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Tag: stephen wolfram

  • Wolfram SystemModeler Takes on Large-Scale System Modeling

    The Wolfram Group today announced its new SystemModeler product, a high-fidelity modeling environment that creates computable, large-scale systems using symbols and a drag-and-drop interface. The software integrates the Wolfram technology platform to enable analysis and reporting, integrating the modeling and engineering phases of design.

    The announcement of SystemModeler came on the Wolfram Blog, in a post by Stephen Wolfram himself. From the blog post:

    In SystemModeler, a system is built from a hierarchy of connected components—often assembled interactively using SystemModeler‘s drag-and-drop interface. Internally, what SystemModeler does is to derive from its symbolic system description a large collection of differential-algebraic and other equations and event specifications—which it then solves using powerful built-in hybrid symbolic-numeric methods. The result of this is a fully computable representation of the system—that mirrors what an actual physical version of the system would do, but allows instant visualization, simulation, analysis, or whatever.

    Wolfram purposely made SystemModeler very general in terms of what is possible with the software. Users can model mechanical, electrical, thermal, chemical, biological, and other types of systems. SystemModeler was built such that every piece of a system will have both a symbolic and mathematical representation.

    “If you think models are just for modeling, you’re missing the future of design optimization,” said Jan Brugård CEO of MathCore and SystemModeler Manager. “Instead, build the high-fidelity model once for modeling, simulation, and analysis. Computation isn’t an optional extra, it’s central to the infrastructure of modern model optimization.”

    The standard edition of SystemModeler for students costs only $75, and is $35 for a Semester Edition. An individual license for teachers will cost around $500, and individual government use costs $2,800. The most expensive individual license is for business customers, who will need to cough up almost $3,500 for the software. For enterprise and group licensing, potential buyers will have to request a quote from Wolfram.

  • Wolfram Proposes .data TLD

    Stephen Wolfram, the scientist behind Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha, says he’s been involved with the worldwide data community in coordinating the creation of a .data top-level Internet domain, which would highlight the exposure of data across the Internet, “and providing added impetus for organizations to expose data in a way that can efficiently be found and accessed.”

    In a post on his blog, he says:

    In building Wolfram|Alpha, we’ve absorbed an immense amount of data, across a huge number of domains. But—perhaps surprisingly—almost none of it has come in any direct way from the visible internet. Instead, it’s mostly from a complicated patchwork of data files and feeds and database dumps.

    But wouldn’t it be nice if there was some standard way to get access to whatever structured data any organization wants to expose?

    Right now there are conventions for websites about exposing sitemaps that tell web crawlers how to navigate the sites. And there are plenty of loose conventions about how websites are organized. But there’s really nothing about structured data.

    …

    There are product catalogs, store information, event calendars, regulatory filings, inventory data, historical reference material, contact information—lots of things that can be very usefully computed from. But even if these things are somewhere on an organization’s website, there’s no standard way to find them, let alone standard structured formats for them.

    He goes on to express the idea of creating the “data web” to “parallel” the ordinary web, bug geared toward computational use.

    Essentially, there would be a data-driven .data alongside a site’s .com.

    Wolfram says they’re seeking input and partners for the effort. He appears to be taking a leadership role for the initiative.

    Would do you think of this concept?

  • iPhone 4S Siri Demo, Wolfram, Schmidt & A Scary Phone Ad

    People are still waiting to get their hands on the new iPhone, but you can still see some hands-on demos. Also, check out the ad that’s apparently scaring children in the UK, and may get banned for violating ad standards. Pretty lame if you ask me.

    For more daily video round-ups, go here.

    MacRumors points to a pair of iPhone 4S hands on (and Siri) demos from YouTube:

    The ad for this phone is apparently in danger of being banned in the UK for being too scary:

    Eric Schmidt speaks at the Kenexa World Conference:

    Stephen Wolfram talks about the background and vision of Mathematica:

    John Carpenter’s The Thing: The Musical:

    Sneak peek of Photoshop image debarring from Adobe MAX: