Bing teams up with Wolfram Alpha

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 24 Aug 2009 at 09:14

Microsoft's Bing search engine is to display results from Wolfram Alpha, according to reports.

Wolfram Alpha was launched to much fanfare earlier this year. The "computational knowledge engine" spits out streams of statistical and mathematical data on a series of pre-defined topics, such as physics, geography and engineering.

The brainchild of British scientist Stephen Wolfram was falsely compared to traditional search engines such as Google in some quarters, but now it appears the Wolfram data will find its way into searches made with Microsoft's revamped search service.

TechCrunch claims that Bing will license data from Wolfram Alpha, potentially bringing Wolfram's service to a much wider audience. It's unclear exactly how Bing will incorporate the Wolfram data, although the search engine already presents structured data from a variety of third-party sources, including shopping and travel partners.

Microsoft was unable to comment on the reports of a deal at the time of publication.

The agreement will doubtless cause further consternation at Google HQ, with Bing already beginning to make minor inroads into the search leader's market share. Google attempted to head-off Wolfram Alpha with the launch of Google Squared in June, which saw fact-based search results curated in a grid. However, the accuracy of the results was questionable to say the least, with searches on the Royal Family reporting that Prince William had died in 1972, for example.