the new breed of search / knowledge engines

So many times in my teaching career and now my training career, people complain to me (like I can do anything about it) about their experience with search engines.

I've been using computer search engines since I was in school. My high school in 1987 instigated the first roll out of student accessable wyse opac machines in the library. We also has a B|A|S|I|C mini computer that we were able to terminal into - green screens and everything. You learned by trial and error how to get the information you wanted - still a lot faster than the card file system.

Anyway - now there is google and.... well there is google to do your searching for you. But what most people want is knowledge, information and understanding - one thing that google supplies by pointing you in the direction where most people go or link to (page rank).

WolframAlpha has garnered a lot of interest in it new form of search and display - it actually tries to give you the information you are looking for. So if you search for Pi, you will get not a website but and explanation and facts about Pi or just about anything in the concrete world. Ask it the meaning of life the universe and everything - it gives you the correct answer.

I just came across this one eyeplorer - put in your concept and it pulls information related to that concept, devided by catergory and relevence to the concept.