* tmc * in patientia vestra habetis animam vestram * tmc *

Dear Reader,

The ASIAN STUDIES WWW MONITOR
(including all its subsidiary (and/or sister) pages on "coombs.anu.edu.au" server) has permanently ceased its publishing operations on Friday 21st January 2011.

All of the online resources reported here have been thoroughly checked at the time of their listing. However, it is possible that, with the with the passage of time, many of the originally reported materials might have been removed from the Internet, or changed their online address, or varied the scope and quality of their contents.

Fortunately, in several cases it is possible to access many of the older versions of the resources listed in the MONITOR. This can be easily done via the free services of the "The Internet Archive" http://web.archive.org/, a remarkable brainchild of Brewster Kahle, San Francisco, CA.

- with warm regards -

Editor, Dr T. Matthew Ciolek.

Canberra, 21 January 2011.


21 May 2009

Wolfram Alpha - Computational Knowledge Engine

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

4star
21 May 2009

Wolfram Research, Inc., Champaign, IL, US / Oxfordshire, UK

Self-description:
"Goals -
Wolfram|Alpha's long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.

Wolfram|Alpha [launched May 15, 2009 - ed.] aims to bring expert-level knowledge and capabilities to the broadest possible range of people -- spanning all professions and education levels. Our goal is to accept completely free-form input, and to serve as a knowledge engine that generates powerful results and presents them with maximum clarity. Wolfram|Alpha is an ambitious, long-term intellectual endeavor that we intend will deliver increasing capabilities over the years and decades to come. With a world-class team and participation from top outside experts in countless fields, our goal is to create something that will stand as a major milestone of 21st century intellectual achievement.

Status -
That it should be possible to build Wolfram|Alpha as it exists today in the first decade of the 21st century was far from obvious. And yet there is much more to come. As of now, Wolfram|Alpha contains 10+ trillion of pieces of data, 50,000+ types of algorithms and models, and linguistic capabilities for 1000+ domains. Built with Mathematica -- which is itself the result of more than 20 years of development at Wolfram Research -- Wolfram|Alpha's core code base now exceeds 5 million lines of symbolic Mathematica code. [...]

Future -
Wolfram|Alpha, as it exists today, is just the beginning. We have both short- and long-term plans to dramatically expand all aspects of Wolfram|Alpha, broadening and deepening our data, our computation, our linguistics, our presentation, and more. [...]."

Site contents:
* Examples (# Mathematics -- Elementary Math, Numbers, Plotting, Algebra, Matrices, Calculus, Geometry, Trigonometry, Discrete Math, Number Theory, Applied Math, Logic, Functions. # Statistics & Data Analysis -- Data Analysis, Regression, Statistical Distributions, Probability. # Physics -- Mechanics, Electricity & Magnetism, Optics, Relativity, Nuclear Physics, Quantum Physics, Particle Physics, Statistical Physics, Astrophysics, Physical Constants. # Chemistry -- Elements, Compounds, Ions, Quantities, Solutions, Chemical Thermodynamics. # Materials -- Alloys, Minerals, Plastics, Woods, Bulk Materials. # Engineering -- Acoustics, Aeronautics, Electric Circuits, Fluid Mechanics, Steam Tables, Structures. # Astronomy -- Star Charts, Planets, Moons, Minor Planets, Comets, Eclipses, Stars, Galaxies, Astrophysics. # Earth Sciences -- Geology, Geodesy, Earthquakes, Tide Data, Standard Atmosphere. # Life Sciences -- Animals & Plants, Dinosaurs, DNA Sequence Lookup, Genes, SNPs, Proteins. # Technological World -- Communications, Satellites, Space Probes. # Transportation -- Aircraft, Airports, Bridges, Tunnels. # Computational Sciences -- Cellular Automata, Fractals, Functional Programming. # Web & Computer Systems -- Website Data, IP Lookup, Data Transfer, Port Numbering, String Processing, Hashing, Unicode Lookup. # Units & Measures -- Conversions, Calculations, Comparisons, Dimensional Analysis, Industrial Measures, Batteries, Bulk Materials, Paint. # Money & Finance -- Stock Data, Indices, Mutual Funds, Mortgages, Present Value, Currency Conversion, Bonds, Derivatives Valuation, Wages, Sales Tax. # Dates & Times -- Date Computations, Time Zones, Calendars, Holidays, Geological Time. # Places & Geography -- Maps, Projections, Geodesy, Navigation, Distances, Geomagnetism, Geocoding, Countries, Cities, Elevation Data, Oceans, Lakes, Rivers, Islands, Mountains. # Socioeconomic Data -- Countries, U.S. States, Cities, Demographics, Economics, Trade, Salaries, Unemployment. # Weather -- Current & Historical Weather, Forecasts, Wind Chill, Hurricanes, Clouds, Standard Atmosphere. # Health & Medicine -- Body Measurements, Growth Charts, Exercise, Diseases, Mortality Data, Medical Test Data, Vision, Drug Data, Hospitals. # Food & Nutrition -- Foods, Dietary References. # Words & Linguistics -- Dictionary Lookup, Anagrams, Word Puzzles, Morse Code, Soundex, Languages, Number Names. # Culture & Media -- Books, Periodicals, Movies, Songs, Awards. # People & History -- People, Genealogy, Names, Occupations, Political Leaders, Historical Dates, Historical Countries, Historical Numerals, Historical Money. # Education -- Universities, Standardized Tests. # Organizations -- Universities, Companies, Hospitals, Foundations, International Organizations. # Sports & Games -- Football, Baseball, Lotteries, Card Games. # Music -- Musical Notes, Intervals, Chords, Scales, Songs. # Colors -- Color Names, Color Addition, Color Systems, Temperatures, Wavelengths);
* About;
* FAQS ([...] # Is Wolfram|Alpha a search engine? - No. It's a computational knowledge engine: it generates output by doing computations from its own internal knowledge base, instead of searching the web and returning links.
# Is Wolfram|Alpha free to use? Yes, it's free for personal noncommercial use as described in its Terms of Use. Subscriptions will be available in the near future with enhanced features for large-scale and commercial use.
# Who is Wolfram|Alpha for? Everyone! Its goal is to bring expert-level knowledge to everybody. [...]);
* Blog [http://blog.wolframalpha.com/];
* Community;
* Downloads (Toolbars,Search Engine Add-ons, etc. etc.);
* More.

URL http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Link reported by: T. Matthew Ciolek (tmciolek--at--coombs.anu.edu.au)

Internet Archive (web.archive.org) [the site was not archived at the time of this abstract]

* Resource type [news - documents - study - corporate info. - online guide]:
Documents/Study
* Publisher [academic - business - govt. - library/museum - NGO - other]:
Business
* Scholarly usefulness [essential - v.useful - useful - interesting - marginal]:
V. Useful
* External links to the resource [over 3,000 - under 3,000 - under 1,000
- under 300 - under 100 - under 30]: over 69,500 external links

Please note that the above details were correct on the day of their publication. To suggest an update, please email the site's editor at tmciolek@ciolek.com