It’s now two months since we released Mathematica 6, and I am happy to say that all our years of development and testing seem to be paying off: Mathematica 6 is a robust system that is performing excellently. But even long before Mathematica 6.0.0 was released, we were already working on what would come next. Our development process operates on three basic levels that translate roughly into “X” releases, “X.y” releases and “X.y.z” releases. At any given time, we are making incremental improvements to existing features that will be delivered in the X.y.z releases. We’re also building new features, that will arrive in X.y releases. And we’re working on major new areas of Mathematica functionality that will be delivered in the X releases. Looking at our internal development database, I see that 6.0.1 contains 259 individual code improvements relative to 6.0.0 (as well as a great many documentation and tutorial updates). What are they all? Well, they are distributed throughout the system (as well as in an update to the free Mathematica Player)---reflecting the continuing work of our many software development teams.

Summer begins, officially, around June 21. Here at Wolfram Research it actually begins when the interns start to arrive. As we released Version 6 of our flagship Mathematica software less than two months ago, we’re still collectively exhaling, yet at the same time breathing in hard to keep up with these youthful, faster folk. No easy feat, unless you happen to be a trumpet player. A summer here at our headquarters in Champaign, Illinois, can find anywhere from 5 to 25 or so interns. They range in level from late high school to graduate school, as young as 15 and as old as 40-something. And we’re always on the hunt for new ones (apply on our website if interested). Where do they come from? I believe our interns have hailed from all six naturally inhabited continents, as well as several major island groups. Most are now residing in North America for their studies, though some have traveled from farther away. What do we do with these interns? Well, by law, we cannot eat them (even if we could manage to catch one). Instead we find it useful to put them to work on a variety of tasks, based on individual educational background and experience.

Slipped in quietly alongside Mathematica 6’s release is the start of another profound development: Mathematica Player. At the moment, Player is just the way to run Demonstrations and read Mathematica notebooks, but in the near future it will be much, much more. Good things usually have a good reason to do them. Player has at least three. The first push came from asking where to take MathReader when Mathematica 6 shipped. MathReader has long been the free way to view Mathematica notebooks---in a sense the technical Adobe (Acrobat) Reader that handled Mathematica’s typeset math, cell hierarchy, graphics, animations and even sound (usually of the weird function-based variety!). In the end, though, it was just a “dead” viewer. For a number of years we’d known that "instant interactivity" would be central to Mathematica 6. So, why not make the accompanying MathReader the way to “view” this interactivity? After all, Mathematica was coming alive. Why shouldn’t MathReader too---in the role of a player or runtime for these newly dynamic notebooks?

We move fast at Wolfram Research. Just today, we’re launching a radically new version of Mathematica, going live with a major new interactive website, and have completely redesigned our entire web presence. With so much going on---not to mention all that’s in the pipeline for the future---we want to have a quick and easy way to keep you current on our latest advances. Enter the Wolfram Blog. Starting today, you’ll be able to get important insights from the front lines at Wolfram Research. Our developers, researchers, and other employees from our offices around the world---all giving you rare access to what goes on behind the scenes. All in addition to the regular announcements you’ll find in MATHwire and on our News & Events page. What goes into making Mathematica? Where is our technology headed? And what does it all mean for the future? We’ll try to answer those questions and give you an inside look at many of Mathematica’s latest features and enhancements. So stay tuned. Subscribe to the feed. Send us an email, and let us know what you think or if you have any insights that you think we should share.