Monday, May 18, 2009

Computational Search Engine Fail...

Wolfram Alpha launches today. It's supposed to be an "intelligent" search engine that can pull together information to answer your questions, not just provide websites that match your keywords.

But, being a good little geek (and with a little nod to Abstrusegoose), I though I would try to break it.

Best Star Trek Captain
fails miserably. It doesn't know what to make of the question.

OK, let's try something simpler
Is Angelina Jolie Hot.
Nope, still nothing.

But, humor aside, it doesn't work as a "search engine". Try searching on "c compiler" and it has no idea what to do.

But, if I enter "23.34 * 1.27" into google, it does know what to do with it.

Nice idea, but chances are I'd type any question into google first, since between it's built in calculator and billions of web page indices the answer is probably already out there. And it won't tell me it doesn't understand the question.

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