What’s Wolfram/Alpha and Why Should You Care?

I’m feeling somewhat Ginger-like, with a smidgen of HAL 9000 thrown in.

True Geeks will remember when Segway was dubbed ‘Ginger‘ and Geeks as notable and prescient as Steven Jobs and Jeff Bezos claimed it would be as ‘big as the PC’.

We all know HAL 9000, the soft-spoken. lip-reading computer.

So when I started hearing about a revolutionary new search engine called Wolfram/Alpha and the usual pundits began to wax nerdily eloquent, my Ginger-be-smudged cynicism seeped in. Was this “computational knowledge engine” a Google-killer? Would we all soon be getting answers to our raging questions rather than diligently searching for them? And didn’t we already try the Q & A thing via a perky butler named Ask Jeeves?

The newfangled search engine Wolfram|Alpha is different than Google or Yahoo. Ask it a question — one that involves something like National Pi Day or a wallop of statistics– and it will speedily deliver an answer based on its avalanche of curated data and ‘Mathematica’ technology. One hundred brainiacs, led by Brit Stephen Wolfram, a physics prodigy who won a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” at 21, are sitting in Champaign, IL, feeding the knowledge base reams of data.. As you might guess, science is Wolfie’s strong suit, but it also knows plenty about technology, geography, weather, cooking, business, travel, people, music, and more.

Let’s say you start with some ego-surfing questions. Try your birthday or your name. This is how I discovered Esther Dyson and I have the same birthday and that there are 871,156 Sarahs currently alive in the US. Wolfie will also candidly admit when he’s stumped, and tell you he’s not sure what to do with your input. I got that response when I typed in: “Brett Favre, Packers.” (Truthfully, NO ONE knows what to do with that input.)

Wolfram/Alpha ponies up graphical answers when appropriate, and also suggests other sources of information.

The Geeks on Twitter have been playing with the search engine since Friday night’s official launch via Justin.tv — and as of noon today, Wolfie already had some 4100 fans on its Facebook page. Many are already discovering Wolfram Alpha’s ‘Easter Eggs’ tucked inside its masses of data, just waiting for the perfect question to show off its geeky humor.

Zenspace: Mashable’s 20 Wolfram Alpha Easter Eggs are why I LOVE the Internet — http://tinyurl.com/p24mb8 and http://bit.ly/14rCRW #wolframalpha

nickhebb: Wolfram|Alpha is fun. If this is baby’s first steps, imagine what it will be like when its old enough to drive

Jaielle: #wolfram alpha still needs more work… it can find “square root of ten million” but not “square root of 10 million”

For all its obvious brilliance, I don’t expect Wolfram|Alpha to go mainstream anytime soon. But then I didn’t expect the new Star Trek movie to go mainstream either!

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Only 3 Months and $250 Away: The First Android Netbook

I learned my laptop lesson the hard way last week.

Rather than pack up my luscious lime MacBook and spend half my trip worrying about it,  I decided I was going to wing it for a couple of days on the road with only my Blackberry. I could subsist on email, text and random social media updates, right?

Wrongo.  What I hadn’t counted on was an avalanche of response from CNN Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen’smention of this blog in a (terrific) story about Facebook Addiction. Zillions of pingbacks, trackbacks, tweets, re-tweets, emails and posts later, my swollen Blackberried thumbs were ready for a spa weekend. I was relegated to the Fairmont Hotel business center, where I tried to catch up on a kludgey PC with no sound and dubious download times.

The upshot, my friends? I am soon to become a Netbook owner. After years of searching for smaller, sleeker, lighter, slimmer, there are now a range of practical options for those wishing to avoid Thumb Hell.

CNET reports that in just a year since their arrival, the tiny, inexpensive laptops known as netbooks have taken a 7% bite out of the global laptop market. To be sure, others have experimented with mini-laptops — I am the owner of two Sony VAIO Picturebooks plus a Sony VAIO lightweight 505.  I loved these juicy precursors to true pocket-sized PCs but ultimately they were a non-scalable deadend.  Over the past decade’s worth of tech-innovation Focus Groups, I’ve discovered multitudes of frustrated laptop users tired of lugging pricey machines through airports and commutes. This pent-up demand is evident in next year’s projections: Netbooks are expected to have a 12% share of the market.  Sales in Europe are skyrocketing — more than eight times higher than in the U.S.  If Apple enters the fray with a 10-inch touchscreen version – which Steve Jobs is supposedly working on during his medical leave– zowie.

Another big boost for Netbooks?  3G mobile carriers AT&T and Verizon are teaming up with netbook producers to offer them at huge discounts as long as buyers sign up for a two-year plan (much like the iPhone).

