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 Terrence Barr's BlogCommunity: Mobile & Embedded ArchivesOff to Goiânia and Porto Alegre, BrazilPosted by terrencebarr on June 15, 2009 at 03:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
I just returned from JavaOne in San Francisco, still battling jet-lag, but in a few days I'll be getting on the next intercontinental flight - to Brazil. I'm excited, it's my first time down there. M3DD Latin America in Goiania on June 20th is shaping up to be a great event - in fact, registration is already closed due to unexpectedly high demand and the venue filling up quickly. The agenda is still being worked but with four tracks running from 8 am to 6 pm this is shaping up to be a great day. Soak up information and network with experts on a number of topics as well as your fellow developers - hope to see you there!
Next, I'm heading down to Porto Alegre for FISL (which runs June 24-27) to talk about open source mobile and embedded Java, LWUIT, and what else is happening in that part of the world. They're up to almost 6000 attendees for the event already so I'm sure there will be a lot of conversations, demos, coding, and partying going on for four days ... Not that the Brazilians are known for that ;-) Now, if I could somehow avoid the 30 hours cramped into that economy-class seat. By the way, if I may add, Lufthansa's frequent flyer program SUCKS BIG TIME. Fly 150 000 miles with them and your get ... well, pretty much nothing. The concept of offering something special to your most valued customers still seems to be foreign to some (German) companies. Oh well, save that topic for another day ;-) Cheers, -- Terrence JavaOne news update 3 and wrap-upPosted by terrencebarr on June 11, 2009 at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
After a well-needed break over a long weekend (hiking in the Eastern Sierra Nevada - awesome!) here is news update 3 and a JavaOne wrap-up:
Wrap-up: Despite the economic situation and the uncertainty coming from the Oracle-Sun announcement I think JavaOne came off better than many expected - there were lots of interesting announcements, sessions, demos, and conversations. I enjoyed it and I am looking forward to whatever next year's event may bring. Cheers, -- Terrence JavaOne news update 2Posted by terrencebarr on June 04, 2009 at 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Here is the next news update - wrapping up yesterday's news:
Cheers, -- Terrence JavaOne news update 1Posted by terrencebarr on June 03, 2009 at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Update 6/4:
Coming up for air ... as every year, things are extremely busy at the conference and I barely have time to catch my breath. A quick update of various news from yesterday:
Also check out the Planetarium. More news updates as soon as I get around to them. And be sure to keep checking my JavaOne Guide to the Show for latest updates! Cheers, -- Terrence JavaOne 2009: A Mobile, Media, and eMbedded Guide to the ShowPosted by terrencebarr on May 31, 2009 at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
JavaOne 2009 - here it comes! Last week I posted some high-level bits and pieces about this year's CommunityOne West and JavaOne. Now it's time to delve into details - with a mobile/media/embedded focus, of course! This post is a work in progress. Latest updates:
General Info and Announcements
Mobile & Embedded Releases and Announcements
Special Events around Developer Issues
Mobile & Embedded Lightning Talks As announced already, this year we are doing a Mobile & Embedded Lightning Talk session
All slots are filled - talks ranging from educational projects to commercial applications, embedded platforms to application frameworks, as well as quality and conformance testing. See you there! Pavilion
Pavilion Areas: Noteworthy
General Sessions
Java University
Mobility Hands-on Labs
Panel Discussions
Mobile, Embedded, and Media/Entertainment Sessions Please note that, for 2009, the related content has been split up into three different tracks so be sure to check all three tracks (click below to see the content for each particular track)A (subjective) Selection of Sessions Here is a highly subjection selection of sessions that I found interesting and I will try to attend at least some of these:
Getting into JavaOne Not sure yet how to get into JavaOne? Check out the various options, including winning a free pass and offset to travel expenses, as well as free education passes, and more at the bottom of last week's post. That's it for now. See you at JavaOne! Cheers, -- Terrence Next week: JCP Program Annual Awards and JavaOne JCP panel discussionPosted by terrencebarr on May 29, 2009 at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
A bunch of things are happening around the JCP next week in the context of JavaOne. I'd like to quickly highlight two particular events: 2009 JCP Program Annual Awards First, my congratulations to the nominees for the 2009 JCP Program Annual Awards - in particular our two Java Mobile & Embedded Community Stars
Please join us at the JCP Program community party on Tuesday, June 2nd in San Francisco where the award winners will be announced. JavaOne Panel Discussion with the JCP Java ME Executive Committee Members Second, if you've always wanted to meet the Java ME Executive Committee members, learn first-hand about what's happening, and voice your ideas directly and unfiltered ... next week at JavaOne is your chance! Sean Sheedy is putting together a panel discussion with a number of the key players in the JCP:
I am looking forward to hear from developers large and small on the topics they care about. Don't miss this excellent opportunity to participate! For more information around JavaOne, please see my JavaOne 2009: A Mobile, Media, and eMbedded Guide to the Show. Cheers & see you next week -- Terrence Still slots available for M&E Lightning TalksPosted by terrencebarr on May 28, 2009 at 12:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)Just a quick note: We've received several submissions already but still have room for 2 or 3 more lightning talks at our JavaOne Mobile & Embedded Lightning Talks session. For more information, please see my previous post. If you'd like to participate please submit your Lightning Talk ASAP so we can schedule you in. Cheers, -- Terrence Java Device Test Framework releasedPosted by terrencebarr on May 27, 2009 at 04:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Today marks the release of the Java Device Test Framework (JDTF) project into the Java Mobile & Embedded Community. JDTF is a test framework based on Sun Microsystems Java Device Test Suite (JDTS) product. JDTF is a general purpose, fully-featured, flexible, and configurable test framework suited to assess various aspects of Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) device implementation quality, such as fitness, interoperability, reliability, and performance. The framework is a set of JT harness plug-ins that facilitates the running of quality test suites on Java ME devices. Java Application Terminal Alignment Framework (JATAF) has chosen JDTF as the test framework for running its test suite. JATAF is a collaboration between four companies - Orange, SonyEricsson, Sun Microsystems and Vodafone — interested in making Java ME a ubiquitous platform for application deployment. JDTF Features JDTF is designed to create, configure, sequence and run multiple test suites that consist of large numbers of discrete, independent tests and is a comprehensive solution for quality testing on the Java ME / CLDC / MSA platforms. The framework enables you to:
This release includes capabilities and features that enable you to:
More information on JDTF can be found at the JDTF project home page. Come see us at JavaOne and CommunityOne Visit us at the JDTF Pod (#444) in the JavaOne Pavilion. We'd love to see you. In addition, the engineering leads for the cqME, JDTF, JTHarness, and SigTest projects will be available at JavaOne and CommunityOne. You can meet us, and hear about recent developments at sessions and lightning talks. Here's the schedule: CommunityOne
JavaOne
Cheers, -- Terrence JavaOne 2009: Noteworthy bits and piecesPosted by terrencebarr on May 10, 2009 at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
As every year, JavaOne is approaching too fast ;-) Only three more weeks to go. I thought I'd collect some of the noteworthy bits and pieces to help you start your planning for the show. CommunityOne West CommunityOne is a free conference that focuses on open source innovation and collaboration. CommunityOne West runs for three days and starts Monday June 1st (the day before JavaOne).
JavaOne Mobile, Embedded, and Media/Entertainment Content
JavaOne Mobility Hands-on Labs Be sure to not miss out on the related hands-on labs:
JavaOne Mobile & Embedded Lightning Talks As announced already, this year we are planning on doing a session with Mobile & Embedded Lightning Talks. For more information and how to sign up please see my previous post. JavaOne Panel discussions I'd also like to call you attention to three interesting panel discussions that you won't want to miss:
Java Mobile & Embedded Community booth in the Pavilion As in the last years the Java Mobile & Embedded Community will again have a booth in the Pavilion area. We'll be showing off the latest projects and demos and be available for questions and discussions on all things related to the community. We'd love for you to stop by. Booth location information will be posted soon. Getting into JavaOne
As you can see, there is lots going on again this year. To stay connected you can follow the Twitter channel, join the Facebook page, subscribe to the RSS feed, or sign up for the good old-fashioned mailing list ;-) See you in three weeks! Cheers, -- Terrence Most session videos posted for M3DDPosted by terrencebarr on May 07, 2009 at 05:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Sorry for the delay ... we finally got around to processing and posting most of the remaining session videos. To find the videos please check out the links on the Sessions tab (both for Technical Sessions and Lightning Talks). Note that we are still missing four videos - we are working on locating them among the many hours of video that were recorded. Again, apologies for the delay in posting the 2nd batch of videos. We hope you enjoy watching! Cheers, -- TerrenceJCP News: A candid interview with Patrick Curran, and more JCP infoPosted by terrencebarr on May 04, 2009 at 02:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
A couple of news-bits around the Java Community Process (JCP):
Finally, the deadline for the JCP Program Annual Awards is today, May 4. For more information on the Awards please see here. Cheers, -- Terrence Newsflash: SDN articles for April 2009Posted by terrencebarr on April 29, 2009 at 03:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Just a quick heads-up - The Sun Developer Network has published a couple of new articles around Java ME and JavaFX Mobile:
As always, be sure to regularly check the Java Mobile & Embedded Community home page for frequent updates on news, blogs, and articles. Cheers, -- Terrence M3DD/LA, June 20, Goiânia, BrazilPosted by terrencebarr on April 27, 2009 at 09:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
One of the amazing things that came out of our Java Mobile, Media, and Embedded Developer Days conference was that a couple of Brazilian folks immediately started talking about organizing a similar event in Brazil. So, the Java Mobile, Media, and Embedded Developer Days (Latin America), or M3DD/LA for short, is planned for June 20th, 2009, in Goiânia, Brazil. The program is being put together as we speak - and I am excited to finally get a chance to see Brazil. The conference home page is still quite simple but the basic information is there. More coming soon. Cheers, -- Terrence Lighting Talk BOF signup for Mobility TrackPosted by terrencebarr on April 27, 2009 at 08:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Lightning talks have become a very popular thing at many conferences and have worked really well for the Java Mobile, Media, and Embedded Developer Days, too. So when Roger Brinkley, our Java M&E Community leader and track lead for the JavaOne Mobility Track, and I discussed the schedule for this years JavaOne we thought "Wouldn't it be good to try some Lightning Talks at JavaOne as well?". And here we are: BOF-6731 ("Mobile and Embedded Lightning Talks") is scheduled for Wednesday, June 03, 6:45 - 7:35 PM. We have 45 minutes to fill with Lightning Talks and we're looking for your submissions. Lightning Talks are 5 minute time slots where the presenters have the opportunity to pitch their project, product, or idea to the session attendees. This is a fast-paced and informative BOF complete with cowbells to annoy speakers who exceed their time allotment ;-) It is your chance to get in front of the JavaOne audience. If you would like to present in this years Lightning Talk BOF simply post a message to this thread or email us at editor[at]mobileandembedded.org with your name and company (if appropriate), and a sentence or two about what you want to talk about. Roger and I will pick the top 10 presentations. NOTE: You must have a JavaOne pass to present at the BOF-6731. There will be NO free passes for presenters at this BOF. Cheers, -- Terrence Java ME Platform SDK 3.0 released ("Goodbye WTK, hello Java ME SDK", part 2)Posted by terrencebarr on April 22, 2009 at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
A few days ago the final release of the Java ME Platform SDK 3.0 went live. This is a great new milestone for the most-widely used Java ME development toolkit, formerly known as the WTK (Sun Java Wireless Toolkit). The Java ME Platform SDK 3.0 sports redesigned underpinnings, improved device emulation, and a host of new features and improvements - it should quickly become the tool of choice not only for CLDC/MIDP developers, but also for CDC and BD-J (Blu-Ray) projects. Read the announcement by the Java ME SDK team. Or directly go to the Java ME Platform SDK 3.0 product and download page. Key Features:
There is a special nugget of good news for phoneME developers. It is possible to extend Java ME Platform SDK 3.0 with the just released phoneME Feature MR4 runtime. Details will be posted on the team blog. For more background information you can also read up on the blog entry I did for the Java ME Platform SDK 3.0 Beta announcement ("Goodbye WTK, hello Java ME SDK"). And be sure to listen to our podcast with two members of the SDK team, Thomas Brandalik and David Pulkrabek. Happy coding! -- Terrence Speaking tomorrow (4/21) at SDG in HelsinkiPosted by terrencebarr on April 20, 2009 at 04:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)I just got back from a much-needed 5-day vacation break (Italy/Lago Maggiore region). Benissimo! ... and no Internet connectivity, either ;-) Just a quick note that I will be speaking tomorrow (Tue, April 21) at the SDG (Startup Developers Gathering) in Helsinki, Finland, on JavaFX. If you happen to be in the area please swing by. Details can be found at the SDG blog. Cheers, -- Terrence The $25,000 JavaFX Coding ChallengePosted by terrencebarr on April 01, 2009 at 07:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Last week Sun announced The $25,000 JavaFX Coding Challenge. Develop and submit a cool JavaFX application and you could win up to $25,000. There is also a student category. Read about it on javafx.com/challenge . Or catch up with Josh on his blog. Happy coding, -- Terrence More freedom, or less? (Or: Qt to be released under LGPL)Posted by terrencebarr on March 30, 2009 at 12:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)A couple of weeks ago at FOSDEM in the Java Libre Room we had a discussion about whether pure GPL (as in 'strict' - with no exceptions) is still up to date given the evolution of open source and it's increased acceptance and use in the IT industry. Pure GPL without any exceptions is a strong copyleft license. A key goal of the license is to safeguard certain software freedoms by requiring distributed derived works to be licensed under the same strong copyleft terms. By design, the GPL limits the freedom of developers, users, and commercial companies in the way they can build upon, distribute, and license software that includes GPL-licensed code. Effectively, this also limits the use of GPL'ed code to likewise projects - and misses out on driving adoption of the code and functionality into the big pool of non-GPL projects and code that exists in the industry today. But isn't adoption a key measure of success for free and open source software? On the flip-side, more permissive licenses (such as GPL with Classpath Exception, LGPL, APL, and others) give companies, developers, and users more freedoms in using and combining open source code. This tends to drive wider penetration of the code base and allows more people to benefit from the features of the original code. Undeniably, the trade-off is that some of the important software freedoms (such as the ones imparted by the GPL) are unavailable in this scenario or have much more limited reach. To me this really boils down to a few very interesting questions:
The release of Qt under LGPL is a great real-world use case for this topic. Some excellent arguments and counter-arguments are being made by Bradley Kuhn ("LGPL'ing of Qt Will Encourage More Software Freedom") and Richard Stallman ("Why you shouldn't use the Lesser GPL for your next library"). The discussion goes straight to the heart of the open source movement and free software philosophy. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. Cheers, -- Terrence PS: Many thanks to Andrew Haley from RedHat and Mark Wielarrd from Classpath for an insightful ongoing discussion on the topic! Voting ends today for the JCP Java ME EC special electionPosted by terrencebarr on March 09, 2009 at 03:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
