Bing To Use Wolfram Alpha Results 179
angry tapir writes "Microsoft is rolling out some enhancements to its Bing search engine, including some that rely on computational information delivered by Wolfram Alpha. That means that people will be able to search for some complicated information, and the search engine will be able to compute the answers. In a blog post, Tracey Yao, program manager, and Pedro Silva, product manager at Microsoft, give some examples."
brb (Score:5, Funny)
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day (Score:5, Funny)
A clock has at least two hands depicting the hour and minute of the day. If stopped, it would appear that the clock is useless, but twice a day the clock tells the current time perfectly. What matters most is that you look at the clock at precisely those two moments to tell the time. Otherwise the tool just doesn't work as you'd expect it.
So when you take two tools that aren't very good, sometimes you end up with something that might be useful. But then again, just because you have two hands doesn't mean you're going to end up doing something useful. One hand could be occupied or paralyzed or otherwise out of commission. The other hand could be gimpy or not your favored hand or even cut off entirely if you lived in Saudi Arabia.
What I'm trying to say here is simply what you all are already thinking. Who is actually using Bing? Furthermore, who is actually using Alpha? These two useless hands working together just makes it easier to forget them both altogether.
Re:Even a stopped clock is right twice a day (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hellllooo (Score:5, Funny)
An opportunity to flood tech sites with more Bingspam, what else do you want?
Microsoft is so desperate for page hits on Bo^Hing, I'm surprised they're not bribing schoolkids with boiled sweets already.
Next up... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Even a stopped clock is right twice a day (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, I don't understand. Why would you come to /. if you don't want to read a bad analogy?
I just asked bing: (Score:4, Funny)
How can the suckiness of Microsoft be reversed? It said:
THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER
This wolfram thing might be working out after all.
It answers the most important questions though. (Score:5, Funny)
Query: What is the speed of an unladen swallow?
Answer: "there is unfortunately insufficient data to estimate the velocity of an African swallow (even if you specified which of the 47 species of swallow found in Africa you meant)" [wolframalpha.com]
Query: What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?
Answer: 42 [wolframalpha.com]
Query: Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Answer: Not sure, but wherever she is, it isn't here. [wolframalpha.com]
Query: When is judgement day?
Answer: "2:14 am EDT | Friday, August 29, 1997" [wolframalpha.com]
Query: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound??
Answer: "No. Sound is vibration, transmitted to our senses through the mechanism of the ear, and recognized as sound only at our nerve centers. The falling of the tree or any other disturbance will produce vibration of the air. If there be no ears to hear, there will be no sound." [wolframalpha.com]
Query: Can entropy be reversed?
Answer: "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER." [wolframalpha.com]
Query: who would win in a fight: pirates or ninjas?
Answer: "The answer remains an ongoing debate which Wolfram|Alpha is not in a position to arbitrate." [wolframalpha.com]
Re:brb (Score:4, Funny)
brb, dividing by zero on bing
Found 1 result:
LHC_Homepage ... LHC Safety. LHC Cooldown Status. LHC@ interactions.org ... Revised: 2009-09-30 LHC Webmaster.
LHC - THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER
LHC NEWS - Cooldown_status - CERN Document Server
www.cern.ch/lhc
Re:What if humans are the stopped clock? (Score:4, Funny)
Most common search term: (oYo).
Actually I'm kinda surprised this doesn't work already. Maybe there IS room for Bang to innovate in the text search field.
Re:brb (Score:5, Funny)
Well, out of interest I went out and tried it. While remembering Bing is located at www.bing.com, I google'd it because thats faster. Now I'm at the Bing homepage, taking a sip of my morning coffee. I write the query to the search box and
New site name (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Even a stopped clock is right twice a day (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Even a stopped clock is right twice a day (Score:5, Funny)
Digital clocks don't have hands
Obviously. They have fingers.
Re:Even a stopped clock is right twice a day (Score:1, Funny)
A clock has at least two hands depicting the hour and minute of the day. If stopped, it would appear that the clock is useless, but twice a day the clock tells the current time perfectly.
I use a twenty-four hour watch, you insensitive clod!