The Wolfram|Alpha Blog is now part of the Wolfram Blog. Join us there for the latest on Wolfram|Alpha and other Wolfram offerings »
AUTHOR PAGE
alphateam
The Wolfram|Alpha Team
Blog Posts from this author:
June 6, 2009– 9

You see the work of the Wolfram|Alpha developers every time you query.

We thought you would enjoy hearing some of them describe their roles and share their thoughts about the Wolfram|Alpha project.

June 5, 2009– 14

Stephen Wolfram shared the latest news and updates about Wolfram|Alpha and answered several users’ questions in a live webcast yesterday.

If you missed it, you can watch the recording here.

Thanks for all of the great questions. We look forward to sharing more updates with you soon.

June 4, 2009– 45

Today if you give input to Wolfram|Alpha in a language other than English, you’ll most likely see something like:

Wolfram|Alpha does not yet understand...

But in making Wolfram|Alpha accessible to as many people around the world as possible, our goal is eventually to have it understand every one of these languages.

A certain amount of Wolfram|Alpha input is actually quite language independent—because it’s really in math, or chemistry, or some other international notation, or because it’s asking about something (like a place) that’s always referred to by the same name.

But inevitably many inputs do depend on human language—and in fact even now about 5% of all inputs that are given try to use a language other than English.

Wolfram|Alpha knows quite a bit about the general properties of essentially every language (Spanish, Swahili, ….) But it doesn’t yet know how to interpret input in any language other than English. More »

June 3, 2009– 8

Wolfram|Alpha is a fascinating and exciting project. What’s made it possible is the terrific team we’ve built around it. And what will make Wolfram|Alpha even stronger is adding more world-class talent to our team.

We believe our mission to make all of the world’s knowledge computable is an important one. While we’ve come a long way, there’s still plenty of work to do—more knowledge needs to be added and updated and new capabilities need to be introduced. We’re ready now to begin bringing more people on board to help us pursue our goals.

A project like Wolfram|Alpha requires a remarkable spectrum of talents—technologists, content experts in almost every conceivable subject area, business experts… and the list goes on.

We hope you will explore our career opportunities page to see the specific areas where we want to add people right now. You can apply today.

We are happy to be adding to our outstanding team as we take Wolfram|Alpha into the future. We hope you’ll consider joining us on our journey.

June 2, 2009– 274

Our team is hard at work going through the tens of thousands of comments, suggestions, and questions coming in about Wolfram|Alpha.

We thought you’d enjoy hearing Stephen Wolfram respond to some of this feedback directly.

This Thursday, June 4, at 4 pm US CDT, we invite you to join us for a live webcast as Stephen answers some of the questions you’ve sent in. He’ll discuss the problems, the fixes, the future, and more.

If you have a question you’d like Stephen to answer, post it as a comment to this blog post.

We’ll also be taking questions live on the justin.tv chat during the webcast.

Thanks again for all of your interest and support. We look forward to sharing this live webcast with you.

May 31, 2009– 24

It is said that ambition is contagious, and it’s clear that our ambitions for Wolfram|Alpha, one of the most complex intelligence projects ever undertaken, is spreading around the globe. In the two weeks since Wolfram|Alpha first went live, an impressive number of users have asked how they can contribute to the development of this long-term project. We are flattered by your enthusiasm, and want you to join the Wolfram|Alpha Project.

Just take a look at the number of people, just like you, who have found a way to contribute their interests to this project.

2849 registered users have contributed to the Wolfram|Alpha Community. The ideas and feedback generated through conversations on the Community are invaluable tools for Wolfram|Alpha developers.

70,000 feedback submissions have been sent (via the feedback field that can be found on every page of the site), providing the Wolfram|Alpha team with critical input on specific content. More »

May 30, 2009– 8

Wolfram|Alpha continues to be a hot topic in online newspapers and magazines, blogs, Facebook, and beyond. But one of our favorite (and one of the most insightful) places to find chatter about Wolfram|Alpha is on Twitter.

People tweet Wolfram|Alpha results that amaze them. Some suggest features or domains we should add. Others ask questions about how to get the results they want. And what’s really great is to see people tweeting advice and recommendations to other users.

Here are a few of the tweeted results or suggestions that have caught our eyes or amused us:

  • @yooklyde: According to Wolfram|Alpha I was born approx. an hour before sunset, during a Full Moon. That last bit explains everything.
  • @petervogel: Students in my ICT classes continue to be fascinated with Wolfram Alpha; a given-name analysis seems to hook them.
  • @sqjtaipei: cool about the running calories expended… how about other sports… need swimming and cycling. thx.

We really enjoy reading and exploring your updates and responding when we can.

We also like Twittering to show you some of the many uses of Wolfram|Alpha.

We’re highlighting a different feature or input every day. Today, it was seeing stars with Wolfram|Alpha. Others have been such things as how to get tide forecasts, compute fuel usage, and figure out that tough crossword puzzle. Educational, practical, topical, just plain interesting—we’ll share it all. You’ve just got to follow us to find out.

We hope you enjoy the results we showcase. We’ll be watching for your ideas and favorite inputs—so be sure to include #wolframalpha in your next tweet.

May 29, 2009– 12

Here are a few more photos of our teams during the Wolfram|Alpha launch weekend. Way to go everyone!

Discussing Wolfram|Alpha More »

May 28, 2009– 26

Our teams have been working steadily for a long time to make Wolfram|Alpha successful. The content development team is one of the most essential groups in this process. All of us are still pushing to get the best information into Wolfram|Alpha for our users. These photos show some of the content developers during the launch weekend. Thanks to all who have helped!

Reviewing content More »

May 27, 2009– 5

Max Whitby interviews one of the Wolfram|Alpha data curators during the Wolfram|Alpha launch weekend.

Load More