Stephen Wolfram made a post on his blog last week that sent hearts in the geekier corners of the Internet a-flutter. If Steve Jobs is the prototypical rock star geek, known the world over for his genius and one-dimensional wardrobe, then Mr. Wolfram is the influential indie rock act, influential in all the right places if not quite a household name. Wolfram's post unveiled his latest project: a search engine called Wolfram Alpha.

Within a couple of days, news of Wolfram's announcement started to spill over into the mainstream media. "British scientist developing 'Google killer' search engine" exclaimed the Telegraph. Fox News reported that Wolfram Alpha was positioned to "challenge Google". A ZDNet blogger asked if Wolfram Alpha was just "lots of hype".