The voting for the Java ME EC special election ends TODAY, March 9, 2009. You must vote today in order to have your voice counted. Voting instructions should have been sent by email to all JPC members a while back. For more information on this election see my blog entry. Cheers, -- Terrence Collecting LWUIT-based appsPosted by terrencebarr on March 04, 2009 at 05:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Just a quick note: We're looking for examples of 3rd party applications using the LWUIT toolkit. The LWUIT team is assessing the adoption of LWUIT and collecting metrics on the success of the LWUIT project and community for internal purposes. The deadline for this is March 15. You can help us out. If you've written an application that uses LWUIT shoot us an email so we know about it and we can feature it on the Featured Applications Page. If you've seen a cool application that uses LWUIT - let us know where to find it so we can get in touch with the author. Cheers, -- Terrence FOSDEM and Øredev wrap-upPosted by terrencebarr on March 02, 2009 at 05:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) Well, it's been a couple of weeks since FOSDEM and Øredev but I'd still like to share my impressions about both conferences and follow up with links to slides and videos for those who couldn't make it. First, Øredev: Øredev was undoubtedly one of the best conferences I've been to in years - on multiple levels. The content was both broad and deep (which is rare), the speakers were generally good or excellent, the crowd was a good size (around 1000) and the attendees represented a good mix across industries and experience levels, and last but not least, the organization was outstanding. Big thanks and kudos to Michael Tiberg and his team for a job well done! I'll most definitely be back. I also met a number of interesting folks and had many good conversations. The above picture shows Michael Samarin (Futurice), Gorkem Ercan (Nokia), Josh Marinacchi (Sun), and myself (from left to right). Many of the session slides and videos have been posted on Øredev.org. Check them out, for example my session "LWUIT: Building rich user interfaces NOW". Next, FOSDEM: This was my first year at FOSDEM but I've heard many good things about it so it was high time to participate. The atmosphere was laid back and friendly - it was definitely a community get-together. If there is a single place on the old continent to go to for a 360 view of the European open source scene and meet the players - this is it. With its main track, 19 parallel 'Dev Rooms', lightning talks, booths, and various auxiliary events the place was bustling with activity and an estimated 1200 attendees. The Java Libre Dev Room was busy and well attended on both days. You can find the schedule, pictures, and slides on the Debian FOSDEM wiki. My discussion about "Pure GPL - Is it still up to date" was quite interesting but not as lively as I had expected - maybe it was the advanced hour where everyone was exhausted already. However, it reved up later in email and is still continuing ... ;-) Dalibor Topic did a detailed round-up of the Java Libre Dev Room and here are some pictures. Overall, a good conference. If I had some improvements to make I'd definitely want to have a stand with decent espresso coffee next year (come on, a hacker's conference without strong coffee ... what's that???). Also, there was a bit too much smoking going on for my taste - the Friday evening beer event was pretty much unbearable with 150 people crammed into the two room Delirium Cafe and practically no ventilation. In this day and age I'd expect more options for people who prefer not to participate in health hazards ... ;-( Anyway, there you have it. Cheers, -- TerrenceJCP Java ME EC special electionPosted by terrencebarr on February 24, 2009 at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
As you may have heard there is a special election taking place NOW through March 9, 2009 for a seat on the JCP Java ME Executive Committee (EC). The special election is necessary because Intel has vacated its seat. Note that this election is in addition to the regular Java ME EC election that happened in November of 2008 (read about it in my blog post) and for which Sean Sheedy was confirmed. This is another excellent opportunity for the broad Java ME developer community to be involved with what's happening in the JCP. After all, developers and content creators are the primary consumers of the technology defined in the JCP. In this special election four candidates have been nominated and are running for the vacant seat:
In order to get to know the candidates better and enable a communication channel between the public and the candidates the JCP has set up this collaborative site. There you can find candidate statements and you can engage in Q&A directly with the candidates to discuss topics that are of importance to you. I encourage you to read up on the statements, interact with the candidates, and advertise the election in the Java ME community. I hope for a lively and interesting exchange of ideas that helps the JCP members find the candidate that is best suited to represent their needs and drive the Java ME platform forward. A note on Shawn Fitzgerald for those of you who might not be familiar with him: Shawn is a Java Mobile & Embedded Community Star, an experienced mobile developer, and an active participant in several Java Mobile & Embedded Community forums. See his recent post regarding the special election. We also did a podcast interview with Shawn a while back. Also be sure to check Sean Sheedy's post on the special election as well as his questions on the collaborative site. The planetarium picked up the topic as well. Cheers, -- Terrence PS: Have you heard of the new JCP program that gives Java User Groups (JUGs) free membership in the JCP? This option runs only until February 28th, 2009 - so act fast if you want your local user group to be signed up. Newsflash! iPhone UI, JavaFX in 15 mins, Devoxx keynote, developer survey, and more ...Posted by terrencebarr on February 23, 2009 at 08:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
There's been a lot of news bits and snippets of information rolling in over the last two weeks - in fact, too much to cover in a single blog entry. I thought I'd compile some of the more interesting bits for your convenience and reading pleasure:
This and much more on the Java Mobile & Embedded Community home page. Be sure to check it for regularly for news on mobile and embedded Java - served fresh! Cheers, -- Terrence JavaFX Mobile released!Posted by terrencebarr on February 11, 2009 at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)
Updates:
This morning, at 6 am GMT, JavaFX Mobile was launched as part of the JavaFX SDK 1.1 release. Together with this release there were a bunch of announcements, new versions of the JavaFX tool chain and runtime, the Java 6 Update 12, as well as numerous updates to JavaFX.com content, videos, and samples. This is exciting news. Let's look at the details:
JavaFX: It's Here. It's Real. JavaFX has gone from a vision at JavaOne 2008 to a reality. JavaFX Desktop/Web is rapidly evolving and getting traction while JavaFX Mobile is following closely on its heels - coming to mainstream devices in 2009. More News and Info Be sure to listen to the Java Mobile & Embedded podcast #71 - Eric Klein, VP of Java Marketing at Sun talks about "JavaFX for Mobile Devices". In the interview Eric makes a passionate case for bringing expressive content to all screens of people's lives and why handset manufacturers, operators, developers, content creators, and Sun really are all in the same boat. Also hear Eric talk about:
Finally, be sure to check out the Planetarium, the official JavaFX blog and watch the Java Mobile & Embedded Community home page. And learn more about the big coming-out of JavaFX Mobile at this year's Mobile World Congress, Feb 16-19 in in Barcelona, Spain. Sun (booth - #2C12; Hall 2) will be introducing partners, early devices, and content and applications to the world. And if you're into press releases: "Sun Launches JavaFX Mobile With Support From Industry ..." The final word? JavaFX is a journey - it's moving rapidly. But boy, has the world of Java become exciting again the last three months. Wouldn't you agree? Cheers, -- Terrence Next up: FOSDEM 2009Posted by terrencebarr on February 03, 2009 at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)I'm excited to be heading up to Brussels, Belgium this Friday. This is my first time at FOSDEM and I've been told it's an awesome FOSS conference. Attendance is absolutely FREE and they are expecting 5000 people up there this year. Amazing. There is so much going on - FOSDEM has put together a great program. Check out the schedule. A couple of people from Sun will be there participating on multiple topics. For the Java Libre Dev Room see Dalibor Topic's excellent summary of events. I'll be doing two sessions:
I also expect to be meeting a lot of people in the free and open source community and have many discussions around the future of Java, mobile and embedded platforms, and open source in general. Should be an intense and fun event! See you there? -- Terrence M3DD: Thanks & follow-upPosted by terrencebarr on February 03, 2009 at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
I'm just coming up for air again ... M3DD took all my attention for the past three weeks and after it was done I had a bunch of things to follow-up on, sift through hundreds of piled-up emails, and finally take two days off for a desperately-needed break. Late, but anyway, I wanted to share a brief follow-up on M3DD: First, thanks to all for another very successful conference! Our initial feedback from attendees and speakers has been very positive.
  Video Archive The conference has created a lot of good content, slides, and videos. We are currently post-processing the videos, converting them to several file formats to enable everyone to view them, and pushing them onto our servers. This will take a few more days - please stay tuned and watch this blog or the conference home page for updates on when the videos are available. Cheers, -- Terrence Live broadcast starts Wednesday, 8:15 am PSTPosted by terrencebarr on January 20, 2009 at 08:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
If you aren't able to come to the conference in person be sure to check out the live broadcast starting Wednesday at 8:15 am Pacific Time. And be sure to participate by using the chat facility! See you online, -- Terrence M3DD: Only 1 week to - final updatesPosted by terrencebarr on January 13, 2009 at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Only one more week to the Java Mobile, Media, and eMbedded Developer Days conference (Jan 21-22, 2009) and the special half-day LWUIT tutorial on Jan 23. Here are the latest updates: Newsletter #6 The final newsletter was just posted. This week is all about digital entertainment. Read about:
Podcast #68
Agenda addition: Welcome Reception We also just added a Welcome Reception in the grand historic mansion building the evening before the conference (Tuesday). The reception is a casual get-together to meet the speakers and conference attendees, chat, and enjoy some drinks and finger food. This is in addition to the already planned (and not to be missed!) Community Social event on Wednesday evening (see agenda for latest updates). Remember: Free, Live, Worldwide Video Broadcast If you can't attend the conference in person be sure to plan on watching the free and live video broadcast. Last year we had several hundred viewers - this year we want attract even more! For more information and late-breaking news see the M3DD wiki. See you in person or online on the 21st/22nd and 23rd! Registration ends Monday, Jan 19th!
Best, -- Terrence Reminder: JCP 10th Birthday Party - Tue, Jan 13thPosted by terrencebarr on January 11, 2009 at 06:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Just a quick note: Tomorrow, Tuesday (Jan 13th) the JCP will hold their 10th anniversary birthday party at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. Find the information and sign up here. I'd love to join but unfortunately I won't be in California until Thursday ... too bad I'll miss it. But I hope to catch you at our Java Mobile, Media, and eMbedded Developer Days conference next week. Cheers, -- Terrence M3DD - Two Weeks To Go - Update on free, live, worldwide broadcastPosted by terrencebarr on January 05, 2009 at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Only two more weeks to the Java Mobile, Media, and eMbedded Developer Days conference (Jan 21-22, 2009)! Podcast #67 and Newsletter #5 With the recent release of JavaFX there is of course a lot of interest in JavaFX Mobile and M3DD will be the first place where you can hear more about the technology. Listen to our brand-new podcast #67 where Juraj Svec and Jan Sterba talk about JavaFX Mobile and why you want to attend their technical session TS-3 (see conference agenda). Also check out the other featured conference content in newsletter #5
Update on Free, Live, Worldwide Video Broadcast As like last year we also plan to do a live broadcast of the entire M3DD conference on the web, for free. Last year some folks criticized the use of proprietary video formats and playback mechanisms - and we agree. We'd love to use open formats and Java. However, after a bunch of research it appears our options (currently) are limited. See my write-up on the M3DD wiki. In summary, it looks like we'll stick with the ustream solution for another year - unless someone pulls an unexpected alternative out of their hat. In any case, the broadcast will happen and we invite you cordially to join us online if you can't make it to Santa Clara in person. Feel free to provide feedback or suggestions here or on the interest alias (mailto:interest@developerdays.dev.java.net). We are definitely open to input. See you in person or online on the 21st/22nd!
Best, -- Terrence PS: Poster Session slots still available! Poster sessions come from the academic world where they are used to promote research. For M3DD the primary purpose of a poster is the communication of information and ideas to the attendees by combining text and graphics to make a visually-pleasing presentation. This is a great one-on-one time with developers about your products or project. If your interested in having a poster sessions submit a proposal as outlined in the M3DD Call for Papers. Join the discussion on Java ME EC topicsPosted by terrencebarr on December 29, 2008 at 08:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
As you probably have seen Sean Sheedy was elected to the JCP ME Executive Committee (EC) a couple of weeks ago. Sean is now soliciting input for the January JCP EC meeting - this is your chance to have your voice heard. Sean will also be using your input for further discussion at the "Developer Panel" session (TS-26, see agenda) at upcoming Java Mobile, Media, and eMbedded Developer Days. So, please join the discussion. Cheers, -- Terrence JavaFX Mobile: See and learn at M3DDPosted by terrencebarr on December 20, 2008 at 02:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
As mentioned in my JavaFX launch post one of the key benefits of JavaFX is the unified development and deployment model across multiple screens - desktop, web, mobile, and (to come later) TV. As of today (with the JavaFX 1.0 SDK) you can already build and run JavaFX Mobile applications on the mobile emulator provided with the SDK (see my post for quick instructions). The ability to run on real devices is coming soon - we're working hard on this internally at Sun to make it robust and well performing for general release. In the meantime I'd like to show you some screen shots of one of the demos I've been doing over the last few weeks. It's an example of a social media sharing app (called CloudDVR) where you can manage, browse, and view local media as well as push and pull media to and from the 'Cloud' (a service on the network) to share it amongst your own devices as well as your friends. The big picture is the JavaFX application running on a Windows XP desktop (it looks practically identical on a Mac). The wall of media (pics, music, video) is the local content and the bar at the bottom (with the little globe) is content on the cloud. You can pan around or view/play the media items or pull media from the local content onto the cloud or vice versa to perform uploads and downloads. It's a very attractive and easy-to-use application with a slick UI featuring layers, animations, and effects. 
The small picture is the same JavaFX application running on an off-the-shelf Sony Ericsson G705 mid-range MSA-compliant (JSR 248) phone (it has been tested on several other devices as well). It features very much the same UI but adjusted to the screen size and user interface. It works quite well on the phone today already - I plan to demonstrate that in a video soon. When I do this demo and show the application run consistently in parallel on a desktop as well as on a mid-range phone I typically get raised eyebrows and hear things like "Hmm - this is impressive. Where can I find out more?" . Well, in January you can find out more - at Java Mobile, Media, and eMbedded Developer Days (M3DD). Juraj Svec, one of the architects of JavaFX Mobile, will be presenting "TS-3: Does your mobile speak JavaFX?". This is your opportunity to learn first-hand about what's coming - do not miss it. The full conference agenda is here.
