Wolfram Alpha | ICT magazine

Posts Tagged ‘Wolfram Alpha’

The Future of Search in the Enterprise

September 30th, 2010 | No Comments

There is no doubt that search has revolutionized today’s enterprise. From search engine optimization (SEO) to search engine marketing (SEM), today’s enterprise business staff, especially marketers, and IT speak a different language when it comes to their Websites and online efforts they did just a few years ago. But how is search changing? And what does this change promise for the enterprise? Ziff Davis Enterprise Senior Vice President of Community and Content Stephen Wellman speaks with search thought-leader Stephen Wolfram, founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, about the evolution of enterprise search and Wolfram’s search engine, Wolfram Alpha.
– Video Content.

Wolfram Alpha Unveils Android App

September 29th, 2010 | No Comments

Wolfram Alpha will launch a Google Android app version of its computational search engine Oct. 6. The Wolfram Alpha search engine takes a different approach to answering search queries. – Wolfram Alpha, a search engine
designed to offer definitive and usually numerical answers rather than links,
will launch a native Google Android application to accompany the upcoming
T-Mobile G2 smartphone Oct 6. The application is similar in function and
appearance to the versions already avail…

Google Public Data Explorer Visualizes Statistics

March 8th, 2010 | No Comments

Google Labs’ experimental Public Data Explorer allows users to view and create charts based on public data such as mortality and fertility rates. While Google already incorporates such data from the World Bank and other sources into its search results, this new application draws on even more publicly available information. Bing, one of Google’s main search competitors, uses the Wolfram Alpha computational engine to provide similar statistical results.
– Google announced the launch March 8 of Google Public Data
Explorer, an experimental application offered through Google Labs. The tool
allows everyone from students to policy wonks to create a wide variety of
charts from public data, such as fertility or unemployment rates.

For example, a user …

Microsoft Bing Serves Up More Nutritional Info, Recipes

February 2nd, 2010 | No Comments

Microsoft has focused on making a number of Bing features more robust over the past few months, offering more information and charts in specific categories such as nutrition. By incorporating data from computational engine Wolfram Alpha, Bing now offers detailed nutritional information on a wide variety of foods; in addition, the search engine now offers a Â“RecipesÂ” tab that gives the ingredients, directions and nutrition for dozens of consumables.

Microsoft evidently hopes that features such as increased nutritional information will help distinguish Bing from Google, its primary competition and the current search-engine market dominator. Bing-related nutrition and recipes also help augment Microsofts forays into healthcare IT. The following images show just what Bing has to offer with regard to whats on your plate.
– …

Why Tim O’Reilly Sees Microsoft as a Proponent of the Open Web

November 18th, 2009 | No Comments

At the Web 2.0 Expo, Tim O’Reilly predicts that Microsoft will emerge as a leading proponent of the open Web, despite the company’s tradition of fostering its own proprietary operating systems and development languages. O’Reilly says Microsoft’s recent deals to index Twitter tweets and use Wolfram Alpha’s APIs for computational data show a shift in its willingness to work with other Web companies. Moreover, the Windows Azure cloud computing operating system is designed to work with open-source technology.
– NEW YORK High-tech
publisher Tim O’Reilly has predicted that Microsoft will emerge as a leading
proponent of the open Web, a statement that must seem highly unlikely to a
computing world accustomed to Microsoft’s love of fostering its own proprietary
operating systems and development languages.
…

Microsoft’s Week Included Bing 2.0, Exchange Server 2010

November 15th, 2009 | No Comments

Microsoft launched a handful of new initiatives for both consumers and businesses this week. In addition to Exchange Server 2010, the new version of its messaging and collaboration platform, Microsoft also added features to Bing, including a more robust video page and search results from Wolfram Alpha, a computational engine that nominally returns a single numerical answer or chart in response to a search query. Microsoft also saw its market share for both Bing and Windows 7 creep up incrementally, as Redmond battles a variety of competitors ranging from Google to Apple for points amidst a still-tight economic climate.
– After Microsoft’s release of Windows 7 on Oct. 22, any product rollout from Redmond
will seem small by comparison. Realizing this, Microsoft introduced its Bing
revamp and new Exchange
Server 2010 in comparatively low-key fashion.
Microsoft
announced the worldwide launch of Exchange Server 201…

Microsoft Bing Now Features Facebook, Twitter, Wolfram Alpha Access

November 13th, 2009 | No Comments

Microsoft announced a broad range of new functionality for Bing, its search engine, on Nov. 11. In addition to incorporating results from Wolfram Alpha, a self-described computational engine that provides a definitive numerical answer to a search query, the revamped Bing offers a more robust video page, with feeds from MSN Video, Hulu and ABC, and more intensive search in categories such as local events and cities.

