Wolfram|Alpha “computational knowledge engine”

For people that may have missed this despite all of the recent buzz, the Wolfram|Alpha “computational knowledge engine” is supposed to be launched sometime this month (May, 2009). Wolfram|Alpha is a search engine that will take various types of input and, drawing on data available on the Internet, will present, contextualize and perform computations on that data. This will be an incredibly valuable tool for researchers. Here is an introduction to Wolfram|Alpha that illustrates some of the things that it will do.