Cookies help us display personalized product recommendations and ensure you have great shopping experience.

By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
SmartData CollectiveSmartData Collective
  • Analytics
    AnalyticsShow More
    image fx (67)
    Improving LinkedIn Ad Strategies with Data Analytics
    9 Min Read
    big data and remote work
    Data Helps Speech-Language Pathologists Deliver Better Results
    6 Min Read
    data driven insights
    How Data-Driven Insights Are Addressing Gaps in Patient Communication and Equity
    8 Min Read
    pexels pavel danilyuk 8112119
    Data Analytics Is Revolutionizing Medical Credentialing
    8 Min Read
    data and seo
    Maximize SEO Success with Powerful Data Analytics Insights
    8 Min Read
  • Big Data
  • BI
  • Exclusive
  • IT
  • Marketing
  • Software
Search
© 2008-25 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Playing With Wolfram Alpha
Share
Notification
Font ResizerAa
SmartData CollectiveSmartData Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
  • About
  • Help
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
SmartData Collective > Uncategorized > Playing With Wolfram Alpha
Uncategorized

Playing With Wolfram Alpha

Daniel Tunkelang
Daniel Tunkelang
3 Min Read
SHARE

Woo hoo, I have preview access to Wolfram Alpha! I’ve only had a short time to play with it, but I can already report that my experience confirms my previously expressed expectations: the NLP is very brittle, but there’s great potential for structured queries on quantitative data. Here is an example use case that, in my view, shows Wolfram Alpha’s strengths:

Wolfram Alpha

This bit of analysis tells a great story: Microsoft has almost three times as much revenue as Google, but Google has about 50% higher revenue per employee. Meanwhile, Yahoo is in third place on revenue,  number of employees, and revenue per employee. Ouch.

As I said, this query shows Wolfram Alpha favorably. What you don’t see are the false starts it took me to get this query to work. The NLP interface, in my view, is a really bad idea. Instead, Wolfram Alpha should be helping users generate good structured queries–and, better yet, helping other businesses build such queries through APIs. Wolfram Alpha could deliver an excellent plug-in for Excel, if they can expose a workable query API. I have no idea whether the company is able or willing to go down this path, but I hope someone there is listening…

More Read

dd
Bing Maps Continues To Innovate
Manes: let’s get more ‘concrete’ about service orienting
Really Bad Stuff About Social Media
The Impact of Collaboration on Enterprise Business Performance

Woo hoo, I have preview access to Wolfram Alpha! I’ve only had a short time to play with it, but I can already report that my experience confirms my previously expressed expectations: the NLP is very brittle, but there’s great potential for structured queries on quantitative data. Here is an example use case that, in my view, shows Wolfram Alpha’s strengths:

Wolfram Alpha

This bit of analysis tells a great story: Microsoft has almost three times as much revenue as Google, but Google has about 50% higher revenue per employee. Meanwhile, Yahoo is in third place on revenue,  number of employees, and revenue per employee. Ouch.

As I said, this query shows Wolfram Alpha favorably. What you don’t see are the false starts it took me to get this query to work. The NLP interface, in my view, is a really bad idea. Instead, Wolfram Alpha should be helping users generate good structured queries–and, better yet, helping other businesses build such queries through APIs. Wolfram Alpha could deliver an excellent plug-in for Excel, if they can expose a workable query API. I have no idea whether the company is able or willing to go down this path, but I hope someone there is listening to this free advice.

I can’t share my account, but I’m willing to take suggestions for queries through the comment thread, and I’ll try my best to share what I learn.

Link to original post

Share This Article
Facebook Pinterest LinkedIn
Share

Follow us on Facebook

Latest News

power supplies for ATX for data scientists
Why Data Scientists Should Care About SFX Power Supplies
Big Data Exclusive
AI for website optimization
Free AI Tools to Test Website Accessibility
Artificial Intelligence Exclusive
Generative AI models
Thinking Machines At Work: How Generative AI Models Are Redefining Business Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence Business Intelligence Exclusive Infographic Machine Learning
image fx (2)
Monitoring Data Without Turning into Big Brother
Big Data Exclusive

Stay Connected

1.2kFollowersLike
33.7kFollowersFollow
222FollowersPin

You Might also Like

Open Calais at the New York Semantic Web Meetup

1 Min Read

Sorting a Petabyte

1 Min Read

Smarter Planet |Tumblr : September Roundup Survey all 120+…

1 Min Read

Did you ever want to be a spy when you were a kid?

4 Min Read

SmartData Collective is one of the largest & trusted community covering technical content about Big Data, BI, Cloud, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, IoT & more.

AI and chatbots
Chatbots and SEO: How Can Chatbots Improve Your SEO Ranking?
Artificial Intelligence Chatbots Exclusive
ai is improving the safety of cars
From Bolts to Bots: How AI Is Fortifying the Automotive Industry
Artificial Intelligence

Quick Link

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-25 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Go to mobile version
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?