Wolfram Alpha is a smart, computational take on the search engine, but its new partnership with Microsoft and its Bing search engine is even smarter.

Microsoft is rolling out some enhancements to its Bing search engine, including some that rely on computational information delivered by Wolfram Alpha.

The release of Wolfram Alpha Inc.'s WolframAlpha fact engine last week and the expected unveiling of Microsoft Corp.'s new search engine tomorrow are creating some unease for longtime search champ Google Inc.

After much online chatter and media buildup, WolframAlpha is up and running, promising to take online search in a whole new direction.

A web tool that answers questions directly rather than offering a list of search results could become as popular as Google, according to its inventor.

Wolfram Alpha, the online computational engine, is now available as an iPhone application that serves as a graphing calculator, calorie counter, international economic index, astronomy guide, currency converter, stock information tool, and more -- but portability for that impressive functionality comes with an impressive price of US$49.99.

Wolfram Alpha is online for testing throughout the weekend, in anticipation of the online knowledge base officially going live on Monday.

The natural-language search engine Wolfram Alpha is expected to launch May 18 and more details about the site are emerging. Most notably, Stephen Wolfram, Wolfram Alpha's creator and the brain behind the computational software Mathematica, says his site is not the next Google killer, but an add-on for your Web searches.