Long Beach, CA, - March 15, 2002 - Design Science, Inc., announced that a free public beta release of its new MathPlayer product can now be downloaded from the company's web site: www.dessci.com. MathPlayer enables high-quality math display in Microsoft's Internet Explorer for Windows web browser.

Most of the current mathematical content on the web is either in PDF format, or GIF images embedded into HTML. These techniques are limiting. For instance: the math cannot be made interactive or used with other programs; PDF requires the Acrobat Reader which takes over the browser, and doesn't integrate well with the rest of a web site's HTML content; GIF images increase download time and are difficult to manage.

The forward-thinking approach to adding math to a web page is to embed MathML into a normal web page. MathML is a standards-based markup language for encoding mathematics using XML, developed by the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Math Working Group (www.w3.org/math). Many products, including browsers, editors, computer algebra programs, and publishing software currently support MathML as a medium of exchange for mathematical content, with many more on the way. "We envision future educators engaging students by creating online courses containing interactive math and science. MathML is the technology that will make this happen." said Paul Topping, President of Design Science.

"MathPlayer, together with the soon-to-be-released Mozilla web browser (www.mozilla.org), is a huge step toward enabling cross-platform display and interactive Math on the Web." said Dr. Robert Miner, the company's Director of New Product Development. "MathPlayer is the key ingredient in the Math on the Web pie." added Miner.

Design Science makes MathPlayer available for free in an effort to accelerate the adoption of MathML in the math, science and education communities. It also offers its MathType and WebEQ products for creating and editing MathML and documents containing mathematics. The company has played a leading role in developing MathML and continues to be actively involved in the W3C Math Working Group. The company publishes a semi-annual paper, "Math on the Web: A Status Report", available on its web site: www.dessci.com.

About Design Science, Inc.

Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Long Beach, California, Design Science, Inc., developer of MathType, Equation Editor in Microsoft Office, WebEQ and MathPlayer, develops software used by scientists, engineers and educators to communicate on the internet and with printed documents.

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Contact:

Bruce Virga
Vice President Sales
brucev@dessci.com
800-827-0685
562-432-2920

Design Science, Inc.
140 Pine Avenue, 4th Floor
Long Beach, CA 90802, USA