Wolfram Alpha is Hotter Than The Burning Sun!

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If you haven’t seen it yet, you’re GONNA want it.

I found out about Wolfram Alpha from reading Joyce Valenza’s Neverending search blog on slj.com. You may want to hit that for a fuller review than the thumbnail I’ll try and paint below

www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1340000334.html

Basically, Wolfram Alpha is a computational knowledge engine that, I think, has to be played with to fully understand its potentials. A useful tool across disciplines and age ranges, it’s like crack for info-geeks. I started playing with it last Friday and was really impressed doing things like distance calculation and geographical comparisons, biological taxonomy, currency conversion and stock analysis, calorie and nutrition calculation and lots more. I was so impressed, in fact, that I couldn’t wait to post a Wolfram Alpha search box on my school library’s QUICK REFERENCE page. I tossed it up there today.

www.idiotica.com/cranium/librarysite/content/quickref.html

Which is really why I’m writing. The search boxes for websites can be a bit tricky to find. They’re available at:

www.wolframalpha.com/addtoyoursite.html

There are also widgets for browser toolbars, iGoogle and more available in the easy to find DOWNLOADS portion of:

www.wolframalpha.com

I haven’t been this geeked about a tool in a while. While it failed on a couple pretty easy tasks I tried, lots of others worked much better than I expected. I can’t imagine what it might be capable of five years down the road. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it remains uncluttered and ad-free as well.

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