[Infowarrior] - An invention that could change the internet for ever

[Richard Forno]

http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=MzM1NjQ4Mg%3D%3D

May 3, 2009
An invention that could change the internet for ever

Revolutionary new web software could put giants such as Google in the  
shade when it comes out later this month. Andrew Johnson reports

The biggest internet revolution for a generation will be unveiled this  
month with the launch of software that will understand questions and  
give specific, tailored answers in a way that the web has never  
managed before.

The new system, Wolfram Alpha, showcased at Harvard University in the  
US last week, takes the first step towards what many consider to be  
the internet's Holy Grail – a global store of information that  
understands and responds to ordinary language in the same way a person  
does.

Although the system is still new, it has already produced massive  
interest and excitement among technology pundits and internet watchers.

Computer experts believe the new search engine will be an evolutionary  
leap in the development of the internet. Nova Spivack, an internet and  
computer expert, said that Wolfram Alpha could prove just as important  
as Google. "It is really impressive and significant," he wrote. "In  
fact it may be as important for the web (and the world) as Google, but  
for a different purpose.

Tom Simpson, of the blog Convergenceofeverything.com, said: "What are  
the wider implications exactly? A new paradigm for using computers and  
the web? Probably. Emerging artificial intelligence and a step towards  
a self-organising internet? Possibly... I think this could be big."

Wolfram Alpha will not only give a straight answer to questions such  
as "how high is Mount Everest?", but it will also produce a neat page  
of related information – all properly sourced – such as geographical  
location and nearby towns, and other mountains, complete with graphs  
and charts.

The real innovation, however, is in its ability to work things out "on  
the fly", according to its British inventor, Dr Stephen Wolfram. If  
you ask it to compare the height of Mount Everest to the length of the  
Golden Gate Bridge, it will tell you. Or ask what the weather was like  
in London on the day John F Kennedy was assassinated, it will cross- 
check and provide the answer. Ask it about D sharp major, it will play  
the scale. Type in "10 flips for four heads" and it will guess that  
you need to know the probability of coin-tossing. If you want to know  
when the next solar eclipse over Chicago is, or the exact current  
location of the International Space Station, it can work it out.

Dr Wolfram, an award-winning physicist who is based in America, added  
that the information is "curated", meaning it is assessed first by  
experts. This means that the weaknesses of sites such as Wikipedia,  
where doubts are cast on the information because anyone can  
contribute, are taken out. It is based on his best-selling Mathematica  
software, a standard tool for scientists, engineers and academics for  
crunching complex maths.

"I've wanted to make the knowledge we've accumulated in our  
civilisation computable," he said last week. "I was not sure it was  
possible. I'm a little surprised it worked out so well."

Dr Wolfram, 49, who was educated at Eton and had completed his PhD in  
particle physics by the time he was 20, added that the launch of  
Wolfram Alpha later this month would be just the beginning of the  
project.

"It will understand what you are talking about," he said. "We are just  
at the beginning. I think we've got a reasonable start on 90 per cent  
of the shelves in a typical reference library."

The engine, which will be free to use, works by drawing on the  
knowledge on the internet, as well as private databases. Dr Wolfram  
said he expected that about 1,000 people would be needed to keep its  
databases updated with the latest discoveries and information.

He also added that he would not go down the road of storing  
information on ordinary people, although he was aware that others  
might use the technology to do so.

Wolfram Alpha has been designed with professionals and academics in  
mind, so its grasp of popular culture is, at the moment, comparatively  
poor. The term "50 Cent" caused "absolute horror" in tests, for  
example, because it confused a discussion on currency with the  
American rap artist. For this reason alone it is unlikely to provide  
an immediate threat to Google, which is working on a similar type of  
search engine, a version of which it launched last week.

"We have a certain amount of popular culture information," Dr Wolfram  
said. "In some senses popular culture information is much more  
shallowly computable, so we can find out who's related to who and how  
tall people are. I fully expect we will have lots of popular culture  
information. There are linguistic horrors because if you put in books  
and music a lot of the names clash with other concepts."

He added that to help with that Wolfram Alpha would be using  
Wikipedia's popularity index to decide what users were likely to be  
interested in.

With Google now one of the world's top brands, worth $100bn, Wolfram  
Alpha has the potential to become one of the biggest names on the  
planet.

Dr Wolfram, however, did not rule out working with Google in the  
future, as well as Wikipedia. "We're working to partner with all  
possible organisations that make sense," he said. "Search, narrative,  
news are complementary to what we have. Hopefully there will be some  
great synergies."

What the experts say

"For those of us tired of hundreds of pages of results that do not  
really have a lot to do with what we are trying to find out, Wolfram  
Alpha may be what we have been waiting for."

Michael W Jones, Tech.blorge.com

"If it is not gobbled up by one of the industry superpowers, his  
company may well grow to become one of them in a small number of  
years, with most of us setting our default browser to be Wolfram Alpha."

Doug Lenat, Semanticuniverse.com

"It's like plugging into an electric brain."

Matt Marshall, Venturebeat.com

"This is like a Holy Grail... the ability to look inside data sources  
that can't easily be crawled and provide answers from them."

Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of searchengineland.com

Worldwide network: A brief history of the internet

1969 The internet is created by the US Department of Defense with the  
networking of computers at UCLA and the Stanford Research Institute.

1979 The British Post Office uses the technology to create the first  
international computer networks.

1980 Bill Gates's deal to put a Microsoft Operating System on IBM's  
computers paves the way for almost universal computer ownership.

1984 Apple launches the first successful 'modern' computer interface  
using graphics to represent files and folders, drop-down menus and,  
crucially, mouse control.

1989 Tim Berners-Lee creates the world wide web – using browsers,  
pages and links to make communication on the internet simple.

1996 Google begins as a research project at Stanford University. The  
company is formally founded two years later by Sergey Brin and Larry  
Page.

2009 Dr Stephen Wolfram launches Wolfram Alpha.