Just thought I would point out that you can get a sneak peak at Wolfram|Alpha, the new search engine / knowledge engine / supercomputing not really sure what to call it. A nice treat for those nerds stuck inside on a Friday night.

I know this is going to be a short diary, and I hope you forgive me for that, but thought it would be appropriate to let the community know it's out there, whether you have a physics quiz that you want it to answer or just want to play around with it for a while and see what it can do.

Anyway, you can check it out here. Report back in the comments, please.

Web 3.0 is a term often thrown around these days, yet I see little evidence that there's been any major leap to warrant its use.  That is, until now, considering what I've been hearing about Wolfram Alpha.  

The UK's Independent has a nice writeup on Wolfram Alpha, giving us an insight into how this next generation search engine (knowledge engine?) will change the way we think about the internet.  

To put it simply, Wolfra Alpha will answer whatever question you ask it in an intelligent and useful way.  It will also provide related data.  For example, if you searched for the name 'bob', it would tell you that Bob is a common male name, followed by data on numbers of people named Bob, and a chart plotting the use of the name Bob over time.

On the other hand you can ask it much more complex questions, for example, the Independent mentions that you can ask it what the weather was like on the day John Kennedy died, and it can cross-reference the data and provide a relavent answer. It's also very good at complex mathematical computations.

Not only is this being heralded as a giant leap for web technology, it's being discussed in a broader sense as a tool that will revolutionize the way we think about the internet, in that it's the next step towards a well organised convergence of everything that can be found on the web.

A thought on politics: If this is indexed to work with public campaign and political data, will this become an incredibly powerful tool for calculating in a flash everything from politicians' donations from certain lobbies to how a politician votes on certain issues over time?  Just think of the possibilities a tool like this can provide towards a more open government.