Wolfram Alpha ‘flights overhead’ and Siri

Posted by jeffej in Apple, Internet, News | 0 comments

Wolfram Alpha has launched a new flight-tracker that will let you see the flights that are currently (within 5 minutes, due to FAA regulations) overhead of your current location.

The service is based on your geoIP, which cross references your current IP address and overlays that on a map. When searching ‘flights overhead’ on Wolfram Alpha, the search and reference service will return a list of flights that are currently over your position, their altitude, angle, and slant distance. Clicking on a flight in that list will return a ton of information regarding that specific flight, including origin, destination, departure and arrival airport, and scheduled vs. actual times for take-off and landing.

You can also see status maps, showing the near exact location of the flight.

The fact that Wolfram Alpha is so deeply embedded with Siri prompted the thought that it may work via Siri. A quick test on my iPhone 4S showed that this is possible to do with Siri using the phrase “Wolfram Alpha overhead flights.” Perhaps as more people try this via Siri, that will be shortened to just ‘overhead flights.’