Wolfram Alpha search engine goes live

16 May 2009 12:40 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Wolfram Alpha, the search engine that promises to deliver more precise answers to users' queries has gone live ahead of its official launch on Monday, allowing internet users the chance to find out specific information on their searches.

Hyped as a Google killer, the new search engine rather than letting users search for products or random information on the Internet will give exact answers based on scientific knowledge.

Type in Ascot for example and you'll get the location of the town in the UK, the population, local time and current weather, however nothing about it being the home of the famous yearly Royal Ascot race meeting.

One that is likely to tickle people who like to impress their mates with useless factoids is the ability to find out stacks of information about dates in time. Type your birthday for example and you'll be able to find out what the day of the week was, how old you are in years, months and days, and whether anything of any significance happened. You'll even get the sunrise and sunset for the day as well.

Rather than compete with Google, the maker of the new search engine - Brit, Stephen Wolfram - is hoping it will become a complementing service.

Have you tried Wolfram Alpha yet? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

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Software, Online, Search engines, Wolfram Alpha