Today, these very basic netbooks — typically a keyboard, screen and a simple processor– generally cost somewhere in the $300-$600 range.  Used primarily to serve as a hub for online activity, most have a minimal amount of memory and little software beyond a basic typing program. But with so many new options for online storage, from Flickr to Facebook, who needs a fully-loaded machine?  As it is, on average, users seldom use even 50% of productivity software’s features and capabilities.

IOGEAR lists some worthy Netbook options:

• The Dell Inspiron Mini 9is one of the better known Netbooks with prices ranging from $249 for the entry level unit running Ubuntu Linux to well over $500 for a fully loaded unit with Windows XP.
• The Acer Aspire One, just over two pounds with a ten-inch screen, is one of the most customizable and feature rich laptops with enough options to make your head spin. Acer offers dozens of pre-configured models so it should be possible to fill your needs with just about anything they offer.
• If there was a grandfather to the Netbook revolution it would be the Asus Eee PC, offering cheap, small, feature rich Netbooks to the masses.

But the big news is the iminent arrival of the First Android Netbook.  The first Netbook running Google’s Android operating system is expected to be available in the next three months and cost about $250, according to a Computerworld report, says CNET’s Steve Musil.  The Alpha 680 is going through final testing at Guangzhou Skytone Transmission Technologies.

Guru’s Note: Can my thumbs wait three long months till (the rumored) Android Netbooks from HP or Dell? Or shall I immediately get myself that Acer I’ve been visiting?

Google’s New Green Gadget: The PowerMeter

Whenever eco-pundits gather, the conversation focuses on one question: “Who is going to be the green Google?”

Now it turns out that the green Google just might be . . . Google.

Enter Google’s newest techno-innovation: The PowerMeter.

Currently in development, Google’s PowerMeter tool will soon help consumers monitor their personal energy expenditures in real-time. Once launched, not only will the tool help reduce carbon emissions by showing people where they can cut down on their individual power usage, but according to studies, it will also ultimately help save between 5-15% on one’s monthly energy bill.

Google’s reasoning is “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”

So being the analytics kings that they are, Google’s new PowerMeter will help answer such pivotal questions as:

• How much does it cost to leave your TV on all day?
• What about turning your air conditioning 1 degree cooler?
• Which uses more power every month — your fridge or your dishwasher?
• Is your household more or less energy efficient than similar homes in your neighborhood?

Many thanks to TrendCentral.com.

Yahoo and AOL Go On A Second Date?

It’s been rumored all week. Yahoo and AOL are leaping beyond eyelash-batting and late-night IM’s, and taking that getting-serious next step: the Second Date. Proof that the flirtation has gone past speed dating? They’re introducing their books to each other, engaging in ‘meaningful’ due diligence.

Does this mean a merger (wink-wink) is on the way? Or is Yahoo leading AOL on, like it did to ex-swain Microsoft, who Mom really-really would have loved? Or will Google’s search advertising partnership once again stand in the way of a deeply satisfying monogamous relationship for the Purple One?

Then there’s on-again, off-again Time Warner, who Yahoo turned to after Microsoft got a touch too possessive last spring. “Just because you have $47.5 billion doesn’t mean you can act like you own me!” snapped Yahoo, stomping out of Starbucks in awesome Sarah Lacy-style boots.

And then, like it was so random, but somehow Microsoft read some tweetsabout Yahoo’s hook-ups with Google and TW, and got ticked and yanked its $33-per-share proposal like right before summer vacation. But when Yahoo turned back to Google, thinking they could still be bffs, Google made up some bogus excuse about the government or the FBI or something not letting them be together.

Now everybody’s shares are way down, especially Yahoo’s, which crashed by 63%.  So this Second Date, is like, HUGE.   To help the courtship along, Guru turned to the romance experts at AskMen.com, who offer up this advice on how to handle that important Second Date:

So you made it to the second date. Good job. You’re relieved, you obviously made a good impression and she wants to see you again, but now what? What is she expecting? And, more importantly, what could ruin the potentially good thing you have going on?

K.I.S.S: Keep it simple stupid.
Don’t do anything spectacular or you’ll scare her off. Plan an activity that’s different from the first date, but make sure it’s nothing too demanding. The second date is about getting to know each other better. Have a few options planned, but don’t force her to choose or she’ll feel put on the spot.

Wise words.

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New From GMail Labs: Stop Sending Mail You’ll Later Regret.

We love this new Gmail feature — and only wish it was available for phones.

Monday, October 06, 2008 6:25 PM
Posted by Jon Perlow, Gmail engineer

Sometimes I send messages I shouldn’t send. Like the time I told that girl I had a crush on her over text message. Or the time I sent that late night email to my ex-girlfriend that we should get back together. Gmail can’t always prevent you from sending messages you might later regret, but today we’re launching a new Labs feature I wrote called Mail Goggles which may help.

When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you’re really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you’re in the right state of mind?

By default, Mail Goggles is only active late night on the weekend as that is the time you’re most likely to need it. Once enabled, you can adjust when it’s active in the General settings.