Skip to main content

New Sensation

Posted by editor on April 3, 2008 at 9:38 AM EDT

The consumer JRE goes beta

Can desktop Java be revolutionized without adding a single API? We're about to find out.

The so-called "Consumer JRE" is now in beta. Java SE 6 Update 10 is "an update release that introduces new features and enhancements aimed at providing an optimized consumer-end user experience."

Announced at last year's JavaOne, JDK6u10 targets deployment as a unique and important pain point in the Java SE ecosystem, one that can be addressed effectively in the short term. It's a great idea: since the changes affect the Java VM and its interactions with its host environment, and don't introduce new APIs, it can go out as an update to the current JRE rather than waiting for JDK 7.

And what changes they are. The monolithic JDK of the past gets replaced by the Java Kernel, which provides just enough class libraries to get started and downloads the rest on the fly. The Java Plug-In has been completely rewritten and no longer runs as part of the browser's process, meaning that in the absolute worst case, a JVM crash doesn't take out your browser too. The Java Deployment Toolkit allows applets and Java Web Start applications to discover the installed version(s) of the JRE, and fetch a newer one if necessary. Windows users get Direct3D-based hardware-accelerated graphics. And the "Java Quick Starter" preloads parts of the JRE into memory, making it faster to cold-launch Java apps.

Rather than pick off one problem at a time, JDK6u10 goes for the whole enchilada, radically rethinking Desktop Java deployment. If you haven't tried it with your applets and web start apps, try downloading it and tell us what you think.

Also in Java Today, a recent EE Tech Tip, Adding Voice to Java EE With SIP Servlets, shows off how to use Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), a signaling protocol that is used to set up, modify, and terminate a session between two endpoints. SIP is used to set up a two-party call, a multi-party call, or even a multicast session for Internet calls, multimedia calls, and multimedia distribution. The Tech Tip covers some of the basic concepts underlying SIP and SIP servlets. It also presents a sample application that uses SIP servlets and HTTP servlets to provide VoIP phone service.

Developing 3D games for mobile devices is full of challenges, but the rich, evolving toolset enables some stunning results. In the ACM Queue article Big Games, Small Screens, Mark Callow, Paul Beardow, and David Brittain step through the design and development of Java-based games for the small mobile device, including planning, designing for scalability and multiplayer, handling assets, working through the challenges and limitations inherent in small devices, testing, packaging, and distributing your game. So why bother with all that? Because "the mobile market has the largest potential games audience ever. More than 700 million new handsets ship each year, and the majority of those are enabled for gaming in some form. That is many times the console space and encompasses a much wider range of consumers and appetites for entertainment."

In today's Weblogs, Claudio Miranda updates his NetBeans utility, in NetBeans startup settings, beta version. "A long time ago I developed a small plugin (but useful) for NetBeans 5, to configure startup settings (JVM parameter, user directory, JDK). Now I have updated it to works with NetBeans 6. It is not needed anymore to hand edit etc/netbeans.conf. See more information about this plugin and screenshots."

Marc Hadley looks at JAX-RS Implementations. "The Restlet team just announced a new release. Amongst the new features is support for JAX-RS, see an example here. With the RI (Jersey), Apache CXF, and JBoss RESTeasy, that makes a total of four implementations currently underway."

Finally, Bruno Ghisi shows off Building a Java ME Bluetooth chat in 12 minutes... "As it was announced before, Marge 0.5 is out. In this post, I am going to demonstrate an interesting new feature called AutoConnect."

In today's Forums, GlassFish user wjp reports that connection leak detection causes deadlock (buildb58g-fcs). "We are facing problems with deadlocks in glassfish server 9.1 (build b58g-fcs). Our application leaks connections, so we enabled connection leak detection. But a timer thread of the leak detection collides with a work thread. Clean shutdown was impossible."

Gail Risdal announces a schedule update for GlassFish docs planning: GlassFish v3 Docs Meeting -- 4/03 3-4 PM PDT -- NEW TIME! "Please join us for the weekly GlassFish v3 docs planning meeting: Thurs 4/03 3-4 PM PDT **NOTE THE NEW TIME!** 866-651-9314 (US Toll-Free), 865-525-0765 (International-Caller Paid), Access code: 7538085#/. See http://wiki.glassfish.java.net/Wiki.jsp?page=GlassFishV3DocMeetings for details."

Finally, rogyeu clarifies a key point about JDK6u10's Java Kernel, in Re: Partly offline installation. "For Java Kernel to retrieve other Java bundles, it needs to have network connection in order to complete the installation. Therefore, network connection is a pre-requisite for Java Kernel installer to complete the JRE installation. For more information about the Java Kernel, please see FAQ: https://jdk6.dev.java.net/6u10faq.html#JKernel."

Current and upcoming Java Events :

Registered users can submit event listings for the java.net Events Page using our events submission form. All submissions go through an editorial review before being posted to the site.

Archives and Subscriptions: This blog is delivered weekdays as the Java Today RSS feed. Also, once this page is no longer featured as the front page of java.net it will be archived along with other past issues in the java.net Archive.



The consumer JRE goes beta
Blog Links >>

Comments

by dserodio - 2008-04-03 20:14

"The monolithic JDK of the past gets replaced by the Java Kernel..."?
I thought the Java Kernel was a stripped-down JRE, not JDK.

by jesperdj - 2008-04-14 11:07

One of the things missing in Java 6 until now is a Java plug-in for 64-bit platforms (for example, I'm using 64-bit Linux and there's no Sun Java plug-in). Will there be a 64-bit version of the new plug-in?