trust an algorithm to provide a single answer to a query.

A secondary interest I have is in seeing how (if) Wolfram Alpha will be monetized. Any plans for that?

Posted by Ed Rooney April 29, 2009 at 6:56 am

I can’t wait to see how it works. Best luck for the launch!

Posted by Micky April 29, 2009 at 7:24 am

Congratulations….
we are witnessing an important step that will lead us to that future described in the Asimov´s books.

Peace

Xtaz

Posted by Xtaz April 29, 2009 at 7:45 am

Congratulations on an absoutely pivotal application. Now we are getting somewhere!

Posted by Sam April 29, 2009 at 7:52 am

The promise of this knowledge engineering effort is enormous. I look forward to participating in the execution and evolution (You’re right, it must always remain a work in progress in order to survive – perhaps a nickname: “Knowledge Shark” – simultaneously mover, seeker, eater?)

Posted by Dr. David Matthew April 29, 2009 at 8:16 am

What a wonderfull aplication, i hope that it will be also translated to spanish 🙂

Posted by Gef April 29, 2009 at 8:44 am

Just curious to know if the knowledge base will extend to the field of computer science and in particular software development.

Posted by Doug Wall April 29, 2009 at 8:53 am

Brilliant!!

Posted by Shawn April 29, 2009 at 8:55 am

I can’t wait your ambitious project being started. Good luck, though – and best regards from Switzerland.

Posted by Rudolf Oswald April 29, 2009 at 9:12 am

The whole thing seems to be very promising. Waiting for the launch. Good luck.

Posted by Ranjan Mitra April 29, 2009 at 9:25 am

I could only get the audio, but it was very interesting.

I wonder if it would be possibile to interface with scripts, whereby answer(s) from one question feed into the questions at the next stage. Obviously, the answers would have to be formatted sensibly (a single value/array).

Posted by Tim Hulse April 29, 2009 at 9:26 am

Two points:

(1) why is there no open beta?

(2) for those who want a more understandable explanation of how this thing works, I’ve come up with…

a Google search and a Wikipedia output.

Comments?

Posted by Kahuna April 29, 2009 at 9:45 am

This is really Impressive, I love to see this in action.

Mani

Posted by Manigandan April 29, 2009 at 9:49 am

Can’t wait to see W.alpha in action. Careful with all those offers of translating it into Spanish (of Spain[sic]) by eager “translators”. Use only professional translators (from the UN or similar organizations). Best of luck! Cheers!

Posted by Vic Nelson April 29, 2009 at 9:50 am

I applaud Dr. Wolfram and the whole team. I hope I can be of help.

Posted by Kirk April 29, 2009 at 10:06 am

Bring it on!

Posted by Fortean April 29, 2009 at 12:34 pm

could Wlfram Alpha be better than google i am dying to try it

Posted by Somaya April 29, 2009 at 1:00 pm

May you have a spectacularly successful release!
May you correctly guess the magnitude of response within a factor of 10.
May you have infinite patience in dealing with the public.
May you nevertheless have the sense to ignore the thousands of people who complain that it didn’t work the way they wanted it to with nonsensical or inappropriate input.
May you use good judgement (please!) in the ads you permit to share the page with Alpha.

Most importantly, people who type in “What is the meaning of Life (, the Universe, and Everything)?” or similar questions should receive precisely the same response as Deep Thought gave in the HitchHiker’s Guide, namely

“Tricky…”

(It wasn’t until 7.5 million years later that it gave the answer “42”.)

Posted by Richard Mercer April 29, 2009 at 1:01 pm

Can’t wait for launch. I’ve very high expectations 😉

Posted by Mistah Omsn April 29, 2009 at 1:25 pm

Congratulations!

Posted by Sergio April 29, 2009 at 1:50 pm

[…] can hardly believe it, but one year ago today the Wolfram|Alpha Blog said  hello to the blogosphere! Since that day we have published 176 posts covering everything from the launch […]