Wolfram|Alpha. Coming Soon!!!

Wolfram|Alpha, a computational knowledge search engine is launching on 15th May 2009.

So what is Wolfram|Alpha all about? We visited their blog to know more and following is what we found.

Wolfram|Alpha is not just a place to look up for facts. Its ability to do sophisticated computations, both pure computations involving numbers or formulas you enter, and computations applied automatically to data called up from its repositories is what sets it apart.

Computation matters coz it turns generic information into specific answers.

To give an amusing example, every school child has at one time or another written a report on the moon, and they probably included the wrong figure for how far the moon is from the earth. Why wrong? Because the distance from the earth to the moon is not constant: it changes by as much as a mile a minute. If you ask Wolfram|Alpha the distance to the moon, it tells you not only the conventionally quoted average distance, but also the actual distance right now, which can at times be well over ten thousand miles off the average. The actual distance is a figure that can be arrived at only by computation based on the moon’s known orbital parameters.

Each such computation requires a specific algorithm, and each of those algorithms has to be explicitly created. Of course many can be reused: units conversion or orbital mechanics, once implemented, can cover any unit or any planet. But nevertheless, enabling Wolfram|Alpha to do real, serious computations, covering a wide range of subject matters, required implementing literally tens of thousands of algorithms. Some are as simple as the quadratic formula; others are among the most sophisticated intellectual endeavors of our time.

The secret weapon that has allowed Wolfram|Alpha to assemble such a vast library of algorithms, in such a diverse range of fields, is Mathematica.

The algorithms built into Mathematica include some of the most sophisticated ever developed, and they cover not just mathematical computation, but the whole spectrum of logical, numerical, graphical, symbolic, and other computation.

So if you give Wolfram|Alpha a mathematical formula, a polynomial say, or something involving sines and cosines, it will give you back a number of useful results: a graph of the function, a list of its zeros, factored and expanded forms, and more.

It can also give you the derivative and integral of the function you entered. Now, computing the derivative of an arbitrary function is a straightforward process, but computing integrals can be among the most difficult problems in mathematics.

On top of this world-class algorithm, Wolfram|Alpha adds a very nice touch: a “Show steps” button that gives you a step-by-step explanation of how to arrive at the answer.

Wolfram|Alpha is bound to create a lot of buzz once its officially launched. So set your reminder for 18th May 2009 as Wolfram|Alpha is coming!!!

Microsoft issues bond. Takeover on cards?

As per regulatory filling, Microsoft has launched its bond issue in hopes of raising 3.75 billion US dollars, sparking rumors that the US software giant was contemplating a takeover bid.

In a statement, Microsoft said its using the net proceeds from the bonds “for general corporate purposes, which may include funding for working capital, capital expenditures, repurchases of our capital stock and acquisitions.”

Microsoft is gonna offer 5-year, 10-year and 30-year bonds. Following are the details for these 3 bonds
- Two billion US dollars of 2.95 percent notes due June 1, 2014
- One billion US dollars of 4.20 percent notes due June 1, 2019
- 750 million US dollars of 5.20 percent notes due June 1, 2039.

Microsoft has already issued two billion US dollars in commercial paper, or short-term debt, under a six-billion-dollar debt authorization made by its board late last year.

With Oracle recently buying out Sun for 7.4 billion US dollars, there were strong speculations that Microsoft is looking at buying out few small businesses including Yahoo search engine business for which it had offered 44.6 billion US dollars last year. Recently there was news on some kind of a co-operation between Microsoft and Yahoo as per which Yahoo will focus on Ad business while Microsoft will focus on developing technology for search.

It remains to be seen what a cash rich company like Microsoft will ultimately do with this 3.75 billion US dollars.

Google launches first TV Advertisement

Google has launched its first TV advertising campaign across US to promote Chrome, its web browser.

