Wolfram|Alpha is officially launched!
Wolfram|Alpha went live in test mode at 8:48pm CST on Friday. Our teams worked intensely through the weekend to complete load testing, fix bugs, and begin to address the feedback you have provided—over 22,000 feedback messages. During testing, Wolfram|Alpha processed nearly 23 million queries; by our estimates, approximately 3 out of 4 gave satisfactory results.
By late Sunday night, we were able to test all compute clusters at full capacity.
Thank you again for all of your enthusiastic support and feedback during this period. It’s been exciting to share your interest and discoveries. We’re really pleased to see communities growing up around Wolfram|Alpha.
Stephen Wolfram reminded us of his vision:
Fifty years ago, when computers were young, people assumed that they’d be able to ask a computer any factual question, and have it compute the answer. I’m happy to say that we’ve successfully built a system that delivers knowledge from a simple input field, giving access to a huge system, with trillions of pieces of curated data and millions of lines of algorithms. Wolfram|Alpha signals a new paradigm for using computers and the Web.
Today marks the dawn of a new era on the internet. Over the next days, weeks, months, and years we’ll keep building out the capabilities of Wolfram|Alpha.
We look forward to seeing where you take it!
I hope the interaction with the crowd stays like this, with google you feel no interaction if you submit anything (a site, or an idea). It seems as if Wolfram cares about submissions. And hopefully you will tell us if something excited is added as feature!
yes thats really great
Agree; black fonts > grey fonts.
Great to see you up and running. However, ditch the use of grey type fonts. Your home page has a faded look and it is difficult to read. Low score on ledgibility. JD
Respectfully, I disagree with John - Charleston, SC; the grey fonts are perfect for showing secondary information without adding clutter. Please continue with the clear and subtle layout. There is too much noise online. Let W|A be a place for clarity.
I agree! it is pretty hard to see.
John, I disagree with you. It looks great to me and has a quite “futuristic” and clean look.
+ for black fonts. Or provide the use with an option to set his preferences.
+1 black fonts, you are killing my eyes!
Interesting comments nesting.
cool
love the computer cluster diagram!
I wish Rodney Dangerfield could have lived to see this day.
Wolfram|Alpha knows who he is.
Finally, at long last, a little respect…
In my opinion, it promises to be a powerful engine. However, there is a strong issue. The NAME! Even in “alpha” version, but “Wolfram” does not help! Remember something simple! “google”, “yahoo”, “amazon”, “youtube”, or whaterver. No WolframAlpha…
Congrats on a pretty smooth official launch! The pre-launch seem to have been a good idea, and I’m happy to play with it now.
I think you might have a problem with your DNS setup. When I do the first query it gets assigned to some random web site like www73.wolframalpha.com… and then if I do another query the same www73… is used (unless I open another browser window to http://www.wolframalpha.com manually).
I think that each and every query should be randomized and I should never see the www73… but should always see the http://www.wolframalpha.com...
I never ever see this randomizing hardcoded wwwxx.sitename.com anywhere else that I can think of.
-Bob
Congratulations! IF WA is programmed to improve itself using all curated data and logic I expect fast improvement.
Greetings,
Great job. Good information correlation.
JDias@PT
It would appear your population information is rather limited - cant go back any further than 1970’s for the US and world population only knows the 2006 value (no historical info at all). Other countries looked at also only go back to about 1970. Wikipedia has some info, and a Google search brought up 418000 hits on the search “world population 1800″
-Bob
I saw 120Querys/sec on a screenshot.
Asking Wolfram|Alpha: “120 1/s 2 days / million” –> 20.74
Yes, 20Mio Querys in last 2 Days are plausible ^^.
By late Sunday night, we were able to test all compute clusters at full capacity.
Think there might be an “r” missing in this sentence
Congratulations to the team of WolframAlpha.
A new gate has been open for knowledge to be transfered with an easy and simple “question-answer”.
I ask, you answer.
When you do not know the answer, you just say so.
When you know it, you give more than what was asked.
I like that. Very much.
Congratulations guys! Been playing with it and showing it to friends all weekend now, it really is a groundbreaking thing!
Now let’s not hope it groes self-awareness
I asked your system about the date of July 4, 1976, my wedding day. It told me that I’ve been married for 12,006 days. Seems like only 12,000 to me. Anyway, it also stated that “No known major events occurred that day…my wife would beg to differ with that statement. She’d like to remind us all that the United States of America was celebrating the 200th anniversary of Independence Day.
Cheers!
Honestly I haven’t got good results but I see a pretty cool future for this software, and I think that it will take a little more than hard work
… good luck guys
That is what was needed !
An answer to a simple question.
