A Big Week for Wolfram|Alpha

There’s a lot going on in the Wolfram|Alpha project these days—and this week there’s a remarkable convergence of events.

Late last week we introduced the Wolfram|Alpha Webservice API, allowing outside developers to call Wolfram|Alpha from their websites or application programs.

Then yesterday we released the first mobile implementation of Wolfram|Alpha, in the form of an iPhone app.

Tomorrow, we’re doing something completely different: Wolfram|Alpha Homework Day—a 14-hour live webcast event for students and educators.

Oh, and starting on Thursday is the International Mathematica User Conference, which will show many advances in the core Mathematica technology on which Wolfram|Alpha is based.

In May we launched Wolfram|Alpha as a major website. But the website is really just the tip of an iceberg. Wolfram|Alpha is a whole technology that can be deployed and used in all sorts of ways.

This week we’re seeing some of the diversity of what can be done. The API as a tool for developers. The iPhone app as a consumer product. And Homework Day as a community event that Wolfram|Alpha enables.

My approach to managing R&D is to maintain a portfolio of ongoing projects, short-term and long-term. There’s an amazing amount in the pipeline for Wolfram|Alpha, which will emerge on timescales from weeks to years.

I’m very proud of the achievements of our various teams that we’re seeing this week. The diversity of what’s becoming possible with Wolfram|Alpha is surprising even us. There are a lot of very exciting things to come…