Wolfram Alpha is like a cross between a research library, a graphing calculator, and a search engine. But does Wolfram Research's "computational knowledge engine," set to debut publicly later this month, live up to its hype as a Web site that Google needs to be afraid of? Wolfram Alpha creator Stephen Wolfram on Tuesday gave a demo of the service to a crowd of online reporters. Few have access to the private test version of the service itself, but we got access Monday night. We found it compelling, if limited. We're eager to see this site develop. It does things with online information that Google does not. Here are our impressions of the current version of Wolfram Alpha.
The GeoEye-1 satellite whizzes in low-Earth orbit, but when will it be taking photos over you? Alpha will show you on a map, in this case a 3D view of the globe that shows the satellite above Antarctica. It'll also tell you the satellite's 16,812-mph average velocity, its 428.4-mile altitude, and 98-minute orbital period. Photo by Stephen Shankland/CNET Caption by Stephen Shankland
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Chris Anderson's blog about the shift away from mass marketing toward niche marketing, and the implications of this (and other effects of the IT revolution that make Long Tail possible) for the future of society.
This is a collection of bibliographies of scientific literature in computer science from various sources, covering most aspects of computer science. The bibliographies are updated weekly from their original locations such that you'll always find the most recent versions here.
A. Newell, and H. Simon. Communications of the ACM, 19 (3):
113-126(March 1976)p. 116:
"The Physical Symbol System Hypothesis. A physical
symbol system has the necessary and sufficient
means for general intelligent action."
p. 120:
"Heuristic Search Hypothesis. The solutions to
problems are represented as symbol structures.
A physical symbol system exercises its intelligence
in problem solving by search--that is, by
generating and progressively modifying symbol
structures until it produces a solution structure."
p. 121:
"To state a problem is to designate (1) a test
for a class of symbol structures (solutions of the
problem), and (2) a generator of symbol structures
(potential solutions). To solve a problem is
to generate a structure, using (2), that satisfies
the test of (1).".