
The Inter-Webs is always a fascinating place to be, with paradigmatic shifts in how we perceive the world occurring all the time; before full apprehension, comes another mind-boggling concept. We already have CSS, Blogging, Ive, Google Earth/Maps, RFID, Youtube, RSS, OpenID, Facebook, Twitter, (amongst many others) and next comes Wolfram|Alpha, a new model of thinking Search.
You purportedly use it to get technical results, answers to more “numerical” type questions (distance between singapore dietikon = 10306km) rather than “item” type questions (albums by elvis presley = ?). Even so, data is rather limited to those available in the public domain (e.g. Emporis), and it seems to me that the databases are few. It doesn’t recognise famous figures like Rem Koolhaas, nor does it know the height of La Padrera. Currently, I might use it as a convenient answering machine (5th september 1984 day = Wednesday), but I figure one of its core strengths is its comparative ability, like how you can compare stock prices of Apple and Microsoft, or between all of Hitchcock’s movies.
Of course, it is so new, there is so much data not up yet, so right now I would rather get lucky with my Google and my Wiki.