inflight magazine

Google may have all the power but it seems Wolfram Alpha has all the brains. Noted as a “Computational Knowledge engine” it brings back results that are… well, smart. check this out…

Every school child has at one time or another written a report on the moon, and they probably included the wrong figure for how far the moon is from the earth. Why wrong? Because the distance from the earth to the moon is not constant: it changes by as much as a mile a minute. If you ask Wolfram|Alpha the distance to the moon, it tells you not only the conventionally quoted average distance, but also the actual distance right now, which can at times be well over ten thousand miles off the average. The actual distance is a figure that can be arrived at only by computation based on the moon’s known orbital parameters.

So the difference is that Google simply finds information that already exists, but Wolfram alpha does complex calculations to answer your questions. Having 1000’s of people beta testing the system already, it seems that Wolfram Alpha will be a force to be reconed with (lets hope it’s server can take it!).

Ready to launch worldwide 18th May: http://www.wolframalpha.com