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The Microsoft search engine Bing has signed a licensing deal with Wolfram Alpha, allowing Bing to feature results from Wolfram Alpha. It appears that nutrition information will be the first type of results to appear.

The service will be rolled out first in the US and follows the launch of the Wolfram Alpha API, which allows developers to harness the power of the knowledge-based search engine. Wolfram Alpha have also recently launched an iPhone app.

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Microsoft is due to launch a new search engine, Bing,  on June 3. The launch may initially be restricted to the US, as Microsoft is taking time to sign up partner websites in each country. These partnerships may be both a strength and a weakness, as the quality of information could be good but perhaps from a limited range of sources.

Bing search appears to be designed to return a list of information and key websites, more like Ask.com than Google or the recently launched WoolframAlpha.

Bing appears to have been optimised for searches for  products or services. It appears that Microsoft is partnering with sites to provide links to products in online shops, a bit like Google Shopping, although the links may be to reviews rather than directly to products. Users will be able to earn cashback when buying from Bing’s commercial partners.

Travel ‘products’ also appear to be a target, with the Bing promotional video showing a predictive tool that will tell you when flights are likely to be at their cheapest (here’s our hint – avoid the school holidays).

Only time will tell whether Microsoft’s new search engine survives or, like Gong Show contestants of old, whether it suffers the ignominy of hearing that loud Bonnnggg!

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The new search engine, Wolfram Alpha went live today, although its 10,000 computing cores seem somewhat overwhelmed at trying to deal with the SlashDot effect of thousands of consecutive users trying it out for the first time.

There are now three different types of search engine:

• Contextual (eg Google) - finds web pages in which your search terms appear
• Informational (eg Ask) – finds web pages containing the facts you are looking for
• Knowledge (Wolfram Alpha) - compiles information in direct answer to your queries

The best way to illustrate the difference is to do a simple search, for example: Paris France

Google returns a link to a Google map of Paris and a series of links to web pages about Paris, primarily travel-related commercial sites

Ask.com returns links to a wider range of websites, including news stories about Paris, Wikipedia and BBC Weather. Jeeves himself offers some additional links to related searches, such as ‘History Paris’.

Wolfram Alpha has a completely different approach and responds with a range of information about Paris, including the population, a map of France showing where Paris is located, local time, current weather, height above sea level and a nearby larger city (London 213 miles). Another big difference is that results can be downloaded as a pdf file.

In conclusion Wolfram Alpha is no replacement for Google, but then it doesn’t claim to be. Rather it is a useful new addition to your options when searching for information. It is also rather good at evaluating mathematic equations – try entering 1/sin(x) and see the resulting plots and related information.

admin News alpha, knowledge, search, wolfram