Welcome to the World of the Computational Document

New Wolfram Service Opens Up Access to Interactive Mathematica Technology

October 15, 2007--With the release of Mathematica 6, Wolfram Research reinvented the way we think about technical computing, for the first time making it possible to create sophisticated custom applications with just a few short lines of code.

Now those revolutionary advances are being extended to interactive publishing, with a new web service that makes it possible to deploy dynamic Mathematica documents that run freely on any compatible computer.

Where before, many interactive Mathematica notebook files (.nb/.nbp) would only run in a fully licensed copy of Mathematica 6, now anyone anywhere can take advantage of the new technology that makes documents come alive, using the free Mathematica Player runtime application.

Authoring with Mathematica and the new Publish for Player web service couldn't be simpler: educators, researchers, and others upload their Mathematica 6 notebooks to the Publish for Player website and instantly get back Player-compatible files. That means that people can now share dynamic content across classrooms and workgroups and publish their work without any software barriers. Mere documents become robust applications--virtually free-standing and cross-platform--in seconds.

Interactive publishing with Mathematica means that homework, quizzes, presentations, books, and research no longer have to be static documents. Publish for Player makes it easy to include point-and-click results, animated 3D models, real-time data from the web, and more--all powered by the built-in Mathematica engine.

"This is a new era for communicating ideas," said Conrad Wolfram, director of strategic and international development at Wolfram Research. "What Adobe Acrobat did for the electronic document, we've now done for the dynamic."

"Mathematica Player will provide teachers and students a terrific way to share materials with colleagues and friends who do not have access to the full version of Mathematica," said Torrey Pines High School teacher Abby Brown. "I am eager to use Player notebooks to share my work with other teachers so they can start using Mathematica immediately with their classes."

The free Mathematica Player software and more information about the notebook conversion process are available online.

For hundreds of examples of Mathematica's dynamic capabilities, visit The Wolfram Demonstrations Project.