webMathematica 2.2 ships

Wolfram Research today released , which leverages Mathematica 5.1 to provide expanded web development options. Version 2.2 builds on Mathematica 5.1's many new functions, including those for working with large-scale, diverse types of data, expanding the all-in-one solution for creating interactive websites for research, business, and education. Wolfram says that there are more than 50 new functions, toolkits, and performance improvements in Mathematica 5.1. Major new features include: built-in universal database connectivity, industrial-strength string manipulation, integrated web services support, a new authoring system preview, more optimized binary data I/O, support for new 64-bit architectures, and additional graphic, web, and matrix import-export formats.

Wolfram says that the improved string manipulation helps leverage webMathematica for data mining and bioinformatics applications, while support for web services makes it easy for users to harness financial, environmental, language translation, and other information resources. "There are endless possibilities with web services linked with a webMathematica interface," says Chris Williamson, developer of web technologies at Wolfram Research.

Further improving connectivity, the new built-in DatabaseLink provides a ready-made solution for integrating webMathematica with any standard SQL database. This makes webMathematica an ideal web-based environment for analysis, computation, and reporting to complement the storage and searching capabilities of databases. "There is increasing demand for web accessible databases," says Williamson. "webMathematica enables delivery of sophisticated, data driven applications and analysis tools that make corporate data accessible at any time and from anywhere."

webMathematica can create and distribute technical computing application solutions over virtually any network. Built on platform-independent standards such as HTML, Java, and Java Servlet technology, it seamlessly integrates the advances of Mathematica 5.1 into virtually any infrastructure.

by MacNN Staff