Wolfram Research announced the latest version of its flagship science and technology software system Mathematica.

Mathematica 5.1 can now automatically interact with the increasing number of Websites that provide Web services, with Web services functionality appearing and operating as built-in functions in Mathematica. The product now supports SOAP as well as discovery of Web services functionality using WSDL.

Among other capabilities, the new version of Mathematica includes industrial-strength string manipulation, built-in universal database connectivity, 2D and 3D automated network visualization, event handling in numerical differential equations, and new algorithms for symbolic differential equations.

Complementing these new capabilities are enhancements to Mathematica's Automatic Algorithm Selection feature, which automatically applies the best algorithm to each task.

Mathematica 5.1 is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, HP Tru64 Unix, HP-UX, IBM AIX, IRIX, and compatible systems. The suggested retail price is $1,880. The product is available immediately.