If you don't work in the technology sector, you've probably not heard of Wolfram|Alpha, a new type of search engine that's peaking the interest of industry specialists around the globe. Created by Wolfram Research, the company behind computation software Mathematica, it's been available to trade experts for a while now, but this weekend saw it launch to the masses.

Unlike more familiar search engines such as Google and Yahoo that display a list of links to websites that might be able to help the searcher, Wolfram|Alpha answers the question itself.

For example, type in 2+2 and Wolfram|Alpha displays 4 or type in 'square root of 25' and you're given the answer (5). A glorified calculator perhaps, but Wolfram|Alpha does much, much more. Type in a date and you can find out how long ago it was (in years, weeks and days), notable events that occurred, daylight and moon phase information. Type in a town and discover the location, population, temperature and local time. Get financial information for a stock or find out the speed of light.

In fact, Wolfram|Alpha aims to be able to compute and display just about any statistical, mathematical or scientific information available:

"Wolfram|Alpha's long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything."

SOURCE: http://www.wolframalpha.com/about.html

So, what did I think of it?

I must say, I liked it very much. After trying the usual stuff (some basic maths, my home town, my birthdate), Itried a few oher things:

• Domain Name: Typing in www.shoredutton.co.uk showed me who my webhost was and where my web server was located (although I think it may have got this wrong).
• Planets: Typing in Mars returned lots of interesting facts about the Red Planet.
• Measurement: I could quickly convert centimeters into inches.
• Dietary Info: Typing in strawberry gave me more dietary information about the fruit than I could swing a stick at.

On the whole, I think it's a great concept and can definitely see myself using it again in the future.