Travel Technology - Wolfram|Alpha seach/calculator: Mileage Run/ travel calculator application for FTers?

It may be very early days, but does anyone here have experience AND a useful application for Wolfram's new search/calculation site, for travel/mileage use?

WolframAlpha.com: Making the world's knowledge computable (http://www.wolframalpha.com/)
Today's Wolfram|Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone. You enter your question or calculation, and Wolfram|Alpha uses its built-in algorithms and growing collection of data to compute the answer.

I read this Answer to absolutely everything gets closer (http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/answer-to-absolutely-everything-gets-closer/2009/05/17/1242498638305.html)[SMH] and figured someone might have a use or two with fare EQMs, comaprative mileage runs or simpler comparisons for choices of places to visit.

I was given the link about a week before it opened, looks like the people that created this are onto something different.

I read this Answer to absolutely everything gets closer (http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/answer-to-absolutely-everything-gets-closer/2009/05/17/1242498638305.html)[SMH] and figured someone might have a use or two with fare EQMs, comaprative mileage runs or simpler comparisons for choices of places to visit.I don't think it's made for that. For example:

Q: What is the cheapest fare from London to New York on August 1st?

A: Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input. (http://www53.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=What+is+the+cheapest+fare+from+London+to+New+Yo rk+on+August+1st%3F)

Q: FRA to JFK

A: France to John F. Kennedy International Airport: Distance 3691 miles

Still a lot to learn dear Wolfram|Alpha

Who uses Wolfram Alpha?

If you do, what do you use it for as opposed to Google?

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Although Google has recently tried to add some logic to its searches, rather than just pick up on the words used in the search, it generally still only pulls up references containing the words.

WolframAlpha tries to understand why you want those words and give you a response in that context. It can give interesting results! I entered my first name, surname and the country where I live, and the response was to show me the distances between the two towns in USA that my first and surnames happen to be the same as, and South Africa, where I live. It also showed the approximate flight times between the three locations and their populations.

:confused:

Wolfram Alpha is interesting, but I don't find it particularly useful, except maybe for a small subset of functions.

Google will do mathematical calculations, currency conversions, definitions, etc. and it never returns an error message. 80% of the things I have thrown at WolframAlpha have resulted in an error message.

Wolfram Alpha does produce *interesting* results for things like names, dates, etc., but it's not necessarily the results I need. Google helps me find what I actually need.

Tried it as well... honestly, the hype + execution reminds me of the Newton. I don't think anything I tried came back with something even close to what I was after.

Google will do mathematical calculations
True, but Wolfram Research are the makers of Mathematica, which has a few more functions than the Google calculator. Not sure how much of that will be incorporated into Alpha.

True, but Wolfram Research are the makers of Mathematica, which has a few more functions than the Google calculator. Not sure how much of that will be incorporated into Alpha.

A lot of it is. If I needed Mathematica-type calculations, I would turn to Mathematica or Wolfram Alpha, but most of the calculations I do on the fly are currency or unit conversions, both of which Google does really well.

My initial hopes have been dashed.

http://www88.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=where+is+bom

http://www88.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=+where+is+jimmy+hoffa ;)