Wolfram Alpha is like a cross between a research library, a graphing calculator, and a search engine. But does Wolfram Research's "computational knowledge engine," set to debut publicly later this month, live up to its hype as a Web site that Google needs to be afraid of? Wolfram Alpha creator Stephen Wolfram on Tuesday gave a demo of the service to a crowd of online reporters. Few have access to the private test version of the service itself, but we got access Monday night. We found it compelling, if limited. We're eager to see this site develop. It does things with online information that Google does not. Here are our impressions of the current version of Wolfram Alpha.
The GeoEye-1 satellite whizzes in low-Earth orbit, but when will it be taking photos over you? Alpha will show you on a map, in this case a 3D view of the globe that shows the satellite above Antarctica. It'll also tell you the satellite's 16,812-mph average velocity, its 428.4-mile altitude, and 98-minute orbital period. Photo by Stephen Shankland/CNET Caption by Stephen Shankland