Wolfram Alpha for iPhone 1.4 wows with image manipulation, Best Buy purchasing
Wolfram Alpha app (US$2.99) fans should be rejoicing today. Version 1.4 of the incredibly powerful analytics app is available and adds a number of new features, including image analysis and manipulation.
Among the new goodies in Wolfram Alpha 1.4 are a new look for weather queries and the ability to search for and purchase items from Best Buy. Yep, that last feature is correct. You can now query Wolfram for things like "17 inch LCD monitor" or "LG Washing Machine" and get more information than you really ever wanted -- plus the ability to buy those items from the app.
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Image processing capability, however, is the star of the show. The Image Input feature is a $0.99 in-app purchase that lets you add filters, view EXIF and histogram info about your photos, and even shows thumbnails of your images with contrast and colors adjusted. The app also creates thumbnails of various image effects, including negatives, binary, edges, grayscale, charcoal and embossing.
Allegedly you should be able to do OCR of pictures of text, although I had mixed success with this feature. A photo of my keyboard was interpreted as garbage, except for the word "command" on the command key. Still, the image processing and metadata capabilities are outstanding and well worth the dollar for the in-app purchase.
[via Engadget]
