Wolfram Alpha is just off the shelf - some think this is the future as it can in essence understand what you are searching and show what you need - this will with time be refined - but put in your home town - names - and it spits out information you may or maynot want but real information unlike google - its only a week old but is this the future or just a pretender ?
I can't help but feel that I'm too stupid to get any meaningful information out of Wolfram Alpha, but these results gave me a chuckle:
The answer to the question of life the universe and everything:
http://www96.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=answer+to+life%2C+the+universe%2C+and+everything+
and of course the airspeed of an unladen swallow:
and finally something personal:
http://www96.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=migration+australia
It seems you have plenty of room there... lemme in already. 
Time will tell how good Wolfram is. When people start using it more and scrutinising results we'll see how good it really is. Who knows, Google may buy it and use it as an extension to their search.
Wooly - nice search on the answer to the life the universe and everything
Moved topic to more relevant category.
Wolfram will not take off. It's search techniques on its own do not give enough. (My opinon only)
Add it into googles search and it will work well. I heard a rumour that wolfram took his search to Google and they knocked it back citing that they had something similar that they were working on.
Having said that Wolfram is only an Alpha and as it grows it may get far better results and start to be a bit more useful.
I love google but I am surprised that they have survived as the number 1 search engine for the last 10 years without some upstart coming along and toppling them. It is only a matter of time before a Google Killer lands in our laps
I think it's important to notice that Wolfram Alpha is not, in fact, a search engine and certainly not aimed at the general public.
Wolfram Alpha is a tool for statistics and math and by definition only interesting to people who take an interest in either (ie no many).
well Woolmittens when entered in the box it suggests woollybutt which as it turns out is some sort of gum tree so you can come in as you are almost native
Now I recall long time ago I read - and you do quote him - a short story by MR Clarke where he writes about telecommunction satellites that switch on - then they link together - it was 25years ago when I read it so I may be out some - but they linked liked cells in the brain and created a massive artifical intelligence which took over the world - so now this programme has just been switched on and even though it may seem its only for maths related searches the telephone line was only invented to be an intercom
Guess I should have asked if Bing bing was fake or future -
Now that would have started something as well :P
Is it a coincidence that Bing! is a recursive abbreviation of "Bing Is Not Google"? Like GNU Is Not Unix.
In a way Wolfram was smarter to cater to a different niche, statistics lovers. Microsoft is choosing to go head to head with a demi-god.
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