Comments on: Wolfram Alpha launches amid glitches

Myriad problems prevented Wolfram Alpha from going live Friday evening as planned, but the new search engine finally launched a few hours later.

[shk828]

you can access the search engine by going to http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/

it all works, i guess.

[jtara]

Even the hand-picked samples don't work. (It's still chugging away at "carbon steel" 5 minutes later...) Well, they work to an extent. I know that it is "assuming" AISI 1026 steel. Whatever that is. I mean, I didn't really want to know about carbon steel, but I figured I'd try something it actually knows about.

Fortunately, I have a friend who's a Materials Scientist, and if I really wanted to know about carbon steel, I could drive over and get an answer sooner than getting it from Wolfram Alpha.

What a joke!

They DID have some kind of a pre-launch test, but I don't think you got invited if you were below director level of a major corporation.

[jtara]

Where is Kathryn Hepburn with a hatpin when we need her?

Too bad the first question they asked wasn't how much capacity they would need for launch!

[Mr. Dee]

Gave it try, I wish I had this in high school, would have helped a lot with math home work. :) Computation is quite fast too on a GPRS connection.

7 days

[Bryan Price]

Wolfram Alpha has currently exceeded its current maximum test load

It seems to have gone live for the public. Now if it would just work....

[gerrrg]

Yeah...tried it out, not going to displace Google search at all.

Wolfie is targeting a completely different audience.

[stockyjoe]

Engineers and programmers at times can get a bit over excited about technology which behind the scenes is impressive in its intentions but from a usability standpoint just fails miserably. This is definitely a niche search engine and very beta at that. Definitely no Google killer and man they need some faster servers.

[macewan_]

Still has problems as seen in this screenshot:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/macewan/3535322203/

[bajadesperado]

I logged on at 7 pm baja mexico time and got right on with an answer in 22 sec. about Google-Yahoo financial comparisons ,then on to various math ,trig,calculus things and excellent response. I am under the impression from the comments so far that the public was expecting a Google Killer search engine,that is not what this is...Try using your calculator on your iPhone to figure some of the basic calculations and see if you can still remember the formulas necessary...not so easy if you didn't pay attention in school or worst if you aged a bit ,they are very fuzzy . Wolfram Alpha is the scientists and engineers answer spot. These are direct answers to your search not 2,567,987 related pages on the search subject that you must view before you find that tidbit you are looking far...Google and Wolfram are two distinct animals in the search kingdom...Give Wolfie a chance and you will see that when you need the calculation or data or formula to get you through the day,Wolfie will be there with the answer.
I think its great to have another source for info and answers...Challenge Wolfie with your best science,finance,mathematical or whatever question and get direct results and see if this will integrate into " your netlifestyle". Then Smile and say "Now I get it!"

[pbarnes7]

The link provided above, http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/ says the server's too busy. But I got good results with this one:

http://www27.wolframalpha.com/input