Cheers, -- Terrence Conference count-down: Only 6 weeks to goPosted by terrencebarr on December 13, 2008 at 09:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Only six weeks (well, actually even less) to go until the Java Mobile, Media, and eMbedded Developer Days conference (Jan 21-22, 2009)! Like for the previous conference we'll be sending out weekly countdown newsletters to talk about specific highlights of the conference. This week we feature
Also, some information on the excellent networking and brainstorming opportunities last year's attendees raved about. Check out newsletter #1. To register for the conference click below:
Cheers, -- Terrence Just in! LWUIT tutorial session at M3DDPosted by terrencebarr on December 11, 2008 at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
This is just in: The LWUIT team has announced a half-day tutorial session
Friday, January 23 (the day after M3DD)
8 am to 12 pm noon (same location as M3DD)
The tutorial is free and coffee and a continental breakfast will be provided. See the tutorial announcement. So, this is another great reason to register for the Java Mobile, Media, and eMbedded Developer Days (M3DD) - two full days of technical content and the half-day LWUIT tutorial as an added bonus. All information and the registration link on the Java Mobile, Media, and eMbedded Developer Days home page. Cheers, -- Terrence Quick update: Jon Bostrom podcast and Eric Arsenau articlePosted by terrencebarr on December 11, 2008 at 04:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Cheers, -- Terrence Take the poll: Will you be attending M3DD?Posted by terrencebarr on December 08, 2008 at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Will you be attending the Java Mobile, Media, and eMbedded Developer Days, January 21-22, 2009? Please take our poll. Cheers, -- Terrence PS: We've added more Lightning Talks and updated the talk abstracts. Check it out. JavaFX 1.0 is here: On your desktop, in your browser, and on your mobile phonePosted by terrencebarr on December 06, 2008 at 06:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)
Updates:
JavaFX 1.0 is here! JavaFX is the expressive platform for creating and delivering rich Internet experiences across all the screens of your life: for web browsers and desktops - and (in preview) for mobile phones. Today's JavaFX 1.0 release includes these components
What's unique about JavaFX?
Because JavaFX leverages the power and pervasiveness of the Java platform JavaFX will run most everywhere Java is running today - including mobile devices. On the Desktop. In the Browser. And on your Mobile Phone. Same code everywhere. Ok, show me! ... glad you asked ;-) Let's try out a simple but useful example of a JavaFX application with a nice little GUI that accesses a web service (Yahoo! Local Business search). You can deploy and run this application (using the exact same unmodified application code) on your desktop, within a browser, and on the mobile emulator (as well as on many MSA-compliant phones - coming soon) with the touch of a button. It will give you a good idea what JavaFX is and how to get started with it. I will be doing a screencast on this and other demos soon but for now here are the step-by-step instructions:
As you can see JavaFX is a whole new ball game with many new exciting features and possibilities. I'll be talking about this and more over the next couple of weeks - especially with a focus on mobility. Finding out more
Have fun playing with JavaFX! Cheers, -- Terrence PS: For Linux and Solaris support see the JavaFX blog. Update regarding running JavaFX applications on real devicesI spoke too soon regarding the ability to run the resulting JavaFX app not only on the mobile emulator (as in step 11) but also on off-the-shelf MSA-compliant devices. Running on phones was supported in internal prerelease versions of the tool chain but that feature is a work in progress and was not considered ready for the JavaFX 1.0 release - so it was removed. Unfortunately, I got mixed up with versions and it looks like I tested my instructions using a prerelease version ... So, for now at least, running on real devices is not supported. But let me ensure you
In the meantime I encourage you to start experimenting with JavaFX Mobile using the emulator - it's where the platform is going. Sorry for the confusion and stay tuned. Early Bird Special Ends Today! (Java Mobile, Media, and eMbedded Developer Days)Posted by terrencebarr on December 05, 2008 at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
So, for a couple of weeks now we've been beating the drum about why you want to attend the Java Mobile, Media, and eMbedded Developer Days (M3DD) - for example, here and here and here. If you're in the mobile, embedded, or media-related Java space you don't want to miss this conference. However, what you are going to miss (if you don't act today) is the special Early Bird pricing. Register until tonight (December 5th) and get a full conference pass for only US $175 I don't think I have to tell you that this price is a steal for a unique and deep technical two-day conference, right? But come tomorrow you will have to pay $250 for the exact same thing. Easy decision, right? ;-)
See you in January! Cheers, -- Terrence Coming on Thursday: JavaFX 1.0 including FX Mobile prereleasePosted by terrencebarr on December 01, 2008 at 08:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)
JavaFX, as Josh Marinacci puts it, is not just RIA ("Rich Internet Application") for Java - it is the application environment for the Java platform. Whenever your Java app has some - any, really - user-visible output or media you'll want to use JavaFX. You get all the power of Java coupled with a scripting language and runtime on top of it that's especially designed for creating rich user interfaces and media-driven applications across multiple screens: The desktop, the browser, mobile, and TV (coming in 2010). To quote James Weaver: "Sanity Will Be Restored to Internet Application Development on December 4, 2008". So, what about mobile, then, you ask? Well, JavaFX 1.0 will not only contain the JavaFX SDK and runtime for browsers and desktops as well as tools but also a prelease version of the FX Mobile runtime. This is very cool stuff ... the unified JavaFX development model and tool chain allows you to create applications for desktop, the browser, and mobile (and later, TV) based on the same, unmodified code and deploy and run across different platforms with the touch of a button. How to get started? On December 4th, download the NetBeans 6.5 + JavaFX SDK bundle - which also includes the preview for mobile - and check out some of the built-in samples. Within minutes you will have a cross-platform RIA application running on your desktop, in a browser, and on your MSA-compliant mobile phone! Much more to come - I will blog about all this and more starting Thursday. If you happen to be in San Francisco on the 4th you can swing by the live JavaFX launch event:
Space is limited, so please reserve your spot at this site. If you can't make the live event then be sure to check http://javafx.com on the afternoon of the 4th - it will be updated to contain all the news, information, demos, and of course the released bits. In the meantime, see Chris Oliver's and Danny Coward's blogs for continuing news and twitter updates. Cheers, -- Terrence PS: For Linux and Solaris support see the JavaFX blog. Thoughts on "What Sun Should Do"Posted by terrencebarr on November 26, 2008 at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)(Notice and Disclaimer · This is not an official statement from Sun Microsystems. Nor does it reflect any particular insider knowledge. It is simply my personal observation, opinion, and reaction to some of the current discussions around the web) Tim Bray's piece on "What Sun Should Do" is getting a lot of attention - as well as some of the follow-ups such as on JavaLobby and RedMonk. I think it's a good and necessary discussion - but it's easy to oversimplify and miss important points. One of my favorite sayings is: "Every complex problem can be boiled down to a solution that's simple, attractive, and easy to understand - and wrong." It's a tendency we fall into easily - and what I have been missing in the discussion so far is the focus on client-side technologies and products and the role they play in technology-based business models. Tough Questions At the heart of the discussion are the questions: How does Sun get back to consistent and profitable growth overall as a company? What should a successful technology and product portfolio look like? And which projects and technologies don't support that portfolio and should be cut or let go? Some people are advocating that Sun should focus on back-end and web infrastructure and maybe cloud computing and basically ditch everything else. To me that narrow focus is very dangerous and amounts to Sun cutting off it's own legs. Here's why: Fighting Commoditization I think if IT history has shown us anything it is that narrowly focusing on a particular piece of a technology environment is not enough to sustain a long-term and profitable business model. Why? Because eventually the competition catches up and turns your space into a commoditized component. Even if you are the best, the most scalable, the most secure, or the have the best price-performance. Eventually, your competitors produce something that's good enough and cheaper than what you are offering. It's a fact of technology diffusion in capitalist societies. A technology vendor you need to constantly fight that trend for commoditization - by moving up and sideways and providing a range of technologies and products that complement and build upon your strengths. You need to get involved on multiple levels with customers and users, encourage adoption, drive mindshare, leadership, and brand awareness, anticipate the every-changing needs of your customers and bind them closer to you to establish a value-chain that you can continue to leverage and monetize at multiple points over the long term. Why Client-Side Technology is Critical Client-side technology and services are a critical beachhead in fighting commoditization. Look at Google, Adobe, Microsoft, Amazon - a huge part (or even all) of their business model and revenue is based on back-end technology, infrastructure, and services. But they enable and solidify that business with customer- and user-facing client-side technology: Be it end-user applications, client runtimes, developer tools, or storefronts. That is how they interact with millions of customers, drive deeper into their customer's lives, and tie users into their back-end services and product portfolio. That client-side component of the strategy is essential to their business model. They own the customer/user relationship and that gives them the unique position to deliver all the services on the back end. Imaging Google or Amazon simply providing white-box search or product logistics services and have someone else take care of the client-facing aspect of the business. Or Microsoft without their application franchise (Office, etc). I think it's easy to see that their business would be a lot less valuable and, more importantly, a lot less unique than it currently is. In a nutshell, client-side technology and footprint is much harder to establish but also provides a much greater degree of stickiness and leverage to drive a whole range of interrelated offerings. Sun's Differentiators Java, NetBeans, and OpenOffice (among others) have been very successful in providing exactly that beachhead for Sun. Java has generated a lot of revenue for Sun over the years (as witnessed here), has been instrumental in closing many infrastructure deals, and is a good business on nearly 6 billion devices around the planet. NetBeans has been the vehicle for Sun to enable developers to add to the overall value of Sun's technology stack and drive the technology deeper and wider. And OpenOffice has spearheaded open source adoption and its huge popularity has created a valuable relationship and channel with users and customers around the world. And last but not least, JavaFX is Sun's entry to participate in the RIA space - an increasingly important mechanism to deliver content, functionality, and excitement to users and customers (and, no, browser-based apps won't rule the world - sorry). Imagine Sun without these client-side technologies and products. A company focused solely on providing web/cloud server-room infrastructure - I'm sure that's a viable business in the short-term - but will it allow Sun to run a differentiated, profitable, growth-oriented technology business in the long run? Or would Sun simply become a check-mark item for commoditized back-room technology? Best-of-class maybe, but still commoditized - a white-box Google or Amazon for web infrastructure? And then what? Pole Position I actually happen to think Sun is in a very good position - a portfolio of innovative and must-have technologies and rapid adoption through open source has created a host of opportunities. What Sun needs to get better at is to be selective, focus on the opportunities, put appropriate programs and products in place that make it easy to do business with Sun, and then execute aggressively to provide the market what it wants. Killing the very client-side technologies that have played a big role in positioning Sun for these opportunities in the first place seems short-sighted, at best. Cheers, -- Terrence Sean Sheedy elected to JCP ME Executive CommitteePosted by terrencebarr on November 22, 2008 at 06:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Congratulations to Sean Sheedy and the mobile and embedded developer community! As reported in several places already (Enrique's blog, Roger's blog) Sean was confirmed as a new member of JCP ME Executive Community on November 17th. The election results indicate that developers felt strongly about bringing an independent voice to the JCP. Why is this important? See my previous blog here. Of course, the election is just the beginning. I'm looking forward to working with Sean, the developer community, and the JCP members to bring the important input of individual and small developers to the JCP. Cheers, -- TerrenceDraft agenda posted for M3DD (Mobile, Media, and eMbedded Developer Days)Posted by terrencebarr on November 22, 2008 at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
It's been so busy around here lately that I haven't had time to blog about the upcoming conference - but things are heating up and the conference is a mere 8 weeks away (January 21 & 22, 2008)! The draft agenda was posted a little while ago. Clearly, the conference has already gained a reputation in the industry ... the quality and number of submissions this year was impressive. We had much more content than we could possibly squeeze into two days and so our review committee worked hard (thanks, guys!) to pick a set of talks, presentations, and speakers that we believe provide a compelling and stimulating cross-section of what's happening in the industry today. Here are some excerpts of the agenda:
Of course, the full two-day conference includes breakfast and lunch each day as well as the popular community social event that gives you an excellent opportunity to hang out, meet your fellow community members and project leads, and make connections. All that for only US $175 (early bird pricing until December 5th) - true to our goal of creating a community conference (see: Java Mobile & Embedded Community) also from the pricing perspective.
