Wolfram Alpha is live and interesting, but not a Google killer

Finally, after all the sneak-peeks and numerous blog posts about how Wolfram Alpha could finally be the Google killer prophesized in cave paintings on ancient server room walls, the computational knowledge engine is live.

Yes, Wolfram does have some snappy answers to questions you know you've been wanting to ask it, like the windspeed velocity of swallows, 42, and so on. Give Alpha something to sink its teeth into like "high temperatures (city)" and you'll see what sets it apart from the pack.

Toss it a famous personality - say, Bruce Campbell - and you'll get a very basic bio: name, age, date and place of birth. Give it a location, and you're presented with its population, current time, weather conditions, and location on a map (unless you're in the middle of nowhere like me). H1N1? Yes, Wolfram will give you up-to-date numbers on that as well.

Certain queries, of course, turn up nothing. Detroit Red Wings? Nope. Stanley Cup? Try again. Just because such terms are trending elsewhere doesn't mean Wolfram is too concerned with them - yet.

No, it is not going to kill Google. It's not supposed to. Wolfram Alpha will, however, be an immensely useful tool for academic and research applications - and a profitable one at that.

If you plan on testing it out, make sure you're wiling to wait. The Wolfram servers are being bombarded with requests, so you may encouter the occasional error message.