New search engine to compete with Google

Dubai : The future of internet queries could look very much like a new website that attempts to give tailored answers as opposed to traditional search engines such as Google which shows millions of relevant internet weblinks.

Launched in mid-May, US-based www.wolframalpha.com is making headlines for its ability to give a set of answers – especially mathematical ones – thanks to its unique ability to draw on its own “computational knowledge'' to give web visitors more detailed data.

A quick “Dubai'' search, for example, on the site shows that the city has 1.137 million people, the area has 2.262 million residents and in addition to a map, the website shows that Dubai is five metres above sea level.

It's a beginning.

Conrad Wolfram, 39, Strategic Director, said in an interview from the United Kingdom that with each query, the website tries to provide “custom answers that are made especially for you''.

At some point, he said, as the website gathers more data it will be able to provide more answers helping surfers in an era of “knowledge overload''.

While the website is still hit and miss in some areas and draws a complete blank, in other subject areas WolframAlpha's computational knowledge engine is quite smart.

And in some instances, such as weather, stocks, and moving targets, the information provided is live.

For example, a quick Dubai search gives you the live temperature as well as humidity.

Or, in a random search for the distance of the moon from the earth, the website gives you the precise distance at that precise time of the search.

The genius of the website, said Wolfram, is the main custom-designed program behind it.

“We've been building a computational system called Mathematica for 23 years,'' he said, noting that you could call the new website, a “23-year start-up''.

While he didn't disclose the number of daily hits to the website, Wolfram said the company is witnessing a shift in web users wants.

“What we're seeing is there is a real appetite for a change in traditional searches,'' he said.

Wolfram said that the team is working with governments, data providers and financial feeds to widen the scope of the website's data base.

The work in progress will take time but will mature as more years go by, he said.

Wolfram said that “we need to have curated the information for it to work''.