Check our the current draft agenda. For additional information on the previous conference please see the testimonials, pictures, wrap-up, and full archive. PS: While the Call for Papers is closed we still accept poster sessions. To find out more and submit a poster session please see the CfP page. Register today & stay tuned - more information in the conference will be coming over the next few weeks. Cheers, -- Terrence Last day to vote in the JCP Java ME EC ElectionPosted by terrencebarr on November 17, 2008 at 04:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)Today (Monday, Nov 17th) is the last day to cast your vote for the JCP Java ME EC election. As I blogged recently it is important to strengthen the voice of the independent developers - this election is your chance to do so! If you haven't done so yet - please vote today. For more information about the vote see my blog. Cheers, -- Terrence Obama: An Open-Source President?Posted by terrencebarr on November 11, 2008 at 07:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
It is a the point I've been making for a while now, for example in my JavaOne 2008 talk "TS-5006: Flooring the Accelerator: How Open Source is Reshaping an Industry". We are witnessing that the principles underlying the open source movement and the push for open standards are an embodiment of an ongoing change in society. Here's slide 11 from my talk:
If the reach and staying power of the open source movement is any indication then we should be in for some interesting (and different) times in U.S. politics. Cheers, -- Terrence JCP Java ME EC Election: Vote now for a Voice for Independent DevelopersPosted by terrencebarr on November 10, 2008 at 02:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
JCP Java ME EC Election - Why Should You Care? The JCP, of course, is the place where a wide range of technologies and APIs - from enterprise Java to the standard edition and mobile and embedded Java - are created. The JCP has not always been as nimble as people would have liked (myself included) and political and power struggles have slowed down progress at times - not surprising considering that the players in the Java ecosystem have to get together and sort out issues over technologies and compatibility somewhere. But, by and large, the JCP has done a pretty good job and remains one of the most successful standards bodies in the industry forming the basis of the widespread adoption of the Java technology as a whole. Fundamentally, the JCP is a very open organization and almost 75% of the membership is made up of individual developers and independent small players. These small and independent developers are a critical part of the mobile and embedded ecosystem. Their ability to live on the cutting edge, to be nimble, and to create and monetize demand for new services is a big part of what drives the overall health and the excitement of the mobile and embedded space. The IT industry as a whole has a long and well-established history of innovation occurring outside the corporate campus - mobile and embedded is no different. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, individuals and small ISVs are significantly underrepresented in the JCP Java ME space - the ME EC as well as most ME JSRs are dominated by the industry heavyweights. That means the JCP is missing out on the unfiltered feedback, needs, and innovative influence of independent developers which, over the long term, is detrimental the attractiveness of the platform. For example, unwanted fragmentation and inconsistent deployment and security policies have been longstanding trouble spots for independent developers and small ISVs but have now begun to become a significant burden for the entire ecosystem. Ensuring a Voice for Independent Developers As any developer with experience will attest, developing and monetizing mobile and embedded content is hard - harder than it should be. The difficulties are multi-faceted - there is no single and easy fix. But certainly one critical place to increase visibility and drive the issues is the JCP - both in the ME EC and the ME JSRs. Only independent developers can represent themselves and speak up about what needs fixing - thereby improving the entire ecosystem. Bringing an independent voice from the developer community to the ME EC is not a miracle cure - but I am convinced that an individual with passion and experience can act as a catalyst to
Sean Sheedy is someone who cares passionately about these causes. He has been involved in the industry for 20 years both from the corporate perspective as well as an individual developer. Sean has participated in the JCP over the years in multiple functions and he is closely connected with the developer community. And finally, he is a great guy who deserves our support and would serve the developer community well on the ME EC. Please read Sean's election statement here. On a related note, Jean-Marie Dautelle, who was on the EC until now, is not running for the seat anymore this year - so Sean is an excellent replacement to ensure the voice of the independent developer remains a part of the EC. Please support Sean Sheedy - Deadline to Vote is November 17, 2008 The JCP ME EC election is happening now and the voting deadline is November 17, 2008 - so you need to act fast. And don't think your voice as an individual won't count - the JCP does not distinguish between individual votes and corporate votes. So each and every vote makes a difference. Past results show that very clearly. How to vote?
In short: Your vote makes a difference to the Java ME ecosystem. Please participate in the Java ME EC election. Cheers, -- Terrence Java SE 6 update 10 releasedPosted by terrencebarr on October 27, 2008 at 07:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Admittedly, at first sight this has little to do with mobile and embedded Java - but bear with me. Java SE 6 update 10 is big news because it essentially recalibrates the Java runtime and desktop Java. It addresses a number of limitations that have burdened the Java platform over the years and it sports significant improvements that go to the heart of a great developer and consumer experience.Among the benefits are easier installation, better deployment and upgrade mechanisms, much speedier start-up, improved browser and Applet integration, a modern look-and-feel, better overall performance, and more. Some high-level bullets items:
You can read up on the details in this SDN article. Furthermore, Java SE 6 update 10 is the foundation for Java FX (in preview now - get the Preview SDK here) - and Java FX, of course, will come to the wireless and consumer space in 2009. So if you're a wireless developer and you want to start exploring Java FX then this latest Java SE update is your ticket. You can find a round-up of articles and blogs about the Java SE 6 update 10 release in the planetarium. Download and installation is easy and takes only a few minutes. Cheers, -- Terrence Meet me at Øredev, Malmö, November 17-21Posted by terrencebarr on October 15, 2008 at 08:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
We at Sun will have three speakers attending and presenting a total of five talks:
Should be a lot of fun - I'm looking forward to it. Hope to see you there! -- TerrenceGoodbye WTK, hello Java ME SDK!Posted by terrencebarr on October 13, 2008 at 09:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)
For years the Sun Java Wireless Toolkit for CLDC (WTK) has been the reference tool for developing mobile applications and emulating mobile platforms on the desktop. Among it's strengths was that it was compact, easy-to-use, came with a number of built-in useful tools such as memory monitoring and profiling, and most importantly, it featured a complete and up-to-date range of implementations of pretty much all finalized optional JSRs including full-set MSA (Mobile Services Architecture). However, it also suffered from a few weaknesses. Its internal architecture had grown complex over the years and it was hard to add entirely new functionality or port the WTK to different desktop platforms such as Linux, Solaris, and Mac OS. Also, WTK originally focused MIDP/CLDC development and so coders wanting to develop for other platforms such as CDC or Blu-ray had to use a different tool (the Sun Java Toolkit for CDC). Finally, the underlying Java ME emulation was based on the old KVM stack which was not designed to be high-performance and which also was not true to actual device implementations. So it was time for a radical update. Say goodbye to WTK and hello to the Java ME SDK! The Java ME SDK is now available as an Early Access version for Windows XP and Vista (Linux and Mac users ... don't fret - stay tuned). The Java ME SDK is a complete redesign with all the goodness that made WTK so popular but with a new architecture underneath and a host of new features. Some highlights:
What does this mean for developers? The Java ME SDK is a much improved tool all-around. It is based on the very capable Netbeans framework so it is more easily extensible and more portable than before. It incorporates all major Java ME platforms (mass-market mobile phones, smart phones, and Blu-ray) into a single tool. The Java ME emulation is now much accurate as phoneME (and it's commercial counterparts) is used in millions of devices today. The popular Lightweight UI Toolkit (LWUIT) is now pre-integrated into the Java ME SDK as an additional option for rich UI development. There is a bundled Windows Mobile Java ME stack that allows developers to deploy and test directly on Windows Mobile from the comfort of the SDK. And much more. Please download it and try it out. We look forward to including your feedback into the final product. Also, check out Tomas Brandalik's blog for more info. Cheers, -- TerrencePoll: Which GTK device should we port phoneME Advanced to?Posted by terrencebarr on October 06, 2008 at 08:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
The great thing about open source is that it brings the technology provider and the technology consumer closer together ... indeed, in many case they become indistinguishable. Being able to discuss technical details over real code is a huge benefit and improves the feedback loop, accelerates innovation, and creates a sense of joint ownership and responsibility for success of the project. These are major advantages over the traditional model where there is often a "us" vs. "them" relationship between the technology vendor and the customer and where collaboration and shared vision is much harder to achieve. One good example is the phoneME Advanced project which has garnered a strong following and dedicated users and developers - the code is being taken into new directions by community members and there is excellent collaboration going on between all parties. One topic that has been under discussion for a while is GTK support in phoneME - and which particular GTK platform should be chosen. Hinkmond Wong, project owner of phoneME Advanced, has just posted a poll question to solicit the community opinion on the subject. If you're interested in GTK then please vote for your favorite platform here. Best, -- Terrence Mobile, Media & eMbedded Developer Days: Call for Papers closing soonPosted by terrencebarr on September 26, 2008 at 02:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
We've already received a number of excellent submissions but, of course, we're always looking for more content. If you missed last year's conference and want to get a feel for what it's all about be sure to check out my wrap-up blog posting and have a look at our testimonials and pictures. Registration is expected to open in the first week of October and early-bird pricing will be the same as last year - $175. See the conference home page for more info. Cheers, -- Terrence Blu-ray Disc Application Development with Java MEPosted by terrencebarr on September 21, 2008 at 06:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Blu-ray is really beginning to take off and developers are scrambling to figure out how to create cool new content for the Blu-ray platform. Witness the Blu-ray Disc Java forum which is the most popular forum in the Mobile & Embedded Community and has seen an astonishing 45,000 views in the short time of its existence. The Sun Developer Network (SDN) has just published a new article titled "Blu-ray Disc Application Development with Java ME, Part 1: Creating Your First Application" which is an excellent introduction into the world of Blu-ray application development. I encourage you to check it out. Cheers, -- Terrence Developing mobility apps on Mac OS X and SolarisPosted by terrencebarr on September 21, 2008 at 06:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
However, the original architecture and implementation of the WTK was quite OS specific and had a number of hooks into the underlying platform features and so the WTK has been only available for Windows and, lately, for Linux. Developers on Mac OS X (and Solaris, for that matter) were left out in the cold. But due to the numbers and Windows being the vastly predominant platform developers were using it just didn't make sense to create (and support!) a whole new port of WTK to the Mac platform. So what can Mac users do (and I am one myself) to develop mobility apps on OS X? The recommended method currently really is to run Windows (or Linux) in virtualization (via VirtualBox, VMWare Fusion, or Parallels) and then the WTK on top of that virtualized OS. Not exactly elegant but it is generally pretty painless and works very well if your goal is to be productive and just get the job done. However, increasingly, people are also going the route of using Java ME emulators written in Java SE to provide mobility functionality on platforms that otherwise lack WTK support, such as OS X and Solaris. Some examples are mpowerplayer and microemulator. While this approach is not perfect (in particular, Java SE-based emulators tend to lack tight platform integration, some advanced tools such as monitoring, and some of the latest JSRs features) it does allow the Mac OS user to run and develop Java ME applications directly on OS X. Karol Harezlak from the NetBeans team has built a plug-in for microemulator that allows Java ME application development within NetBeans 6 in a fashion similar to the original Mobility plug-in under Windows and Linux. Currently there are still a couple of limitations with this in respect to the microemulator functionality (MIDP CustomItem is not completely implemented and there are a couple of issues with some JSR implementations). But it's a great start and since microemulator is an open source project I expect the community to continue to address the remaining issues over time. Found out more on the NetBeans wiki. Cheers, -- Terrence Student projects in the Mobile & Embedded CommunityPosted by terrencebarr on September 12, 2008 at 09:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)Just a quick note: We are rolling out a number of student projects in the Mobile & Embedded Community. These are great opportunities for students (and educators) who want to get involved with mobile and embedded Java and open source development. Check out our list of projects to see if anything strikes your fancy. Cheers, -- Terrence phoneME performance rocks!Posted by terrencebarr on September 10, 2008 at 07:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
The folks over at BugLabs have been one of the earliest and most serious adopters of phoneME - they are using phoneME as the basis for their core product. Lately, they have done a series of performance tests to compare phoneME with other open source VMs such as Cacao and jamVM. They just published their second round of results after some tuning and turning on the phoneME JIT compiler. As you can see from the graphs phoneME is quite competitive even without the JIT compiler - but with JIT enabled phoneME outperforms its closest competitor by a factor of 1.7x to almost 2x depending on the benchmark. And because the phoneME team has spent years optimizing the VM for small footprint and high performance (not just top speed but also start-up- and interactive performance) the JIT compiler carries a very reasonable overhead in terms of memory budget and optimization time. To witness, here is a blog by the Jalimo team which talks about phoneME running on Maemo and OpenMoko FreeRunner. phoneME starts a "Hello World" application in only 250 ms and a SWT demo application in 4 seconds. Thanks to BugLabs for the great and detailed performance work. And: phoneME rocks! ;-) Cheers, -- Terrence Berlin conferences: Berlin.jar and OSiM WorldPosted by terrencebarr on September 07, 2008 at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)It's been nice and quiet for a couple of weeks - no travel. Now the conference circuit is starting up again and so in a couple of days I will head up to Berlin, Germany for two conferences:
See you there, -- Terrence M&E Community Growth: 180 projects, almost 20,000 activities per month!Posted by terrencebarr on September 05, 2008 at 03:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
I've been wanting to post data on the growth of the M&E Community for some time now ... but somehow I always got distracted trying to pull together the stats. Turns out that compiling meaningful statistics is harder than you think and the web technology sometimes gets in the way, too. But here, finally, are some numbers - and they're loooooking goood. Project and community growth has been pretty stunning (see chart). The community now has over 180 projects (all but a handful are non-Sun) and we've reached a cumulative 220,000 activities since November 2006. Admittedly, the chart looks a bit too perfect ... the historic data I have is spotty so the OpenOffice chart wizzard had do so some smoothing. But, fundamentally, the chart is correct - in particular the data at 08/08 is real and not extrapolated. What are 'cumulative activities'? An activity is any active involvement of a community member or user with the project resources, be it viewing or posting to the forums or mailing lists, accessing the blogs, downloading project resources, updating the bug database, or performing commits to the repository - this includes all projects in the Mobile & Embedded Community. We keep a running sum of the activities so that's why it is cumulative. At the current rate we have close to 20,000 activities per month. How does that break down? About 80% of the activity is forum views or posts and the rest is accessing blogs, downloads, commits, and other activities. That number, by the way, does not include our podcast which is enjoying between 1,500 and 2,500 accesses a month, depending on the topic. So which are the most active projects in the community? phoneME, not surprisingly, is at the top of the list - it actually ranks #7 in the overall java.net project list. The next most active projects in the M&E Community are (not necessarily in any particular order):
Ok, thats it for now. Hope you find the stats useful - I am certainly pleased by them as they show the community has established itself solidly and continues to grow at a nice clip. Cheers, -- Terrence Mobile Distillery training in Bay Area, Sept 16thPosted by terrencebarr on August 31, 2008 at 09:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)Tools-based parametric application development is an interesting and increasingly used approach to broaden the range of target devices and addressable market while lowering development and deployment costs. One of the companies in this space is Mobile Distillery and I am actually currently playing with an eval version of their Celsius tool and Alembic database to get a feel for the product. Mobile Distillery will be at CTIA Wireless in San Francisco during September 10-12th and they are planning a free training session on their products the week after on September 16th - somewhere in the Bay Area (location TBD). So if you're interested in attending make sure to check the Mobile Distillery home page for more information over the next couple of days. Cheers, -- Terrence Get real, ApplePosted by terrencebarr on August 27, 2008 at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)Things aren't going so well for the iPhone and Apple these days. First, it appears that the much-anticipated 2nd generation iPhone (the iPhone 3G) doesn't actually perform that well on 3G networks - many users are reporting that 3G connectivity is frequently very flaky and Apple has been hit with a class action lawsuit. Next, the iPhone doesn't actually seem to be selling that well in many parts of the world - here in Europe I've seen very few of them. And to top off Apples woes it just has been reprimanded by the U.K. Advertising Standards Authority. An Apple TV ad has been claiming that "all parts of the Internet are on the iPhone" ... well, not quite. Java is a major component of the Internet, used on thousands of web sites and available on close to 95% of the world's desktop computers - but not on the iPhone. In their response to the unfair advertising claim Apple tried to hide behind the statement that "... proprietary languages or technologies, such as Flash or Java, were not open source ...". Come on, give me a break! Nice try to slip proprietary Flash into the same sentence along with Java. But we all know that the Java language has been open from its very beginning in 1995 and the Java runtime is open source for nearly two years now. The folks at Apple should know better. So, Apple, get real. If you really want to deliver the whole Internet on the iPhone then Java must be a part of it. By the way, if you think Java is not "cool" enough for the iPhone - check this out. Cheers, -- Terrence Fire Eagle updates from your Java phonePosted by terrencebarr on August 26, 2008 at 07:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