With much more than expected.
Congratulations and thank you.
Knowledge seekers are forever endowed by Wolfram/ Alpha! Those who want it, can now seek and find it at the speed of “alpha” rather than the speed of “googol”
Great site,
interaction is critical should you gain mass public exposure.
Also, please try to localize the site into other languages.
Good luck.
All the power to Mr. Wolfram and his team. Love Mathematica….and already loving Wolfram Alpha!
Great work, you guys (and galls) made a huge step and marked a new era of computing…but it’s only the beginning!
Saw a commercial on CNN and decided to get on and check it out. I will be a frequent visitor since I am a college student.
Will there be any form of announcement or available list when new data sets, algorithms, features etc are implemented, ala patch notes? Or will this type of blogging, which is still nice, about as far as it will go?
I was fascinated when I first used Arpanet while working at NASA Houston. The concept of instant exchange of ideas between any number of likeminded and not likeminded individuals regardless of location was up until then, unfathomable.
I’ve of course used the internet since its infancy. For the first time since 1981 I’ve again felt that spine tingling thrill discovering something that could change not just a society, but a planet. I anxiously await the future to see what WolframAlpha will bring.
Wolfram|Alpha is marvelous! I also have a sense of wonder when using Wolfram|Alpha and seeing a world of knowledge open up. It reminds me of what it felt like when first encountering the PLATO learning system at the U of I, circa 1974, another Champaign innovation. Before the Web, before the personal computer, PLATO was just about the most awesome computing experience there was back then.
Yes, ditch the GREY ON WHITE. Go to simple BLACK ON WHITE. Go simple, simple, simple. Wonderful site, great idea, you’ll have much success
Posted on my blog. This is a cool site. Well done!
I wonder how long and how much it takes for google to buy Wolfram.
This site is really amazing , and I thought it was some kind of seach engine of some kind like google style and although it isnt , its FREAKING AMAZING
AND TO SOLVE INTEGRALS WORKS like MAGIC
I have a question….. is it possible to solve Taylor and Maclaurin Polinomials to some given degree with this amazing site???
Genuinely impressed at this point guys and girls. One heck of an undertaking getting any project of this size off of the ground. But to do so when the project is as complex as this is a fantastic achievement. Well done!
Love it! This may change the paradigm of teaching, and learning.
This is something I probably will not use. I don’t find the information provided answers my questions. Way over my head maybe I’m just not smart enough to comprehend the site. Too confusing for me. Sorry !! But good luck anyway.
great work ,
WFA, has been fascinated the universe, i dont have words to thank stephen & the team behind WFA, great works , wish u very very good luck
it still doesn’t have the Bronx, or ANY OF THE FIVE BORROUGHS- Manhattan included!!!!!- MAJOR FAIL!
I think “3 out of 4 queries gave satisfactory results” is rather misleading and differs considerably from most people’s experiences. I strongly suspect the reason you are seeing such a high initial success rate is that most visitors to the site are new, and are currently just testing out the example searches you provide on the front page and in the examples. It would be very interesting to see the success rate of those queries that don’t match your examples. I’m not knocking Alpha, as I believe it has great potential, but it is currently very limited in scope and understanding.
Congratulations !!! for creating the future of a new exciting way of communication…
Small suggestion : put a feedback button for the user to report unsatisfactory submission results. This can give better satisfaction statistics ( more accurate than estimations
)
Omar
http://www.idomainreseller.com
i put so many queries but it was not sure. Even indian election 2009 which was an overwhelming event for the whole world. I wonder if it would be able to provide the information it is supposed to provide.
Awesome! Finally released! A “scientific” alternative to Google is just what we needed to complete the circle.
super wolframalpha thank you superr :)))
Best Wishes! Google is staying too long on the top
Do you plan to improve the search quality by user interaction?
Great for Math, rubbish for Wales (FYI, its a country not too far from England) why not Google it!
Are you selling WA short? Current examples are short probably to make them easier to understand.
I imagine that a question could be devised for say the cost of production of a particular car. The manufacturer could enter it at any time and get the current cost of the car reflecting all changes to the data and logic on which the cost is based. A government having set its budget targets could at any time get an updated figure.
Is this possible?
its just another wikipedia not search engine ! not very usable!
Congratulations!
Agree with comment about getting rid of grey typeface. Lack of contrast makes part of your site almost unreadable.
Love the computer design software. cool
Congrats!
Wolfram|Alpha is seriously amazing. Tried a few queries with … And… Wow. 
Just love this machine.
Good work guys.. i chkd 5 strings.. and the results are super amazing!
Congrutalations, I hope WolframAlpha as a new era on the internet.