Set phasers to search, the Next Generation as a metaphor

2009MAR090930
Image by bootload via Flickr

I’ve been trying to get my colleague @clemas blogging, but in the meantime he shares this from one of our infamous corridor chats (follow him on Twitter)

Wolfram Alpha has been described as a “long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone.” A difficult task by any standard. But where does this fit into the existing domain of search?

Indeed, do we need a new search engine? Has search come as far as its going to go? A relevant question as few people complain about Google and the relevance of its results. But have we simply become used to what Google offers. Is there more?

The answer is yes. I unashamedly take my inspiration from Star Trek The Next Generation (TNG) that Wolfram Alpha is potentially the final part of the Search Trilogy.

Firstly cast your mid back to the halcyon days when TNG was the epitamy of the Sci-Fi genre. Imagine Commander Data sat at a terminal on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise searching for a key part of information that will solve this weeks Trek mystery.

You can almost imagine the screen, lines of data are passing up the screen at great speed. Picard asks data to include a cross reference to XYZ system. Data does so and the screen suddenly stops on one highlighted record. Data selects it and discovers the solution to the problem.

This is search or semantic search, whichever you prefer. But this is Google.

A different episode sees the crew of the Enterprise travel to a distant mining colony. Communications with the colony have been lost and Picard uses the computer to research the colony before arriving. Picard asks the computer to bring up the details of the colony from the StarFleet database. Slowly Picard reads the entries and in doing so notices something is amiss. What is amiss? Well that’s not for me to say.

This is an Encyclopaedia or an electronic Encyclopaedia. This is Wikipedia

Finally as the enterprise is under attack and travelling at high warp to the closest StarBase Commander Riker shouts at the Enterprises disembodied computer voiced by Majel Barrett-Roddenberry “How far is it to Gamma Station at our current speed?” The computer calmly answers that at the current speed the destination will be reached in “34 minutes and 12 seconds”.

This is voice recognition and importantly the dynamic processing of human requests. This is Wolfram Alpha

So will Wolfram Alpha boldly going it alone? I think not. All three have their important roles to play in how we as humans interact with computers and importantly data. One alone is not the solution. Perhaps in time all three will be combined. Perhaps the day of the Uber Engine is not that far away.

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May 19, 2009 | Filed Under Search engines 

Comments

  • The episodes make travel enjoyable as it gears towards a new world of mining colony with computer as its searcher.
  • Interesting post. I have stumbled and twittered this for my friends.

    Hope others find it as interesting as I did.
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