So lately I've started using Yahoo's Fire Eagle which allows me to broadcast my current location to a number of applications and web sites such as my IM client and my blog (this integration is coming soon). The question is: How does one update the position information frequently and conveniently while on the road? Using a mobile phone, of course ... Fire Eagle Mobile Updater is a little Java ME app that automatically queries the phone's GPS via JSR-179 and then sends the location information to Fire Eagle for propagation. Fire Eagle Mobile Updater has been tested on the Nokia N95 but because it is Java ME it should run on most, if not all, JSR-179-enabled devices ... covering a big chunk of the GPS-enabled phone space. A great little example of how useful a pervasive platform such as Java ME can be. Cheers, -- Terrence News summary: JavaFX Preview SDK, new SDN articlesPosted by terrencebarr on August 18, 2008 at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
A couple of news items have piled up over the last few days that I briefly want to bring to your attention:
Cheers, -- Terrence Call for Papers: Mobile and Embedded Developer Days #2Posted by terrencebarr on August 18, 2008 at 06:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)Update:
After the very successful first installment of the Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days in January of this year ... we're doing it all over again! Same format, same location, but expanded topic coverage - now including media as well as a testament to the rapidly growing interest in Java on Blu-ray players, set-tox boxes, and other entertainment-related technologies. So get ready for the
January 21 and 22, 2009
in the Auditorium of the Sun Microsystems Campus
Santa Clara, CA, USA The Call for Papers has gone out and closes September 30, 2008. So put on your thinking caps, get creative, and send us your ideas for technical sessions, lightning talks, poster presentations, and panel sessions around Java, Java ME, and open source aspects of Java. If you want to get a taste of the previous event check out our testimonials. For more details, see Roger Brinkley's blog. Cheers, -- Terrence Comparing LWUIT and JavaFX MobilePosted by terrencebarr on August 17, 2008 at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)Update:
Open sourcing LWUIT last week has created a lot of buzz - the response has been phenomenally positive. We've also gotten a few questions regarding the relationship of LWUIT and the upcoming JavaFX Mobile platform - there still seems to be a bit of confusion here. So I thought it would be useful to devote a "FAQ" blog entry to this topic. FAQ: LWUIT vs. JavaFX Mobile 1. What is LWUIT? LWUIT (Lightweight UI Toolkit) is a UI toolkit library for Java ME. LWUIT is aimed at current Java MIDP and Swing developers who are looking to enhance the interfaces of new or existing Java ME applications on MIDP 2.0 devices. LWUIT offers pre-made graphical functions and features that developers can quickly and easily assemble into a compelling interface. LWUIT allows developers to worry less about the building blocks and instead focus on a consistent and richer interface across phones. As a binary library that developers simply deploy together with their applications LWUIT works on the vast majority of today's mobile phones and platforms supporting MIDP 2 (including Windows Mobile as described here) as well as MSA devices going forward. In short, LWUIT is the solution for building attractive and engaging applications on mass-market devices today. 2. What is JavaFX Mobile? JavaFX Mobile is a Java ME platform with the JavaFX runtime (including JavaFX Script) on top of it. JavaFX Mobile is targeted at developers, designers, and scripters who are looking to create very rich, very immersive experiences across the "screens of your life" (phone, desktop, TV, etc.). The amount of interactivity, animation, and control over the user's screen brings a new level of functionality to devices. Java FX Mobile requires MSA-enabled platforms which comprise the small but growing higher end of the mobile space - smart phones and high end feature phones. JavaFX uses JavaFX Script, a declarative statically typed scripting language that allows people to build out interfaces by describing the functionality that they want to see, instead of building it from the ground up. This lets them think creatively and be creative. JavaFX includes scalable fonts, 2D graphics, rich animations, integrated audio and video, and as noted, you can build apps that will run across all the screens of your life. In addition, with JavaFX, you can use design tools like Photoshop and Illustrator to build out graphical elements and even entire interfaces that you can directly build into and manipulate within JavaFX. This lets the designers and developers work much more closely and efficiently together. In short, JavaFX Mobile is the next quantum leap for the mobile Java platform - coming to devices in 2009. 3. When do I want to choose LWUIT over JavaFX Mobile or vice versa? LWUIT focuses on improving the UI experience on today's mass-market phones. If you have an existing MIDP application that you would like to spruce up or you need to create an attractive new application targeted for todays MIDP 2 and MSA devices then LWUIT is your ticket. If you're looking to the future and you want the dynamic capabilities and ease of development of the JavaFX Script language as well as immersive media and graphics then JavaFX Mobile is what you'll want. The JavaFX Preview SDK is available now so you can start experimenting with FX Script today and get ready for when JavaFX Mobile becomes available. 4. Does LWUIT compete with JavaFX Mobile? No. Superficially, there are some similarities as both of these products address a better and more compelling user interface for mobile and other devices. But it should be clear from the above that there's really two target audiences and device profiles that are being addressed. Furthermore, since LWUIT will continue to run on MSA-compliant platforms (MIDP 2 is a required component of MSA) LWUIT will not be obsolete when JavaFX Mobile becomes available. In short, having both options available makes the life of developers easier because they can choose the model that fits their requirements best and create compelling content for Java ME today and the future. Hope that clears it up. Cheers, -- Terrence LWUIT released as open source!Posted by terrencebarr on August 14, 2008 at 07:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)
Note : For an overview and a FAQ on LWUIT see this older post.Dear Community, Sun introduced the Lightweight UI Toolkit (LWUIT) to the developer community at JavaOne this year. We made available at that time a prerelease binary library, additional tools, and extensive documentation so that developers could get started with LWUIT right away. We also announced our intent to open source the LWUIT technology by summer. It's been three months since JavaOne and the success of LWUIT has surpassed our wildest expectations. The LWUIT project has seen an explosion of activity, and blogs and articles around the web have given LWUIT enthusiastic reviews. Meanwhile, the owners and architects (Shai Almog and Chen Fishbein) of the LWUIT project have been busy answering questions, providing help, and releasing two code updates with significant improvements, including community feedback and bug fixes. As a result many mobile developers including major commercial companies have already committed to using LWUIT for their upcoming projects. Clearly, LWUIT has struck a nerve. This success reinforces Sun's belief that LWUIT is really much more than a set of pretty UI widgets - it is a core technology that enables the community to take Java ME to the next level. Its real strength is in providing a rich framework that developers can easily build upon, optimize, collaborate around, and then deploy on billions of devices. In this way LWUIT is becoming a unifying UI layer that allows developers to focus on creating compelling user interfaces and ultimately delivering new and engaging applications across a wide range of platforms. And to further accelerate the adoption of the LWUIT framework it is important to provide access to the source code under a liberal and well-known open source license. So today Sun is announcing the release and immediate availability of the complete source code of the LWUIT framework under the GPLv2 license with the Classpath Exception. This license choice provides the benefits of open source innovation and collaborative development while offering a risk-free path to adoption by commercial products - a model everybody should feel very comfortable with. It's been a very busy couple of months for the LWUIT community, the project team, and the folks at Sun behind the scenes - the hard work is paying off and all indications are that LWUIT has a very bright future. So please join me in congratulating everyone involved. Please check out the updates and latest information on the LWUIT home page, the LWUIT blog, and of course the open source repository. Way to go Shai and Chen! Cheers, -- Terrence Back from vacation ... stay tuned for big news tomorrow!Posted by terrencebarr on August 13, 2008 at 04:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)I just got back from vacation ... a quiet and relaxing two weeks in a cottage in Sweden by the Baltic Sea, with our own beach and boat. Loved it! No email, no meetings, just kicking back and relaxing. On the downside I had almost 2000 emails in my inbox on return. Sigh - I guess work always catches up with you sooner or later ;-) But enough about that. We're busy putting the finishing touches on some exciting news for tomorrow (Thursday) - stay tuned! Cheers, -- Terrence Just released! phoneME Feature MR3Posted by terrencebarr on July 25, 2008 at 01:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
We're excited to announce the new milestone release 3 (MR3) of the phoneME Feature project. As you know phoneME Feature is a live code base which is being continuously evolved by the efforts of community members as well as Sun's engineering teams. It forms the basis of Sun's commercial product known as the Sun Java Wireless Client 2.1. Much work has gone into the code base over the last year. phoneME Feature MR3 builds on phoneME Feature MR2 by adding new capabilities as outlined in the feature list below. These include new JSRs, enhanced multimedia support, removal of audio encumbrances, improved support for the JavaCall porting layer, and much more. Feature List The following features are part of the phoneME Feature MR3 release:
Supported Platforms The phoneME Feature MR3 software is supported on the Windows x86 platform (emulation mode). MR3 also supports building on Linux for the ARM target platform. However, because embedded platforms such as Linux on ARM tend to be very specific, phoneME MR3 has been ported to the P2SAMPLE64-V6 board as an example for an ARM platform. It does not constitute a full-featured and fully-qualified port but is meant to serve as starting point for Linux on ARM platforms in general. For more information on building for this Linux on ARM platform, see the Sun Java Wireless Client Software Build Guide. Closer Integration with Sun Java Wireless Toolkit (WTK) Going forward, the Sun Java Wireless Toolkit (WTK) and phoneME Feature will be more tightly integrated for the purpose of providing emulation environments on desktop platforms. This is to increase consistency between the emulation and the real device stack represented by phoneME, as well as to allow the phoneME software to leverage emulation features already supported by WTK on the desktop. phoneME Feature MR3 is an important step in this direction, as MR3 on Windows x86 now leverages components from the WTK for integration with the Win32 runtime (graphics, sound, keyboard, networking, etc). As such, an existing WTK installation is now required to run phoneME Feature MR3 on Windows x86. Of course, WTK is not required for running phoneME Feature on embedded or mobile platforms. More Information
We hope you will find the new features exciting and useful and, as always, we look forward to active community participation as this development effort proceeds. Best regards, The phoneME Feature team Symbian and open source: Who's going to show up?Posted by terrencebarr on July 22, 2008 at 08:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
There has been quite a lot of press around Nokia's announcement to buy Symbian, unify S60, UIQ, and MOAB, and open source the platform within two years. This move highlights a number of important things such as the intensifying battle for supremacy in the mobile platform space but also the acknowledgement that the open source model has firmly arrived in the mobile space, even for traditionally closed and proprietary platform vendors. However, for me one of the more interesting topics is just how Nokia will approach this massive open source undertaking and, even more importantly, expand their developer base. Nokia, of course, has been involved in a number of open source projects over the last few years (most notably, maemo) but as a company they are clearly still grappling to adjust to the open source mindset. So it will be interesting to see how Nokia and their partners handle this transition and manage to create a vibrant and active community around the code that goes beyond their traditional corporate developers. Here is an eye-catching quote from an interview with Janne Jalkanen from Nokia: "Pretty much the only community around S60 is the community we pay to be there ..." I encourage you to read the interview. Not only does it provide some interesting insights into the existing Symbian technology and ecosystem but it highlights some key issues commercial companies are having when moving to open source and how they are struggling to find the right model and get traction and adoption by developers ... which, at the end of the day, is what open source is all about. Cheers, -- Terrence A bit off-topic: "We're Not *Resources*"Posted by terrencebarr on July 20, 2008 at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)This is a bit off-topic but it struck a chord with me. Mark Turansky posted an article on JavaLobby a few days ago which analyses the thinking that creeps into the planning process when you term software developers as "resources" - as arbitrarily exchangeable quantities in the process of developing and delivering software projects. In the age of globalization with its in-, out-, and cross-sourcing beyond time zones and country borders it is easy to think of developers as "raw material" that you can apply to your manufacturing process like conveyor belts or assembly robots. But software engineering is arguably one of the most complex things humans are capable of doing. So in todays increasingly complex world with rapidly evolving requirements in terms of security, reliability, usability, and efficiency you need experts with deep and well as broad skill sets coupled with experience and the personality to match to be able to build software systems that deliver. True, the law of ever-increasing productivity that has served us well for thousands of years doesn't stop at software engineering. Drag-and-drop design, high-level abstractions and interfaces, middleware, scripting, code generation, and similar technologies spare us the grunt work and now some of that work which previously required experts can potentially be offloaded to less skilled "resources". But at the same time the leading edge keeps moving forward creating new technologies and complexities that require expertise and the right balance of skills to understand, evaluate, and put into production use. The opportunity for complexity and specialization in the software industry appears limitless as far as I can see (for better or worse). Anyone who clubs this fact into submission by using arbitrary "resources" and fixed durations in a project planning tool is setting themselves up for failure. As if the world hasn't seen enough disastrous IT projects yet ... Find the article here. Cheers, -- Terrence Android - Lost in space?Posted by terrencebarr on July 10, 2008 at 05:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)On my various trips and presentations around the world I often get asked to comment on Google's Android effort. I've blogged about Android before and mostly what I said then still holds true now. But a couple of things I think have become more apparent since then - in particular that Google seems to have approached the matter with a certain amount of naiveté. We still don't actually know very much about Android. The software stack is late and still being reworked in fundamental ways. Devices are delayed. Partners are not signing on in droves. The business model is unclear. The open source and developer communities are largely still in the dark about the plans. All the while the rest of the industry is not standing still: Google finds itself playing catch-up in mobile-phone code race. I still applaud Google for the effort - the mobile industry is in the midst of a major shift and Android is an embodiment of that shift. But like Microsoft and many other dominant players before, Google is finding out that the rules you've learned in rising to the top of your particular game don't necessarily apply to that shiny new business you've set your sights on. The lessons we've come to appreciate in the desktop space mostly don't work in the mobile industry - for technical and business reasons. But there is one critical similarity between the desktop and the mobile space. True growth and market opportunities require economies of scale. Economies of scale require ubiquity of consistent platforms and open access. The desktop space finally reached the point of lift-off with the standardization on the X86 hardware platform coupled with the emergence of a small set of operating systems that provided a consistent and (fairly) open programming model (Windows and GNU/Linux). And a big open pipe to the Internet turned on the afterburner. The mobile space is still struggling on all of these fronts. And whether Google's approach is actually helping the matter is a an excellent point of discussion. Curious to hear your thoughts. Cheers, -- Terrence Using LWUIT? Let us know!Posted by terrencebarr on July 08, 2008 at 05:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Now that LWUIT is finding its way into devices big time we're looking to build a database of devices that have been tested with LWUIT as well as cool applications that have been built with LWUIT. So whether you're using LWUIT already or you're curious how LWUIT runs on you devices ... let us know! Cheers, -- Terrence Lots of activity in the phoneME Advanced projectPosted by terrencebarr on July 07, 2008 at 04:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Several folks are really getting into the details now, discussing the possibilities and the pros and cons of porting strategies. This thread has had over 3300 views in less than four weeks.
