The Wolfram Alpha Pro service, getting its name from the computational knowledge engine it leans on, is ready for anyone willing to sign up and pay a $4.99 per monthly subscription. For those who haven’t been clued in yet, Wolfram Alpha is essentially like a very geeky Google that answers factual questions by putting together the results from structured data.
The freshly announced Pro version of the service tows along several extra capabilities that should allow the company to justify a monthly fee. The main feature enables users to upload just about any common type of file or data and expect an automatic analysis. Whether it’s raw tabular data, XML, audio and scientific, mathematical or medical formats, the computational engine remains impartial.
“Our goal is to do what a top data scientist would do if given the user’s data – but to do it automatically in just a few seconds,” explained Stephen Wolfram, founder and CEO of Wolfram Alpha. “Wolfram|Alpha Pro automatically applies a large number of algorithms and heuristics, as well as uses its built-in knowledge, to derive the most important conclusions from data, and generate an organized report for the user.”
The service intuitively creates CDF (Computable Document Format) embedded with controls for manipulation or animation. Other added attributes are the supplementary options for personalizing graphical and tabular output, history, display choices, whole-page downloads, an on-screen keyboard and much more. Users are even offered the convenience of downloading raw generated information in over 60 different formats.
While the standard Wolfram Alpha Pro subscription amount starts at $4.99 a month, student users can avail of it for $2.99 per month. Additionally, free trial access is available to those who want to try out the service before committing to it.