Deiter Bohn reports that Wolfram Alpha is now offering a “Pro” version of their data analysis services for just $4.99 a month: “The new services includes the ability to use images, files, and even your own data as inputs instead of simple text entry. The ‘reports’ that Wolfram Alpha kicks out as a result of these (or any) query are also beefed up for Pro users, some will actually become interactive charts and all of them can be more easily exported in a variety of formats. [The Verge] sat down with Stephen Wolfram himself to get a tour of the new features and to discuss what they mean for his goal of ‘making the world’s knowledge computable.’”

Bohn continues, “First released in 2009, Wolfram Alpha presents a different way of interacting with knowledge and data than anything else out there on the web. Built on the foundation of Wolfram’s Mathematica product, Wolfram Alpha is a ‘knowledge engine’ instead of the ‘search engine’ that we’ve all become familiar with. What that means is that Wolfram Alpha is more structured in the query field you use to access it, the data it uses as a source, and the results that it gives you.”

He adds, “Wolfram Alpha is excellent at returning answers to mathematical queries and scientific queries, but it also can provide results based on its structured data. Most people know it now as one of the sources for Apple’s Siri feature on the iPhone 4S. Wolfram Alpha does analysis on every query to parse equations and even parse natural language questions to better understand what the user is asking. In fact, Wolfram tells us that in many cases the service can provide better results from Siri than from text queries because there is ‘more structure to what they’re saying’ than what most people have trained themselves to type into search fields.”

Read more here.

Image: Courtesy Wolfram Alpha