Getting Java ME to the N800 has been a long-standing topic for the community. Lately, there has been new activity in moving this along. Check out this thread.
Several community members have nailed bugs and even provide fixes for them. Two examples: In this thread community member Mike found a problem in the Qt-related image handling and provided a fix as well. And in this thread community member Jason found a regression that was promptly fixed by the phoneME Advanced team.
Bluecove is popular open source project that brings Bluetooth functionality to a number of platforms. So community members want to make it work on phoneME Advanced as well. One of our community stars, Davy Preuveneers, has spent some time investigating what it would take. See this thread for more info. An active and vibrant community is what it is all about. Thanks, folks!Cheers, -- Terrence Call for nominations: Mobile & Embedded Governance BoardPosted by terrencebarr on June 30, 2008 at 07:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
The main purpose of Governance Board of the Java Mobile & Embedded Community (quote) "is to maintain the health and communication channels within the community while supporting its goals, nourishing its growth, overseeing all the affairs of the community, and facilitating the alignment with the community's established principles and objectives." That is why we are delighted that C. Enrique Ortiz has already accepted our offer to join the Governance Board as the Sun appointed member - he's an experienced, respected, and judicious mobility expert. So now, according to the bylaws of the community, that leaves two more seats to be filled per election by nominees from the community. So, effective immediately we are opening the call for nominations for these two board seats. We are looking forward to get a number of good candidates from across the industry to step up to the plate and help drive Java ME and the Mobile & Embedded Community forward in the spirit of openness, participation, and innovation. See Roger Brinkley's blog for more information. -- Terrence BugLabs wins CES "Best Of Show"Posted by terrencebarr on June 25, 2008 at 03:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
I apologize for being late with this news - after all, CES happened in January - but I just heard about the award a few weeks ago. I think it is a great endorsement of the powerful force that open innovation based on open source, open hardware, and open standards has become. BUG is the perfect example of what happens when standards and software become open and accessible and people go off and start building stuff without having to sign NDAs, pour over license agreements, or buy expensive tools and software: Imagination and innovation takes over! What a brilliant concept ;-) Of course, if you dig a little deeper, you'll find that the BUG architecture is based on Java and phoneME - now, it would be nice to get some mention in the award announcement ... but I guess that is just a little too geeky for a consumer electronics audience ;-) Belated congratulations to BugLabs! (and a pat on the back for the phoneME community ...) -- Terrence VC's vs. Carriers: Wake-Up CallPosted by terrencebarr on June 15, 2008 at 03:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
In their latest newsletter the Wireless Industry Partnership (WIP) reports that they are coming across a very strong message reinforced by personal conversations and developer feedback: Bay area VCs won't invest where carriers are indicated as the major business or revenue model. Think about this for a moment. We're talking about an industry that increasingly relies on 3rd party developers to maintain a constant stream of innovative ideas and applications coupled with new and interesting business models. After all, the future of the consumer space, by all accounts, is ubiquitous access to a mesh of user-generated content - on mobile, entertainment devices, and desktop - with and without wires. (Note, by the way, that mobile is just a part of that - carriers in this scenario are no longer at the center of the universe - what does that mean for their ability to dictate terms?) This 3rd party innovation is, to a big extent, represented by the companies funded by venture capitalists. It is the kind of stuff carriers desperately need to attract to their platforms in order to remain relevant. Yet VC's have obviously found it so painful to come to mutually acceptable business terms with carriers that they have given up and are now looking for ways to work around them. Not that the difficulty in working with carriers is anything new - this is a long-time complaint from small and mid-size developers (in particular, the use of API permissions to enforce particular business terms) - but now it is finally making headlines and the ripple effects are being felt to the very front of the food chain. I'll chalk it up to this being yet another warning sign to the carriers that they need to come to terms with the fact that sand is shifting out from underneath them - see also my JavaOne presentation on the topic: "Flooring the Accelerator: How Open Source is Reshaping an Industry". By the way, I'd like to stress that WIP is a great resource for wireless developers and Caroline Lewko, who is a main driver behind WIP, is doing a fantastic job in taking the pulse of the industry and is extremely well connected. I highly recommend you check them out and subscribe to their monthly newsletter (scroll to to bottom of the front page). Caroline is also present at many industry events so that is always a good chance to meet up with her and find out what WIP is all about. Cheers, -- Terrence Bringing Java back to life on Palm - Sign up now!Posted by terrencebarr on June 10, 2008 at 04:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Later, Palm's software division - after being bought and sold several times - partnered with IBM to provide a downloadable Java ME stack to Palm OS 4 and 5. That stack supported CLDC/MIDP and some optional JSRs but the quality and performance was spotty and the code appeared to get little or no maintenance. As of January 12, 2008, Palm has ceased to support Java altogether - which I guess makes sense for a company which has trouble even figuring out its own OS story. Anyway, despite all of Palm's OS troubles there remains lots of interest in up-to-date Java support for that platform - primarily due to the still very popular Treo devices. Looks like it's time to start thinking seriously about a community effort to create a Palm OS port of phoneME! So Hinkmond Wong (blog), project owner of phoneME Advanced, has issued a 'Call for volunteers'. For someone with experience building Palm OS apps and with support of the community phoneME experts it shouldn't be very hard to get the basics running. And you'll learn a lot on the way. As an added bonus once MIDP is up you can actually develop really slick Java desktop-like applications using LWUIT. Sounds like a fun project. Reply to the thread to sign up for it! -- Terrence Next stops: Open Nordic and JazoonPosted by terrencebarr on June 09, 2008 at 03:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
After a bit of a break from the conference circuit I am getting on the road again for two conferences coming up over the next 14 days: Open Nordic near Oslo, Norway and Jazoon in Zurich, Switzerland. I was invited to Open Nordic by Telenor which we have been working with in the Mobile & Embedded Community for some time now (among other things, Telenor is the owner of the iLabs Mobile Toolbox project). I am really looking forward to meeting the players in the northern European open source and mobile community. I will be talking about "The Future of Java on Mobile Phones". You can find the conference program here. Next, it's off to Jazoon - a short trip to Zurich. This is my second appearance at Jazoon and I will be talking about the "Radical SVG GUI Makeover" but with a a new section on LWUIT. The Jazoon program is here. Cheers, -- Terrence Contributor and Community Star: Meet Davy PreuveneersPosted by terrencebarr on June 02, 2008 at 05:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Meet our latest Java Mobile & Embedded Community Star and code contributor: Davy Preuveneers. Davy has been involved with phoneME Advanced pretty much from the start - he supplied early patches to the code base back in 2007 to get phoneME to run on Windows CE. Since then he has continued to be involved by signing the Sun Contributor Agreement and making important contributions to phoneME Advanced. He is currently working with Hinkmond Wong, the phoneME Advanced project owner, and several other Sun engineers on reviewing and integrating his latest patches. The code review follows the process outlined in the Community Participation Handbook and the latest code review discussions can be found on the phoneME Advanced forums. We're delighted to have folks like Davy in our community and I hope Davy's example demonstrates that the Mobile & Embedded Community is an active and welcoming place that encourages your participation. Got an idea? A bug that bugs you? Some cool technology you want to show to the world? Please let us know! And, of course, we love to hear your feedback. What's good, what's not, where do you need help? Post a comment or email us at the addresses on the home page. Cheers, -- Terrence JavaOne sessions now posted onlinePosted by terrencebarr on May 30, 2008 at 03:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)As in the last years many of the 2008 JavaOne sessions and hands-on labs are being posted online at SDN so you can catch up with or revisit sessions. They are freely accessible even if without a JavaOne registration. -- Terrence Be sure to listen to "Live from JavaOne 2008" podcastPosted by terrencebarr on May 09, 2008 at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)Daniel Steinberg created an excellent podcast that captures all the important demos and products on the JavaOne pavilion floor related to mobile and embedded Java. Check out "Java Mobility Podcast 45: Live from JavaOne 2008" - highly recommended. -- Terrence Nice to meet you!Posted by terrencebarr on May 09, 2008 at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
One of the really great aspects of my job as community ambassador is that I get to interact with many talented folks around the globe and get to see a lot of cool stuff people are doing in the mobile and embedded space. Often, I am involved with folks electronically over months, working on projects, pulling together information, establishing connections - so I know them quite well before ever meeting them in person. And at events like JavaOne I then finally do get a chance to meet them face to face - an opportunity which I really appreciate. Even with all the non-stop electronic communication of today's world the personal touch is as important as ever. Nothing can replace a handshake and a few minutes of one-to-one conversation to establish a relationship. Brazilians Bruno Ghisi, Lucas Torri, and Alexandre Gomes have been very active members of the Mobile & Embedded Community pretty much from the start ... and they all made it to JavaOne this year. These guys are smart, crazy, and have a couple of good tricks up their sleeve ;-) I'm looking forward to seeing the results of some of the projects they are currently working on! The picture shows us at the Thirsty Bear open source unBOF on Tuesday night. Left to right and top to bottom: Ken Gilmer (BugLabs), myself, Onno Kluyt (Sun, Senior Director of Communities and Standards), Roger Brinkley (M&E community leader), Lucas, Bruno, and Alexandre. Guys, enjoy the rest of your stay in San Francisco and see you online soon, -- Terrence LWUIT released at JavaOnePosted by terrencebarr on May 07, 2008 at 03:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)
The Lightweight UI Toolkit was officially announced to the developer community during yesterday's JavaOne mobility keynote by Jeet Kaul (video and audio archive). An early access binary release of the LWUIT library is available immediately and the full source code will be available by summer of this year. LWUIT is a project on java.net and can be found here. It features screen shots, a LWUIT demo application, the early access binary download, a LWUIT tutorial, developer guide, and the API javadocs. You can start using LWUIT right away simply by adding the library to your application. I am personally very excited about LWUIT as it offers a great new option for vastly improved rich UI development and deployment for today's mass-market devices. I have spoken to a number of developers here at JavaOne and they are all eager to try it out and see lots of potential. And once LWUIT is be available for CDC/PBP (in the near future) this finally gives the CDC platform a good option for GUI development that it has been lacking up to now. What's more, the open source model using GPLv2 + classpath exception enables wide adoption and allows developers to port and customize LWUIT to many platforms that have previously been underserved in the UI area. And finally, the forthcoming NetBeans Matisse support for LWUIT will take drag-and-drop UI creation for mobile and embedded platforms to a new level. So, please check out the LWUIT project. More information and sample code will be coming soon. -- Terrence My talks at JavaOne 2008Posted by terrencebarr on April 26, 2008 at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Well, we're into to the final preparations for next week. Besides being present at the Java Mobile & Embedded Community booths at CommunityOne and JavaOne I'm also involved in three talks this year:
This one is a bit unusual. It is not so much a technical talk but a mix of market analysis, business models, and social behavior. It stems for a couple of discussions I had over the last few months which centered around the true underlying effects of open source and open technologies and how they affect the workings of the wireless industry. I am not claiming this to be a complete and final analysis ... more along the lines of "food for thought". And I'm going to have to deviate a bit from the abstract: I won't be diving into many actual examples and open source projects - there is just not enough time in 50 minutes. Instead I will try to extract some underlying patterns and drivers for the current shift in the wireless industry. Should be interesting. This BOF is based on a lightning talk Sean Sheedy and I did a couple of months back at our Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days conference. The background is explained in this blog post. While there hasn't been much visible progress on the issue there have been a bunch of preparatory discussions in the background. We are now looking to present the idea to a broader audience and get feedback and find collaborators. Sean and I hope to see you on Tuesday evening.
This talk is based on the "SVG GUI Makeover" in the ME Application Developers project. This has been a very popular talk lately at various events such as Sun Tech Days. I've updated the talk and the code for JavaOne so if you are interested in building cool applications with rich UIs and graphics, scalable vector graphics, and Ajax technology you don't want to miss this session. Oh, and be sure to check out the "Your Mobile and Embedded guide to JavaOne 2008". See you next week! -- Terrence Coming soon: Swing for mobile Java, but betterPosted by terrencebarr on April 26, 2008 at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)
Updates
Welcome LWUIT (Lightweight UI Toolkit)! For years, Java ME developers have faced difficult choices when it comes to application UIs. Because of the multitude of platform and device features and differences there was really no common UI story - there is MIDP for CLDC and AWT for CDC, APIs like JSR 226 (SVG) and JSR 209 (AGUI), and finally a number of 3rd party toolkits such as J2ME Polish. Now, it is definitely possible to develop very slick user interfaces based on some of this technology - but every approach has its limitations and downsides. In particular, what ends up happening is that developers and/or toolkit suppliers end up reinventing the wheel by creating a lot of common functionality over and over again - things like component models, rendering and font engines, layout managers, animations and transition effects, etc. APIs such as JSR 226 (SVG) and 209 (AGUI) are necessary in providing this functionality going forward but, as standards go, they are slow to spread into the device base and don't help developers address a large part of today's market. Over the last two years Sun has worked on some internal projects that required rich applications UIs running on todays mid-range mass-market devices - platforms where forthcoming standards are not yet available. After investigating the options Sun decided to build a rich UI toolkit internally for that purpose. Over the last couple of months we've been showing the results to select partners and developers and the response has been extremely positive. Because we believe this toolkit is of significant value to the developer community at large Sun has decided to make it available as open source in the Java Mobile & Embedded Community to encourage use, feedback, and involvement by the community. What is it? LWUIT (the current project name - it may still change) is a library that developers simply bundle with their application. It is inspired by Swing and provides a rich, compelling, and consistent UI across a wide range of todays mass-market devices. It sits on top of MIDP 2.0 and implements a peer-less graphics and UI model in a compact package with small footprint and moderate performance requirements. Because it is simply a library that developers bundle with their application the deployment is familiar and easy and improvements to the library can be easily made available to the application by simply upgrading the library. Update: LWUIT will also be available on other platforms such as CDC/FP/PBP. This means applications written to LWUIT will run on multiple platforms easily - meaning dramatically increased portability for developers. LWUIT Key features:
What does it look like? A look at the screen shots (from left to right):
What license will be used? A key goal is broad adoption of LWUIT. We want to make it easy for developers to use and improve LWUIT and we are looking at liberal and well-known open source license choices. Details to be announced. When and where will it be available? LWUIT will be placed into the ME Application Developers Project in the Java Mobile & Embedded Community. We aim to release it very shortly - first as an early access binary and shortly thereafter as full source. More details to be announced. Update: LWUIT is a key part of Sprint's new WTK 3.3 toolchain - to be released very shortly. This means developers using the Sprint tools will have LWUIT as a preinstalled option in the toolchain, including documentation and support by Sprint. For more information see the Sprint Application Developer program news. Where can I learn more about LWUIT? LWUIT will be announced at JavaOne next week in Jeet Kaul's Mobility General session on Tuesday at 3:20 pm. Also, a technical session was added last minute to the schedule:
Finally, we will be demoing LWUIT on devices in several Sun booths such as the Java Mobile & Embedded Community booth in the Mobility Village. FAQ:
Key design goals for LWUIT were to enable rich and compelling applications on todays targets mass-market phones combined with the familiarity of existing APIs (AGUI and Swing), ease of deployment, and a liberal open source license. We felt that LWUIT was unique and compelling enough to make it available to the general developer community. We are looking forward to your feedback and involvement.
