Wolfram Alpha looks like a Web search engine but can answer queries such as "how old is President Obama?" or "heart disease risk 50-year-old male." New features launching Wednesday allow users of a premium version to upload their own data to have Wolfram Alpha chart, visualize, and analyze it. The tools could appeal to those who feel swamped by spreadsheets, numbers, and lists, claims Stephen Wolfram, founder of the company behind the site, Wolfram Research. The premium version will cost $4.99 a month, or $2.99 a month for students.
Wolfram Alpha Premium can recognize certain types of data and even certain types of content inside a file. Uploading an archive from an e-mail mailbox will produce a diagram showing the connections between different senders (see image at top) or a chart showing your most frequent mail recipients. If a spreadsheet contains country or city names, Wolfram Alpha will automatically offer a shaded map (see page 2). It can even draw on its own data sources to enhance that visualization with information on population, GDP, or other factors. Users of the service can upload more than 60 different types of data, ranging from audio files and video to 3-D models.
Very cool app! To read more, click here.