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'Google Killer' Search Site Clever, but Not Killer

WolframAlpha analyzes existing data to answer questions

By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff

Posted May 18, 2009 8:36 AM CDT
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(Newser) – The search engine some are calling a “Google Killer” launched Friday, and tech critics see potential—though the science-heavy searcher is no replacement for Google, notes Mike Harvey in the Times of London.

  • WolframAlpha “takes serious scientific data and produces answers that simply don't exist as easily or as accessibly elsewhere,” he writes. “It can do calculus, regression analysis, and gene coding. In short it is the best calculator on the web.”

  • But “too often it doesn’t have the best answers for basic questions and searches,” notes Erick Schonfeld in TechCrunch, who searched his own name. “It came back with the distance between Erick, Oklahoma and the town of Schonfeld in Germany.”
  • Maybe the site’s just not “ready for prime time” yet, writes Michael Hickins in InformationWeek. “There's nothing more frustrating for a user than not getting the expected result from an online tool, and nothing worse for a website than to fail to live up to its own hype.”

A WolframAlpha screenshot.
A WolframAlpha screenshot.   (WolframAlpha.com)
In this image provided by WolframAlpha, a page from the WolframAlpha computational knowledge engine is shown.
In this image provided by WolframAlpha, a page from the WolframAlpha "computational knowledge engine" is shown.   (AP Photo/WolframAlpha)
In this image provided by WolframAlpha, a page from the WolframAlpha computational knowledge engine is shown.
In this image provided by WolframAlpha, a page from the WolframAlpha "computational knowledge engine" is shown.   (AP Photo/WolframAlpha)
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