Cheers, -- Terrence A new title - an updated focusPosted by terrencebarr on April 24, 2008 at 07:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)You may have noticed the change of my job title up in the bio of this blog. Evangelist just didn't fit my job anymore - so it was time for a change. When we started the Java Mobile & Embedded Community in November of 2006 evangelism was the order of the day. Evangelism of Java ME, of the open source code, of the Java Mobile & Embedded Community. After that initial ramp-up and the first 12 months or so things were running fairly smoothly and I think it is fair to say that the community and open source Java ME were pretty well established. Since then I've been realizing that this job has become much more multi-faceted than just evangelism and promotional activities. It has grown and expanded to engaging and interacting with the developer community, maintaining and increasing a healthy community relationship, providing technical guidance and advice, reaching out to other communities, and feeding input back into Sun and the industry. These activities and goals became the driving force behind the position and I was enjoying that much more than simply being a megaphone for open source Java ME. Plus, outside of the United States the term "Evangelist" always needed a lot of explaining ... So, there you have it. Out with the old, in with the new. Yours truly, Terrence Senior Technologist and Community Ambassador Alive and kickin': Java on Windows MobilePosted by terrencebarr on April 23, 2008 at 05:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (22)
Recently on the Java Champions alias some people were surprised to learn that Java has been available on WIndows Mobile for some time now. Obviously we aren't publicizing that fact enough ;-) so here we go: The phoneME Advanced project open source repository contains a Java SE 1.4.2-compatible stack running on Windows Mobile. To be precise, it is CDC 1.1.1/FP 1.1.1/PBP 1.1.2/PP 1.1.2 which is the equivalent of Java SE 1.4.2 - including AWT and Applet support. This has been available for some time now (see MR2 announcement) and is being actively developed and improved. The screen shot shows JBenchmark2 running on phoneME Advanced on Windows Mobile 5. What are people doing with it? Well, Java DB/Apache Derby runs well on phoneME Advanced and Hinkmond Wong, project lead of phoneME Advanced, spoke about it in a podcast last year. But not only can you run Java SE apps on this stack, you also have access to many of the optional Java ME JSRs, such as MIDP, PIM, SVG, and others. So you can also run many off-the-shelf Java ME apps on Windows Mobile. And, of course, because the code is open sourced under GPLv2 and fully available and buildable from the open source repository you can play with it yourself. In fact, I've been talking about just that at Sun Tech Days and other events for a while (access my presentation here). Or download the binaries and install and run them right away. And, as usual, check the phoneME forums for more information and to ask questions. I hope that clears it up. Java on Windows Mobile is alive and kickin' Cheers, -- Terrence Your Mobile and Embedded guide to JavaOne 2008Posted by terrencebarr on April 18, 2008 at 03:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Updates:
It's that time of year again ... JavaOne (and CommunityOne)! As always, there is lots of good technical content (in fact, like every year, too much to digest in just a few days) ... and, as last year, I've tried to put together a little guide to help you capture all the things going on at JavaOne and CommunityOne related to mobile and embedded Java. This year, however, I'm trying something a little different: Instead of compiling all the info in a blog I've instead created a wiki page in the Java Mobile & Embedded Community. This way, not only is the formatting and layout a bit easier to accomplish, but now you and the rest of the community can update the wiki with last-minute information, additions, and corrections (I'll try my best to keep it up-to-date but multiple pairs of eyes certainly works better). So, here is the current version of Your Mobile and Embedded Guide to JavaOne 2008 It's not complete yet and some events are being worked on as we speak. But I think this should provide you enough to get your planning started. And be sure to check it frequently for updates over the next two weeks! And finally, once you've found interesting sessions remember to reserve your seat with the JavaOne Schedule Builder. Enjoy JavaOne 2008. See you there! -- Terrence
News roundupPosted by terrencebarr on April 17, 2008 at 03:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
That's all for today's news roundup. Please stay tuned for the "Mobile and Embedded Guide to JavaOne" that I will publish within a few days - and I hope you will find it useful to plan your JavaOne visit. Cheers, -- Terrence Java on iPhone: "Hello world" x2Posted by terrencebarr on April 14, 2008 at 01:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Over the last few weeks there has been a lot of noise regarding whether or not Java will be on the iPhone. Well, actually, it already is - at least the VM and the basic libraries. JamVM has been running on the iPhone for a while now. And now the phoneME Advanced team has spent some cycles to port that stack as well - see Hinkmond Wong's blog. Things never get boring around here, do they ;-) -- Terrence Join me next week at OSiM San Francisco, March 11 & 12Posted by terrencebarr on March 02, 2008 at 01:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
After just returning from India a few days ago I'm off to the next conference, the Open Source in Mobile conference in San Francisco next week on Tuesday and Wednesday. Last year's conference in Barcelona, Spain was noteworthy for its high-value attendees including many CEOs, CTOs, founders, and VPs from around the industry. On the downside the admission was kind of pricey. This year OSiM is trying something new. The second day (Wednesday) is now called "Developer Stream" and is available for a pretty reasonable price of $249. On that day I will be doing a talk on "Open Source Java and its Impact upon the Mobile Industry" and I put together a brand-new presentation for that ... I hope I can share some interesting insights. I will also participate in a panel discussion by the title of "Taking Web 2.0 Technology to the Mobile Device". I will try to blog about my thoughts on this early next week before the conference. Hope to see you there. For the full agenda, see the conference home page. Cheers, -- Terrence Databases for Java ME, follow up: Check out the new ProScout sample appPosted by terrencebarr on March 02, 2008 at 05:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Over the last couple of weeks I have been working with the folks from McObject on this. And I am happy to announce that our new "Perst Lite" project is now live in the community. This section features information, references, and pointers about Perst Lite and includes a sample application called "ProScout" (with full source code) which is also featured on the front page of the ME Application Developers project. The timing is very appropriate. I just returned from the Tech Days in Hyderabad, India and there was a lot of interest from developers there in technologies and best practices that help bring enterprise data to mobile devices. And once you pull down the data via web services then local caching and persistence is an essential part of the story. Working together with partners such as McObject gives developers more immediate access to information, more options, and helps them to develop betters applications faster. Thanks! A few years ago who would have thought we'd have object-oriented persistence on mass-market phones? Clearly, Java ME is growing up. Cheers, -- Terrence Report from BarcelonaPosted by terrencebarr on February 20, 2008 at 01:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
I did a brief trip to Barcelona, Spain, last week to attend a couple of events: 1. Mobile World Congress (MWC) Considering I was only there for a little more than 48 hours that is probably a packed agenda ;-) Mobile World Congress I'm a bit torn about MWC. My distinct impression is that it is too large for it's own good. With almost 60,000 (!) attendees there were lines everywhere, the halls and walkways were crowded, and on the first day there was a multi-hour wait to pick up your badge. And it's expensive too, ranging from Euro 599 for an exhibit pass all the way to around Euro 3500 for a full conference pass. I had only an exhibit pass so I can't judge the value of the conference portion but charging that kind of money for access to exhibits is kind of ridiculous considering it's really just a PR event and advertising for the participating companies. Ouch! And on top of that I found the selection of exhibitors to be fairly indiscriminate and unfocused - I saw quite a few products and companies that were only very loosely, if at all, relevant to the mobile space. So with all those booths crammed into the halls, the crowds, and the sheer size of it was impossible to wander around to try and to get an impression of the latest developments and products - but that's what exhibits are for, right? Another letdown, as far as I can tell, was that MWC this year was lacking any significant announcements or industry news, except maybe for this head-scratcher by AOL. Overall, I think the organizers behind MWC might want to reconsider their concept. If MWC is all about meeting the rest of the industry and doing deals, fine, but then focus the event on that rather than trying to be a crowded conference and overpriced exhibition. Mobile Monday Peer Awards Next, I stopped by Mobile Monday Peer Awards which was held in a very cool venue: A gigantic tent with stylish interiors, an espresso bar, lounge, and movie theatre. I listened to a dozen or so pitches by established as well as newly funded startup companies in the mobile space, some of which I already knew and some contenders I heard of the first time. However, overall I thought the majority of the ideas were a bit weak in terms of usefulness, clarity of concept, or business models. The winners (buzzd, Funambol, kimia, and taptu) are certainly noteworthy and innovative but as a whole I came away a bit disappointed. Maybe next year the lineup will be better. Mobile Jam Session Mobile Jam Session is an event that was put together by WIP Connector's Caroline Lewko and her team. It is a developer-focused event with a unique mix of panel discussions and improv sessions to bring people in the industry together, network, and discuss and brainstorm topics and issues across the whole technology and business spectrum. Caroline and her team did a fantastic job of getting the right people together: CEOs, CTOs, VPs, business folks, and lots of developers from across the ecosystem, the conversations were excellent, and the venue was awesome (sweeping views over the city and the Mediterranean sea). Two thumbs up - especially considering the event is free and it was being held the very first time! The picture up at the top shows me (next to the whiteboard) next to Vincent Berge (CEO of Mobile Distillery) and Vodafone Betavine's Oscar Gutierrez together with a group of folks during an improv session on the topic of "Mobile operating systems and platforms". More pictures from Mobile Jam Session are here. Overall, an extremely worthwhile event. I assume there will be a Mobile Jam Session next year. If so then you won't want to miss it! Next, it's off to Hyderabad, India This year's Sun Tech Days in India will again be in Hyderabad. Last year was great ... Sun Tech Days have become the largest developer event in India with a crowd of around 15000. The enthusiasm and energy of the attendees is awesome. If you're there next week please see me. I'd love to know what you are up to! Cheers, -- Terrence See you at Mobile World Congress (3GSM) this week in BarcelonaPosted by terrencebarr on February 08, 2008 at 03:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)As it turns out I'm hopping over to Mobile World Congress (previously known as 3GSM) in Barcelona, Spain to catch up with a couple of companies and folks in the mobile space as well as to attend the Mobile Monday Peer Awards and participate in the Mobile Jam Session. Should be a lot of fun! If you're in Barcelona please drop me a line and we'll try to meet up, or stop by the Sun booth (Booth #2C12, Hall 2). And in any case check out this slick Java ME app that brings MWC news and updates to Java ME-enabled phones:
Cheers, Mobile & Embedded Developer Days Wrap-UpPosted by terrencebarr on February 05, 2008 at 04:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wow, what a week it has been! The Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days conference ended last Thursday and I think it is fair to say it was a resounding success. Many attendees gave us very positive feedback both personally and in email and blogs. They commented on the varied and high-quality content, the focus of the audience, the connections they made, and the community spirit of the conference. It's very satisfying to hear people enjoyed this conference as much as they did and certainly the flawless organization behind the scenes and all the help from the community was essential in pulling this off. Hats off to all involved! Thanks again to our sponsors:
Conference wrap-up, in bullets:
Recap of conference announcements:
Select conference coverage:
If you liked the conference or if you are interested in the Mobile & Embedded Community I really encourage you to register as a community member (at least in an "Observer" role) in one of the community projects or the top-level mobileandembedded.dev.java.net project. Show your support! And finally, we've already received numerous requests for a repeat! Stay tuned ... ;-) Cheers, -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Mobile Developer Alliance, take 2: Meet us on Friday (1/25)Posted by terrencebarr on January 24, 2008 at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)In a recent blog entry I asked the question: Do we need a Mobile Developer Alliance? The Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days ended today (it turned out to be an extremely successful event, more about that in the next blog). As a follow-up a couple of folks are getting together to discuss and brainstorm the topic of why developing and deploying content is so hard, what can be done to improve the situation, and about helping developers find their voice. The meeting is open to everyone interested: come, introduce yourself, tell us what you think, and let's talk about what we as a community can do to tackle the issues at hand. The meeting is tomorrow, Friday (1/25) from 9 am on at the Sun Santa Clara campus. If you're interested please contact me for more details. -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Live! Worldwide! Free! Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days broadcastPosted by terrencebarr on January 17, 2008 at 05:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Another big different for me was the worldwide aspect of the community. It is my strong belief that any gathering that targets a worldwide audience must attempt to include remote participants. But strangely, most conferences today really only cater to local attendees. The folks around the world who don't have the time or money (or visa ...) to travel somewhere are basically shut out. As someone who works remotely I am painfully aware of that. So from the start I wanted to break some new ground here. But how do you not only allow remote participants to passively view what's happening but go a step further and merge local and remote participants to allow interaction across the boundaries between the physical and the online world? For months we've been experimenting with different approaches and technologies to achieve at least some degree of remote participation in a simple and effective manner. Today, I am very excited to announce that we've decided to broadcast the entire Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days conference live, worldwide, and for free. Yep, that's right. Free. And not only will remote participants be able to view the live video streams of presentations, talks, and discussions but they can also interact among another and with the live sessions. The technology that makes this possible is provided by ustream.tv. ustream is extremely cost effective (free), very scalable (thousands of users), and provides additional tools to allow viewers to participate in an event in a meaningful manner via chat rooms, polls, and other ways. Instructions for viewing the conference are listed on the conference wiki. This is going to be exciting - and it is a first for us. Now here's the caveat: We've had good experiences with the technology so far but using it in a live conference setting over two days is probably going uncover flaws and glitches. We'll give it a try and see how it goes - I think its worth it. If it works as planned it opens a whole new dimension of ways to bring together people. But please be aware that we are providing the service on a best-effort basis. Things will go wrong and we'll try to fix them but please be understanding. After all, it's the world of the continuous Beta, right? ;-) Try ustream today and make sure your set-up is working so that you are ready to go on Wednesday. See you next week - in person or online! -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Sun SPOT Giveaway at Java Mobile & Embedded Developer DaysPosted by terrencebarr on January 15, 2008 at 01:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)Ok, so this is really cool: We managed to get hold of a couple of Sun SPOT kits and we'll be giving them away at the community social event at the Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days next week! We're thinking about creative and fun ways to do this ... like "coolest application idea for a Sun SPOT" and then raffle the kits among the entries. We'd love to hear from you if you have additional ideas to run this giveaway. And, of course, participants must be present at the community social to win! On another note, we've happy to announce we're doing a Bar Camp event at the conference as well. The details are still being worked out ... our community member Sean Sheedy is the driving force behind this. So if you want to hang out with some folks and engage in midnight coding and discussions ... this is your chance. And finally, we've nailed down the details of our community social event. It will be a fun and low-key gathering a local Mexican Bar & Grill in a community style atmosphere. Have good Mexican food, down a Margarita (or two), and socialize. If you don't end up meeting at least 20 people that night ... well, that's probably your own fault ;-) Registration for Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days is open only until Friday (1/18). Register here. -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Do we need a Mobile Developer Alliance?Posted by terrencebarr on January 09, 2008 at 02:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)Update 1/17/08:
