Heard of Wolfram Alpha yet? With its official launch happening sometime today, chances are that within the next couple of months, you will have.

So what is it?

Described as ‘computational answer-engine’ – it is not a online search facility, and it’s definitely not a Google. It doesn’t reference indexed web pages and documents, but rather ‘listens’ to your question, and with recourse to a single sourced information bank, provides an answer. The point is it thinks about what you want from your question; it summarises key facts, unearths statistics, produces charts, and, fascinatingly, shows you how it got there.

Wikipedia naturally has a page on it, which is worth checking out.

Even more information is – aptly – provided at the official website, where in this video the product’s creator, a British physicist called Stephen Wolfram, runs through a mind-boggling set of example questions.

Whether it ends up setting the world alight, or merely aglow, this certainly should be one to watch over the coming year.

By Jonathan Izzard on May 15th, 2009

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