Broadcasting Data and Wolfram Alpha

W | A has added data about radio and television stations to its computational knowledge engine. Thanks goes to the FCC for compiling and sharing this information.

Users can find out such granular details as the power, frequency, and licensee of a particular radio station. In addition, W | A includes a map.

Here, for instance, is the search result on a query of WGN.

Read more about this new feature on W | A’s blog.

Wolfram Alpha and Drug Treatment Options

Wolfram Alpha has been hard at work, expanding its datasets and features. Recently, W | A has included information about diseases, treatments, and drugs. See this post for more information.

Cool feature:

W | A provides generic treatment options for conditions.

For example, run this query on “drug treatments for depression“.

You’ll be able to click on “Show drugs” in the results and sort by Brand Name first . . . and then Generics.

Wolfram Alpha Adds Health Content

Wolfram Alpha continues to grow and develop. According to its blog, W | A now offers disease and patient-level statistics. Specifically, it’s possible to find symptoms of myriad conditions as well as the number of people afflicted by diseases. Read more. To offer this content, W | A has used data collected from two surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control.

Wolfram Alpha Does Genealogy (Sort Of)

Understanding family relationships and connections can be so complex. How do you, for instance, refer to your cousin’s son? Well, type in “cousin’s son” in Wolfram Alpha, and you’ll see the ouput in graphical display: a genealogical, family tree. What’s more, W | A will inform you that your cousin’s son = 1st cousin once removed. See W | A’s blog post for a better explanation and demonstration.

Military Data and Wolfram Alpha

According to the official W|A blog, W|A is stockpiling military data, figures, graphs . . . in keeping with its quantitative strengths and bent. Check out the query results for “China’s army“. Not only does W|A include information about the size of armed forces, but also it features data on military equipment. Type in “tanks,” for example, and you’ll see that Russia leads the pack of nations with more than 23,500. Be sure to scan W|A’s search examples on Military Data.

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Wolfram Alpha!

Wolfram Alpha, the computational “knowledge engine” (or “answers engine”) recently celebrated its 1st birthday . . . on May 18, to be exact. See the announcement on the official W | A blog. To celebrate, W | A rolled out some new services:

• tweakable home page and backgrounds

• street maps

• diseases and symptoms

Be sure to review W | A’s search examples by topic.

Wolfram Alpha Launch WebCast

Nothing better to do on a Friday eve? Tonight Wolfram Alpha will host a webcast regarding its launch.

More on Wolfram Alpha

This New York Times piece puts Wolfram Alpha into perspective. In short, it will exist alongside Google and not supplant it. Interestingly, creator Stephen Wolfram dislikes the hype and comparisons of his tool to Google. How come? Wolfram Alpha is simply an animal unto its own:

“WolframAlpha is different. For starters, it does not gather data from the Web. Instead, its “knowledge base” is made up of reams and reams of data — ranging from the kinds of facts you would find in a World Almanac, to highly specialized data from physics and other sciences — that some 100 employees at Wolfram Research have gathered, verified and organized over several years.”

Special thanks to Jeremy Andrykowski for sending me the link to the NYT article!