Port Elizabeth: MyPE - Wolfram Alpha Will Give You Answers

www.MyPE.co.za: I just love trying out new search 'assistants' and other internet gadgets so rushed to try WolframAlpha which has been a long time coming.

There is one main reason why I try these new search assitants and web sites; To see if they have ranked and listed MyPE and Port Elizabeth and if their information is accurate. Of course I also like to help the creators and ensure that they have all the facts required.

Imagine a search 'assistant' that rolls Google, Wikipedia and Ask (used to have Jeeves, but now just Ask!) into one handy facts package and you have the gist of WolframAlpha.

WolframAlpha is backed by Stephen Wolfram, a noted scientist and author of the Mathematica computational software and book, A New Kind Of Science. WolframAlpha bills itself as a "computational knowledge engine." Basically it is a service designed to provide you with direct answers, rather than refer you to pages that in turn may hold those answers.

WolframAlpha explain their engine as follows; "Wolfram|Alpha's long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries."

As WolframAlpha is built using Stephen Wolfram's Mathematica Computational Software and has received lots of hype over the last few months I am sure that he has sold many copies - all the power to you, Stephen.

The collection of this data which, at present, contains 10+ trillion of pieces of data, 50,000+ types of algorithms and models, and linguistic capabilities for 1000+ domains is not an overnight process. Users who search for something specific and come up empty handed, as when I searched for MyPE and got this message; "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input. Did you mean myles". Such users can then opt to help broaden the WolframAlpha knowledge engine by filling in a form, volunteering or becoming an expert.

Making it easier to use WolframAlpha is a large number of desktop gadgets, browser toolbars and search engine add ons.

Actually using WolframAlpha is quite fun and I have produced a couple of screen shots of queries made - click on each query to see an image of the result:

My 'MyPE' query was disappointing.
The 'Port Elizabeth' query gave me more information than the 'South Africa' query.
'Percentages' are quick and easy, whilst the representations for 'Music Notes' were pleasing and 'Semi-Complicated Mathematical Formulas' a breeze.
I had to ask about 'Jacob Zuma'.
Want to know the distance and flight time between 'Port Elizabeth and Cape Town'?
A 'Special Question' asked on behalf of people who visit the MyPE Forum Topic - Official Lounge BAR and now GRILL as well - was pretty illuminating.

All Query Results.