In a sign of the increased importance of social networking to corporations such as Microsoft and Google, Bing has also incorporated Facebook and Twitter into its search features. The following product gallery demonstrates the various tweaks that constitute Bing’s unofficial Version 2.0.
– …

Microsoft Bing Wields Wolfram Alpha vs. Google in Data Duel

November 12th, 2009 | No Comments

Microsoft Nov. 11 inked a deal with Wolfram Alpha to begin offering computational search. Google does not do this, but a company engineer hinted that it is heading there. Right around the time Bing unveiled its deal with Wolfram Alpha, Google added World Bank data to its search service. Users can search for such topics as electricity consumption per capita, or carbon dioxide emissions per capita for certain countries. When is Google going to start calculating equations itself, rather than just surfacing the data from other sources? Google’s Ola Rosling responds…
–

News Analysis: Microsoft continues to wheel and deal with
its Bing search engine, as it seeks to overtake Google, but the leader with 65
percent market share is not sitting still.
The latest duel is in data computation. Microsoft has it,
courtesy of Wolfram Alpha. Google does not,…

Wolfram Alpha Tells of Bill Gates, Microsoft Interest

November 11th, 2009 | No Comments

Microsoft’s interest in Wolfram Alpha, the mathematically oriented search engine that provides definitive answers rather than links, extended back even before the search engine’s launch in May. In an official blog post, a Wolfram Alpha team member describes how Stephen Wolfram’s demonstration of the search engine’s capabilities drew a perhaps-unexpected reaction from Bill Gates.
– Microsoft’s
interest in incorporating quot;computational engine quot; Wolfram Alpha into
its own Bing search began earlier in 2009, according to a member of the Wolfram
Alpha team. The search engine provides a definitive answer to query rather than
a page of links, and it apparently threw Bill …

Microsoft Bing Search Engine Incorporates Wolfram Alpha, Local News

November 11th, 2009 | No Comments

Microsoft adds features to its Bing search engine, including localized news and weather, an expanded video page, and search results from Wolfram Alpha, a so-called computational engine designed to provide users with a definitive answer to a search query. Although Wolfram Alpha specializes in offering answers to mathematical queries, its ability to display other types of answers such as nutritional information could appeal to Bing’s core consumer audience.
– Microsoft
announced new functionality for its search engine, Bing, on Nov. 11, including augmented
search results and an expanded video page.
quot;Expanded quot; may actually be something of an understatement, as
Microsoft seems to want to turn Bing’s video page into a robust
destination that…

iPhone Buzz Top Picks: ReTrack Charge Cable, new hacks and more

October 19th, 2009 | No Comments

Emergent Retail unveiled a slick 4-in-1 charger today for the iPhone that will charge the device from USB, DC, or AC sources and acts as a sync cable for your computer. That means one cable will keep you going anywhere and the device has two additional USB ports too.

That band of merry iPhone hackers known [...]

Jargon Watch: Booing, Green Trade War, Decision Engine

September 3rd, 2009 | No Comments

Booing
v. The audio equivalent of tweeting, booing first gained attention as a tool for BBC reporting on the G-20 protests. The brief clips are posted via iPhone to the “sound-sharing” site Audioboo.fm.

Green trade war
n. The global conflict predicted if the US adopts carbon caps and imposes protectionist tariffs on goods from nations with less-stringent environmental regulations.

Decision engine
n. Microsoft’s attempt to rebrand the term search engine. Its new service, Bing, delivers fewer results than Google, which Redmond claims is a remedy for “search overload.” It follows Wolfram Alpha’s “computational knowledge engine,” which answers queries from its own limited database rather than the Web.

Psychedelic frogfish
n. A species of carnivorous fish discovered last year off the coast of Indonesia. Its orange, blue, and white swirls are worthy of an acid trip. Even trippier, the fish vanished from sight soon after ichthyologists named it.

—Jonathon Keats (jargon@wired.com)

New Google ‘puts Bing in shade’

August 12th, 2009 | No Comments

Google logo” border=”0″ vspace=”4″ hspace=”4″>

Google has lifted the lid on its updated search engine, which developers have nicknamed "Caffeine".

Although still in the testing phase, the firm says it is the "first step in improving the speed, accuracy and comprehensiveness of search results".

The new engine will replace Google’s current one after tests are complete.

Martin McNulty of search marketing specialist Trafficbroker said the upgrade threatened to put Microsoft’s new engine, Bing, "in the shade".

"Google have let Caffeine quietly slip out. It talked about vertical specific searches while quietly doubling the speed and starts introducing real-time results and news feeds," he said.

"Bing was launched with a massive media budget.

"Trouble is, Bing presents itself as an alternative to something that users are still – for now – happy with," he added.

Virtual monopoly

Google is still the dominant search engine. According to market research firm Hitwise, Google accounted for more than 87% of the UK search market in 2008.

However, in recent months, the search engine market has got a little busier. As well as Microsoft’s Bing.com – which saw a tie-up between Microsoft and Yahoo – the "computational knowledge engine" Wolfram Alpha and a revamped Ask Jeeves have also entered the fray.

Google is also facing competition from Facebook, which has just acquired FriendFeed, praised for its "real-time" search engine.

This type of search is valuable because it lets you know what is happening right now on any given subject.

Back in May, Google founder Larry Page admitted that the search giant had fallen behind other services like that of Twitter, which boasts nearly 45 million users worldwide.

Fresher content

Google’s head of Webspam, Matt Cutts, denied that Caffeine was launched in response to competitive search engines.

"I love competition in search and want lots of it, but this change has been in the works for months," he wrote in his blog.

"I think the best way for Google to do well in search is to continue what we’ve done for the last decade or so: focus relentlessly on pushing our search quality forward. Nobody cares more about search than Google, and I don’t think we’ll ever stop trying to improve."

Alex Watson, editor of Custom PC magazine, said Caffeine was reflecting a general trend to what he calls "the real-time web".

"Caffeine now picks up news stories and puts fresher content higher up the search results," he said.

"That said, it’s likely that most people won’t notice the change. It still looks the same, it’s the algorithms that have changed.

"However, it is now doing things that would never be possible a few years ago and knowing Google, this would have been in the works for some time."

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.