Chrome was launched last in September last year as a direct bid to lure users away from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. With IE8 Microsoft has definetly taken a huge leap in browser market. Traditionally Google has always shyed away from using traditional marketing mediums, however this latest move shows how desparate Google is to promote Chrome a capture a larger pie of lucarative browser market.

Since the initial burst of publicity, Chrome has failed to provide serious competition to rival browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla’s Firefox.

According to Net Applications market share study, Chrome has under 2% of internet users compared to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer share of over 65% of users. Mozilla’s Firefox comes second place with over 20% of users share.

This campaign is believed to be an attempt by Google to highlight the effectiveness of the company's TV Ads system, which lets Google act as a broker to sell advertising time on television networks. Google is hoping that the Chrome campaign can help push the concept of using TV Ads into the minds of media executives.

The 30-second spot shows a stop-motion animation in which a tray of children's play bricks is rearranged to resemble a browser window – an image intended to represent the simplicity and ease of using Chrome.

In a statement on the official Google blog, the company said that the video was made by a team from Google Japan as a YouTube clip, but had proved so successful that it had decided to take it on to traditional television.

"After releasing this video on the web, we got lots of positive feedback and thoughtful comments," said the company. "We designed a Google TV Ads campaign which we hope will raise awareness of our browser ... we're excited to see how this test goes and what impact television might have on creating more awareness of Google Chrome."

Twitter inventor working on Squirrel?

As per various reports, after Twitter, its co founder Jack Dorsey is working on Squirrel. So what is the concept?

Squirrel is a service that will allow those with an iPhone to become a merchant. Basically, it’s like making use of your iPhone to take payments just like the wireless credit card swipers. While you carry your iPhone around, you can make use of it to swipe a credit card to collect payments.

Squirrel will be both a device add-on to the iPhone and an application to be installed on the iPhone. The physical device looks something like an acorn, that’s why it’s codenamed Squirrel.

The Squirrel will be useful to many people around. It could be used by sales people to collect payment immediately after booking an order. Restaurants may use also use Squirrel to replace their existing wireless credit card swipers.

Having said that, since iPhone has been a big flop in India, Squirrel may not have too many takers unless it is made compatible with all handsets. Moreover its quite difficult to understand what purpose this will solve.

Web growth on a rise. Over 46 million websites already added in Q1

Netcraft comes out with monthly surveys on the number of responses received by various servers from websites. According to their April survey, Netcraft received responses from about 231.5 million sites. This number is an increase of 46 million or 24.8 percent when compared with 185.5 million as the number of websites tracked at the beginning of January 2009.



Interestingly, as per Royal Pingdom, this is more than the number of websites added in the entire 2008 year when the number of websites increased by 29.9 million and is almost equal to the number of websites added in the entire of 2007 which was 48.7 million.



If we take a close look at the above chart, you will find that Y-O-Y growth had peaked in 2007. With over 46 million websites already added in the first 3 months, it wont be a surprise if this year a new record gets created in some sense.

Apple wants a Twitter bite

We all know that Google is hungry for data and it was quite logical for them to make a buyout offer to Twitter. Facebook too had made a $500 million offer to buyout Twitter through cash and stock option. It is believed that Twitter board has rejected both the offers.

Now reports suggest that Apple is the new bidder and they too have made a $700 million all cash bid for Twitter. It seems Apple sees some kind of a synergy between iPhone and Twitter.

Are these rumors??? Only time will tell

Google dominates mobile phone searches

We all know that Google dominates the online search market with over 60% market share followed by Yahoo with about 20% market share, but its not just the online search market that Google is dominating. As per latest facts and figures released by Internet marketing firm Net Applications, Google accounts for 97.68 percent of all mobile phone searches followed by Yahoo with 1.88 percent.

This is a great news for search engine giant coz off late for all top 3 search engines viz Google, Yahoo & MSN Live, we have seen kind of stagnancy or dip in revenues through online Ads. With mobile Ad market expected to get bigger than online market, Google is all set to grab a major pie of this billion dollar market.