Wolframalpha
 

Wolfram|Alpha

Making the world's knowledge computable

Today's Wolfram|Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone. You enter your question or calculation, and Wolfram|Alpha uses its built-in algorithms and growing collection of data to compute the answer.

Cute site.

Mutt

Sorry it just failed it's first test.
I asked "If an airoplane is on a conveyor belt which moves in the opposite direction to the wheels, will it take off"

Got the reply: Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input.:E:E

I used Mathematica a bit a few years ago, and hope to get back in if I can afford it: it's a stunning system that boggles the mind, frankly, so I have high hopes and expectations for anything Wolfram gets up to. It's going to take time to get up to speed, because there is some human intervention required at times, so I hope people don't dismiss it, just because it doesn't live up to the hype on Day One.

So far it hasn't been able to answer any questions I have input........Still early days I suppose.:ooh:

It called me by a strange name and said it wasn't working.

Software with insight indeed!

Odd?
 

Keef - you're not Dave as well are you?
The Ancient Mariner

Oh and while I'm here. Any suggestions for: I used to to be able to watch BBCiPlayer wearing my headset to not disturb SWMBO, who is usually watching somnething else. Now since iPlayer has been upgraded to HD I can watch it (sometimes) with the speakers selected but not on the headset. Headset works perfectly with Skype. And yes I know I can select the narrower bandwidth version. TIA
The Ancient Mariner

Only just started with the new IPlayer, wouldn't have the old one anywhere near my system because of the throttling of P2P traffic, but it works with phones for me, suggest you check that phones are set as the default audio device in the control panel.

Only got a result from Wolfram when I put in 'largest country'
doesn't seem to understand anything else

It was featured on the Today program on the radio this morning, they didn't seem particularly impressed either!

The idea with artificial intelligence (AI) applications is for you to teach it how to respond.

So if your going to approach it with a complex question expect it to be confused - the idea is to emulate learning and judgement in its response.

Ask the same questions to a three year old and you will probably get the response your getting - however discuss it in a manner it can learn and you will probably get much better responses.

AI is quite good nowadays, I studied it a little on my Masters - processing power is way short of the human brain but the logic is quite accurate. However the biggest downfall is that emotions have not been discovered how to be quantified. Trying to replicate the gut feeling that goes against logic but is correct has not been quantified and thus cannot be included.

If interested I can point you to online learning materials for AI - its confusing but very worthwhile to read.