Things are really moving fast at Wolfram these days. Mathematica 8 introduced 500 new functions and 7 new or extended application areas, including the revolutionary free-form input, Wolfram|Alpha integration, and a direct way to create our groundbreaking Computable Document Format (CDF), which was officially released to the public in late July. To help keep current users and those who are interested in Wolfram technology up to date, we will be hosting a free half-day Wolfram Mathematica Virtual Conference. With our global audience in mind, we are offering this event on two separate days in two different time zones: Monday, September 26, 2011:Noon–4:15pm Eastern Daylight Time Tuesday, September 27, 2011:Noon–4:15pm Central European Summer Time This virtual event is packed with tips, tricks, and techniques from Wolfram developers and Mathematica experts and will help you get the most out of Mathematica—regardless of your discipline or familiarity with Wolfram technologies.

Today we launched our Computable Document Format, or CDF, to bring documents to life with the power of computation. CDF binds together and refines lots of technologies and ideas from our last 20+ years into a single standard—knowledge apps, symbolic documents, automation layering, and democratized computation, to name a few. Disparate though these might appear, they come together in one coherent aim for CDF: connecting authors and readers much better than ever before. The idea is to provide a knowledge container that's as easy to author as documents, but with the interactivity of apps—for CDFs to make live interactivity as everyday a way to communicate as spreadsheets made charts.

There are two great principles to Mathematica's parallel computing design. The first is that most of the messy plumbing that puts people off grid computing is automated (messaging, process coordination, resource sharing, fail-recovery, etc.). The second is that anything that can be done in Mathematica can be done in parallel. With this week's release of gridMathematica 8, which adds the 500+ new features of Mathematica 8 into the shared grid engine, one nice example brings together both ideas—and that is driving CUDA hardware, in parallel, over the grid.

“Every conference brings reunions with old friends and a chance to make new ones among the many attendees who use Mathematica in a wide variety of industries and application areas.” ---Sal Mangano, Author of Mathematica Cookbook If you are interested in the latest and future technologies that are shaping computation and algorithm-rich development… would like to keep current on how to most efficiently develop and deploy with Wolfram technologies… want to see how others are solving computation challenges across industries and fields… Then join us for the Wolfram Technology Conference 2011 from October 19 through 21 in Champaign, Illinois, USA. Just steps from Wolfram's headquarters, the conference will provide three days of pure productivity, featuring talks by Wolfram developers, users presenting real-world solutions, interactive workshops, developer kitchens, and the opportunity to exchange ideas with fellow Mathematica enthusiasts. This year’s conference schedule will feature even more interactive and hands-on sessions and will cover topics that include:

We're excited to announce a new Twitter feed for bite-sized Mathematica hints and tips:

@MathematicaTip

Starting today, we're tweeting a new Mathematica tip every day, Monday through Friday. We'll cover everything from Mathematica features and graphics to user interface tips and keyboard shortcuts to miscellaneous fun examples. Follow the new feed on Twitter at @MathematicaTip. Tweet your own favorite hints or questions to us at @MathematicaTip.