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Wolfram Alpha - Impressions On Launch
mouser:
just saw this:
http://negatendo.net/blog/2009/05/16/wolframalpha-and-screen-scraping/
Perhaps the oddest thing about Wolfram|Alpha is that the text that appears in query results is not text at all, but is in fact made up of dynamically generated GIFs
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I didn't notice this the first time but sure enough.. you can't select and copy text in the results!!
The article goes on:
Perhaps the oddest thing about Wolfram|Alpha is that the text that appears in query results is not text at all, but is in fact made up of dynamically generated GIFs:
The Wolfram|Alpha FAQ claims:
All output content is rendered as images, for consistency.
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Of course, a sentiment like that would make any web designer jump off a bridge. Considering all the other nice UI nuances that Wolfram|Alpha has, I call bullshit. It’s not about visual consistency.
I think it’s an attempt at preventing what is quickly becoming the bane of any informative website’s existence: screen scraping.
Screen scraping is, of course, using a script or bot to extract data from the visual output of a page. A web screen scraper digs out the needed data from the HTML source and formats it accordingly. This technique is used to subvert APIs, feeds, etc. when these “legally provided” methods of access don’t give you what you need. Of course, it’s also a way to really piss the people who run the website off, because screen scraping is typically immune to throttling and data control, unlike an API or feed, which can be monitored and cached.
And notably, it appears that this kind of control is of the utmost interest to Wolfram|Alpha, as it’s part of their “Step 3: Profit!” plan (also from the FAQ):
Subscriptions will be available in the near future with enhanced features for large-scale and commercial use.
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What ridiculousness.
Grorgy:
While i was seriously underwhelmed by this thing, I just found this little article at mashable.com ( http://mashable.com/2009/05/17/wolfram-easter-eggs/ ) . Some of these are rather good, ask it for example, the meaning of life and it will answer 42 ;)
app103:
I tried my husband's name, my name, and my brother-in-law's name. Google had no problem returning information on all of us, but W.A. didn't know what to do with any of the queries. :(
-cyberdiva (May 16, 2009, 08:39 AM)
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I tried that too, and it suggested to use only my last name, which returned statistical information from US census reports:
I tried several more queries of a different sort, and ended with "What is Donation Coder?" All I can say for W.A. is that it's consistent--it consistently didn't know what to do. By contrast, when I then put "what is Donation Coder?" into Google, its first three hits were to the web site, the forums, and Wikipedia's coverage of DC. Guess I'll stick with Google.
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Instead of asking the same question that you did, I just typed in donationcoder.com and did get results.
From what I understand, you can't enter in any query (beyond mathematical) that it doesn't already know where to get the info from. The less you ask, the more you get. Single words return the most results, although most of what it returns is more or less trivia and not really useful.
It's more of an entertaining toy than a useful tool.
I like it ;) I think it has got a great potential! :Thmbsup: Maybe it is a first step of full Mathematica port to internet?
-czb (May 16, 2009, 09:05 AM)
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webMathmatica is what it's using.
While i was seriously underwhelmed by this thing, I just found this little article at mashable.com ( http://mashable.com/2009/05/17/wolfram-easter-eggs/ ) . Some of these are rather good, ask it for example, the meaning of life and it will answer 42 ;)
-Grorgy (May 17, 2009, 03:24 PM)
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Take a look at some more of the searches people have done with it and the various impressions of users, from Friendfeed. (which incidentally, makes it easy to share the image based results, with their little bookmarklet)
Ehtyar:
An excellent idea, and a very impressive implementation. If you think of it for what it is, I think you'll appreciate it, but all this "Google killer" talk is absolute nonsense.
Ehtyar.
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"Wikipedia killer" might be closer to the truth, but Wolfram is really too unique to think of it in these terms IMO.
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mahesh2k:
I asked few questions and i got weird answers and sometimes no results returned. :D
-What is the speed of light?
-Where is gallactus?
-What is the purpose of life?
-How to cook Mexican pizza?
-What is the distance between moon and earth?
Wolfram alpha needs to complete graduation before thinking about killing Google. :D
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