It’s not quite a search engine in the “Google” sense, but WolframAlpha will answer questions in a much more interesting way. It’s a “computational knowledge engine” (their tag line) so when you ask it a question, it’s not necessarily going to barf back links to websites (it does, but mostly to other reference sites) but it will respond with relative comparison results of what you ask. Think of it as a big old Mr-Know-It-All that responds with pure knowledge to your query, and not with ads or retail site links. You may not find a good chocolate chili recipe but you will find how long it will take to kill you if that’s all you ate.

Confused? Here’s a wicked cool webcast of how WolftramAlpha is going to work (in a geeky way, of course). I especially like the part at about 9:17 where punching in “2 oz OJ” fires back it’s nutritional value, daily intake, and all sorts of minutiae that will make people’s eyes glaze over when you repeat them back at parties, boardrooms, Starbucks line ups…

We’ve all Googled our name, but with WolframAlpha you will know exactly how many people have your name, when they were born, when most of them died and what the frigging weather was like when they kicked it. Seriously. It will tell you that. If searching for trivial facts at work is your acceptable work-porn, expect to get a chubbie.

WolframAlpha is scheduled to launch Monday May 18th.