Sam Dutton’s blog

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Archive for May 2009

Wolfram Alpha: don’t ask the wrong questions

with 2 comments

I’ve had a go at the Wolfram Alpha ‘knowledge engine’ preview.

Sadly, in my experience, it’s a bit disappointing: US-centric and effective only in specific, limited domains.

It gave no results for many of my queries, for example:

  • ‘What is the population of Adelaide’ (capital of South Australia)
  • ‘Tim Winton prizes’ (Australian writer)
  • ‘where is Kapunda’ (town in South Australia — misinterpreted as an animal, kakunda)
  • ‘where is Wandsworth, London’ (Wandsworth is a London borough — gives a ‘did you mean wadsworth’ response)
  • ‘why is DAB radio delayed’ (and variations — ‘Wolfram|Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input’)

Alpha is a great project with a lot of potential – to provide well presented, accurate answers to questions asked in natural language.

But they better be quick or the world — or Google – will move on.

Written by samdutton

12 May, 2009 at 11:08 am

Posted in Uncategorized