14 DAY TRIAL // In May 2009, when I asked the father of Wolfram|Alpha, and the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, Stephen Wolfram, whether search giants had shown any interest in the computational knowledge engine that was about to be launched, the answer was a positive one. On November 11, 2009, Microsoft confirmed interest in Wolfram|Alpha by being the first search engine provider to leverage the Wolfram|Alpha application programming interface, as a part of the first major update introduced to Bing since the search/decision engine was launched in June.
“Today we are excited to unveil some work we have been doing with Wolfram|Alpha. Started in May 2009 by noted scientist Stephen Wolfram, Wolfram|Alpha is an ambitious (and very cool) project to, as the company’s website says, “make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone”,” revealed Tracey Yao and Pedro Silva, Bing product managers.
Specifically, Bing users will have access to Wolfram|Alpha’s advanced algorithms and curated data, right from the Redmond company’s decision engine. In this sense, Microsoft is attempting to provide users with not just faster results, but also accurate information to help with their decisions. Bing will return nutritional information from Wolfram|Alpha to queries, but there are additional tools which will be tapped from the computational engine, with a focus on math-related computational capabilities.
“This notion of creating and presenting computational knowledge in search results is one of the more exciting things going on in search (and beyond) today, and the team at Bing is incredibly fired up to bring some of this amazing work to our customers. You will begin to see the benefits of this unique partnership over the next several days as we roll it out in the US,” Yao revealed.
One of the enhancements delivered to Bing, with the addition of the knowledge computational engine, is the Wolfram|Alpha’s body mass index interactive form, which now appears among the results of the software giant’s decision engine when users will search for BMI (Body Mass Index). In addition, Bing is now capable of solving complex math functions courtesy of Wolfram|Alpha, a feature which appealed in particular to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
“Microsoft’s initiative and interest in Wolfram|Alpha began earlier this year. In fact, there is an interesting story that circulates within our walls around some of our early discussions with Microsoft,” explained Wolfram|Alpha’s Schoeller Porter. “Highlighting examples of Wolfram|Alpha to the most senior executives at Microsoft, Stephen Wolfram entered the query “2^2^2^2^2”. Upon seeing the result, Bill Gates interrupted to say, “What, is that right?” A profound silence fell over the entire room. Stephen replied, “We do mathematics!” Amused, Stephen, Bill, and the other executives dissected the calculation and determined that the result was, indeed, correct.”