After hinting about “their biggest change” a few days back, WolframAlpha, the answer-engine that computes answers from structured data developed by Wolfram Research, will finally have their big reveal tomorrow, February 8th.

Personalized WolframAlpha

The new Wolfram Alpha Pro allows people to login so they can be more involved.  Personalization has a positive effect on users because it makes them feel important and they matter but it comes with a price.  WolframAlpha Pro costs $4.99 per month, or $2.99 per month for students. Custom educational and enterprise pricing is also available.

Input Galore

Personalization isn’t the highlight of the new WolframAlpha Pro but the ability to accept non-text input.

Subscribers can drag images onto the Wolfram Alpha Web page and the service will return image statistics (dimensions, aspect ratio, etc.), image metadata, color information, and a series of image panels. These allow image filtering operations similar to basic operations in Adobe Photoshop. Pro users are entitled to 20 image queries per month at no extra charge.

Aside from image input, WolframAlpha Pro enables users to enter numerical or tabular data directly into the WolframAlpha browser text box to be analyzed.  Up to 60 different file types can be accepted and analyzed by the WolframAlpha Pro.  It also features an “extended keyboard” that has various mathematical symbols so you won’t have to memorize keyboard combos.

And to top it off, data created or used in reports can be exported.  Charts used in reports are exportable and users can customize any chart or graph and download an image or even vector file of it.  Actual data sets used to create a report can also be downloaded.  Users will have access to the very same data WolframAlpha uses so they can expand their research if WolframAlpha wasn’t able to provide what you were looking for.  But because not all of the data will be available for download because of the various licenses the company has with its providers.