Well, MathWorks recently announced a major new release of MATLAB — R2014b. The main highlights of this release are a new graphics system; new functions for working with big data, Git, and Subversion source control integration; and new custom toolbox packaging and management capabilities. With regard to the new graphics system, consider the difference between the same visualization presented in the previous R2014a system and the new R2014b release.

The simplest way to put this is that the new graphics system just looks better. In addition to more sophisticated antialiasing capabilities, the new default color map makes data easier to distinguish and interpret, especially for those who are color-impaired. Furthermore, the new graphics system is based on standard MATLAB objects, thereby making it easier to understand other people’s code and to write and maintain your own code.

The concept of big data is becoming applicable to a wide variety of industries, including energy (asset analytics), finance (regulatory and market risk), automotive (vehicle test data analysis), aerospace (maintenance and reliability), medical devices (patient outcomes), and the list goes on.

MATLAB already offers many big data capabilities for such things as memory and data access (64-bit processors, memory-mapped variables, disk variables, databases), programming constructs (streaming, block processing, parallel-for loops, GPU arrays, SPMD and distributed arrays), and platforms: desktop (multicore, GPU), clusters, and cloud computing (MDCS on EC2). To these capabilities, the R2014b release adds Datastores, MapReduce, and Hadoop.

Last but certainly not least, achieving the levels of productivity demanded by today’s increasingly competitive market demands advanced levels of cooperation. To facilitate this, Git and Subversion source control have been fully integrated into the MATLAB environment. Furthermore, new custom toolbox packaging and management capabilities dramatically ease the task of sharing your MATLAB scripts and deploying scripts from other people.

All in all, R2014b is an extremely compelling release for current MATLAB users and new members of the MATLAB community.

— Max Maxfield, Editor of All Things Fun Max Maxfield, Edito

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