I think most people would agree that feature-rich mobile platforms and unfettered wireless data services coupled with a new wave of content (rich, interactive, integrated, dynamic, personalized, meshed) will be catalysts for the next phase of the participation age. The platforms, software architectures, protocols, networks, and usage models have been surfacing and evolving for some time now and mobile Java is playing a central role. But really this evolution is about content, content, and ... more content: The cool new applications, the innovate functionality, the "anytime, anywhere" dynamic and meshed information that offers users new ways of interacting with the physical and virtual world around them. Call it "Web 3.0"? But is the mobile ecosystem as a whole really facilitating the development and deployment of this new wave of content? Is it easy for developers and content creators to think up, build, deploy, and monetize the things that excite users and drive new uses of mobile technologies? Does the mobile industry in its current state provide a fertile ground for allowing innovation to occur and new ideas to flourish? A while ago I attempted to capture the situation developers find themselves in today when trying to bring content to market. A key diagram I came up with was this:
Don't worry about following each and every detail in the diagram. The point is to realize that the situation is complex - and for a number of reasons. Before proceeding I think is important to realize that while the diagram mentions Java it should be clear that it is by no means unique to Java but that it applies (with variations) to the mobile ecosystem in the wider sense. Furthermore, specific market segments that provide a somewhat more straightforward model typically achieve that with a trade-off in flexibility and choice by means of a single vendor approach in the technology or model. At the end of the day such "simplifications" just add another dimension to the situation and don't truly simplify things from the perspective of the developer trying to address the wider market. The main point to take away from the diagram above is that developers are in a less then enviable position - the place where the rubber meets the road. In order to create exciting applications and content and make a living from that developers need to pull all the pieces together and get things to work across a multitude of technologies, devices, platforms, vendors, networks, and business models - achieving this with constrained resources within a tight market window while somehow keeping their sanity. The bottom line is that the multitude of variables and parties to deal with is truly challenging and seriously inhibits innovation and growth of the entire sector. But it gets worse still. As a big and established player you typically have relationships with the parties you need to deal with in getting your content into market and you have the resources to throw at the complexity. However, history has shown without a doubt that most innovation comes from unexpected places, from individuals in a garage, from left base - folks without the rolodex and the deep pockets. As described presently the mobile industry is tilted in favor of big established players - so it is highly probable that the industry is currently wittingly or unwittingly depriving itself of the very content it needs to attract in order to catch the next wave. How did this situation come about? I think there are three main reasons: 1) While mobile platforms have been around for a decade or more it is important to realize that we are still in the midst of the technological evolution - competing standards and platforms are a natural by-product of maturation in a technology space. So that is a historical development. 2) In contrast to the wired Internet the mobile ecosystem adds another dimension with its own set of rules: The network operator. Think of it as the wired Internet being accessible only through CompuServe, AOL, and the like. Remember? Such is the situation the mobile space currently and it hardly makes things easier. 3) Developers are a fragmented group - they have no consistent voice and they are all busy fighting for themselves. Hence, they have no representation and no leverage to influence the industry. So, where am I going with all this? The bottom line is that the most important and most innovative part of the mobile ecosystem - the small application and content developer - has traditionally been woefully underrepresented in the industry with many detrimental consequences for the entire mobile market. While many players in the ecosystem claim to understand and cater to the developers it is clear that nobody can speak for the developers but themselves - and drive goals and topics that are truly important to them. The state of the mobile industry today really begs the question: Do we need a Mobile Developer Alliance? An entity that represents the needs of mobile developers and works towards making application and content development easier and spurs innovation to the benefit of the entire industry. And if so, what would such a Mobile Developer Alliance look like, how would it operate, what were its goals and policies? It's a topic that will be surely hotly discussed at the upcoming Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days. I'm doing a lightning talk (LT-8) on the subject, there will be a panel discussion (TS-9), and we'll probably talk about it in one or more of the ad-hoc brainstorming sessions. I'm curious to hear your thoughts. And/or meet you at the conference to discuss it in person. Cheers, -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Happy New Year! And only three weeks to go ...Posted by terrencebarr on January 02, 2008 at 06:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)While I did try ;-) to take a much-needed break over the holidays I was still quite busy updating the Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days web site with the latest information, speakers, and sessions. The agenda is now final and we've added some exiting last-minute sessions and lightning talks. For example, Roger Riggs will be talking about "Seamless Integration of Multi-Tasking Applications with CHAPI". If you don't know Roger, he was part of Sun's original Java ME team (squeezing Java onto the Palm Pilot), he wrote code for the original JDK versions 1.1 and 1.2, he is Sun's representative in the JSR 271 (MIDP 3.0) expert group, and of course he is spec lead for JSR 211 (CHAPI). For more info please check out countdown newsletter #3. -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Sun SPOTs triple-shot: Open sourcing, Podcast, and the Mobile & Embedded Developer DaysPosted by terrencebarr on December 21, 2007 at 01:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)If you haven't noticed, Sun SPOTs are really starting to take off. I blogged about some developments a couple of months back but this month we have a "Sun SPOT triple-shot" for you! First, a first wave of SPOT-related code has been open sourced in the Mobile & Embedded Community:
Check it out ... plus, community members are already busy adding more projects. And I'm going to hint that there is much more to come. Second, we just released podcast #31 with an interview with Roger Meike, the manager of the Sun SPOT team. He talks about what's going in on the world of Sun SPOTs and where things are headed. Third, it so happens that the Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days is becoming a hotbed of Sun SPOTs and deeply embedded technologies and will be the must-attend event of 2008 for anyone interested in that area. Many of the experts will be present at the conference, from the Sun SPOT team to Bruce Boyes (founder and CTO of Systronix) and Joe Polastre (CTO and co-founder of Sentilla). Expect some exciting demos, discussions, and content from the leading individuals in the field. And last but not least, Sun SPOTs will become available for sale in 34 countries around the world very soon - finally! See you January 23 & 24! Cheers, -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Take our Mobile & Embedded Community surveyPosted by terrencebarr on December 17, 2007 at 03:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)13 months after inception we're now really seeing the Mobile & Embedded Community taking off in a big way. Be it accesses to the site, code downloads, forum activity, or external contributions of code and entire projects ... all metrics are up and the rising level of interest is tangible. To make the community even better we'd like to learn more about you. So we put together a short survey (12 questions) asking for your background, your interests and experiences, and your feedback. It's anonymous, shouldn't take more than 5 to 10 minutes to complete, and it will help us tremendously to understand the community better and tailor the content and the focus to your needs. Please take the survey here today. Thanks! -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Only 6 weeks to go: Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days countdown newsletterPosted by terrencebarr on December 12, 2007 at 08:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)Wow, time sure is passing fast. Just a little while ago January seemed so far away ... and now it's only 6 more weeks until the Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days conference. There will be so many interesting things happening at the conference we thought we'd do a "rolling countdown" series of newsletters with the latest news and select highlights of the forthcoming event. So, here you go: Check out newsletter 1. -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Databases for Java ME, part 2: Not just JavaDB but also Perst LitePosted by terrencebarr on December 07, 2007 at 03:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
In September I blogged about JavaDB/Derby for phoneME ("Need a database with your phone?"). There has been a lot of interest in this and people are using JavaDB/Derby in real-world deployments now with the phoneME Advanced (CDC) stack. However, I overlooked another database option for Java ME platform: Perst Lite from McObject. I would like to make sure the Java ME developer community is aware of it because Perst Lite has a number of interesting properties:
So if you are looking for an object-oriented database (as opposed to a relational database like JavaDB/Derby) or you need a database for the phoneME Feature (CLDC) stack then Perst Lite looks like a perfect match. In fact, McObject and the Mobile & Embedded Community are planning to collaborate around this topic. You will hear more on this very shortly. PS: No, I have no financial or other interest in Perst Lite or McObject ... Cheers, -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Thanks for great Frankfurt Tech Days!Posted by terrencebarr on December 06, 2007 at 01:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
The venue (the Frankfurt Congress Center) was perfect, the organization was flawless, and the attendance was above expectations with a crowd of nearly 1000. The first picture shows the 'Demo Shootout' with some of Sun's evangelists and Reggie Hutcherson, the MC. The second picture gives you an idea of the venue and the attendance. The place was busy and the sessions were all pretty well attended. The third picture is from the Mobility Day - a full house and at times even standing-room only. I was impressed with the attendees of the Java ME tracks: The technical Java ME tracks and the hands-on lab were all well attended, too. I did a session on "Progamming cool devices with phoneME" and showed off phoneME Advanced with MIDP running on a Windows Mobile HTC touch. My second talk was the "Radical SVG GUI Makeover" (see the screencast here). Slides should be here available within a week or two.
Finally, Ed Ort from the Sun Developer Network did interviews with Tim Cramer, engineering director for Sun's Java FX Mobile efforts, as well as myself. Cheers, -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Developer Days: Last 24 hours for discounted registration!Posted by terrencebarr on November 29, 2007 at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Make sure you've had a look at the latest agenda - this is a conference you won't want to miss. And don't just go for the content, go for the people. We have a diverse group of high-caliber speakers as well as a good cross-section of the industry present as attendees. If you want to get answers from the folks who are creating and driving the technologies, if you are looking for like-minded enthusiasts who know their stuff, if you want to get involved with the community ... the Java Mobile and Embedded Developer Days conference is the place to be. See you there. Register here. -- Terrence Powered by Qumana The tide is turningPosted by terrencebarr on November 28, 2007 at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)A while back I blogged about the importance of open access to technology, in particular to network infrastructure, protocols, and bandwidth ("Open technologies need open access"). Well, it seems like the tide is finally turning. Verizon has announced it will open its network to 3rd-party devices and applications. The details and the timeline are still unclear and application and devices will be required to met yet-undefined "minimum technical standards" - so I am still somewhat skeptical until I see specifics. But, still, this is a remarkable change and I believe it will open the floodgates for more. If Verizon truly provides open access to its network at reasonable terms and prices then other carriers will be forced to follow and there will be no turning back. Consumers will accept nothing less than unbridled mobile data. I am optimistic the promise of the "true and open mobile Internet" will soon be a reality. It's about time. -- Terrence Powered by Qumana "Radical" SVG Makeover - Not your plain old Java ME app anymorePosted by terrencebarr on November 20, 2007 at 05:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
A couple of months back while thinking about new content for the Sun Tech Days I realized that while SVG and JSR 226 is really cool and becoming available widely on mobile devices as part of the Mobile Services Architecture (JSR 248) today what is really missing for developers is a step-by-step example on how to transform a plain old lcdui.*-based MIDP application into a flashy and engaging SVG/JSR-226-based app. So the idea of the "Radical SVG GUI Makeover" for Java ME was born. We took an existing MIDP application called the "Yahoo! Local Business Search Client" (quite interesting in itself for the mobile mashup aspect of it and already available under the BSD license in the Mobile Ajax project) and reworked it using SVG technology, graphics tools, and NetBeans JSR-226 support. Thanks to Angela Caicedo and some of our SVG and graphics engineers at Sun in helping me put this together!
Or, even better, watch my screencast to see the "Radical SVG Makeover" live and to learn about the ME Application Developers project that hosts the phoneME UI Labs as well as the Mobile Ajax project and much more good stuff. I trust your Java ME applications will never quite be the same again ;-) Note: I will be doing a talk on this very topic at the Sun Tech Days in Frankfurt in two weeks. Hope you can stop by. Cheers, -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Happy Birthday Free and Open Source Java!Posted by terrencebarr on November 13, 2007 at 05:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
A year ago to this day on November 13, 2006, Sun released Java (ME, SE, and EE) under GPLv2. Wow, a year ago already? Here's a little flashback: the original press release and the announcement site with interviews and statements. So ... DRUM-ROLL ... Happy 1st Birthday Free and Open Source Java! I still remember how it felt: We here at Sun were tired and tense but excited after months of relentless discussions and preparations. How would it all pan out? Would the world embrace open source Java? Would something go horribly wrong? After all, nobody had really tried anything like this such on such a scale. I went back today to read my very first blog as Evangelist of the Mobile & Embedded Community. It's clearly written from the visionary angle of the moment but in hindsight I think it is still true and maps out fairly accurately the position and goals of open Java ME in the mobile & embedded world. So, where is open source Java ME at its 1st birthday? Being the dad of a toddler let me describe it this way: Still a bit wobbly on its feet in some regards but undeniably growing, learning, and venturing out into the world (if you're interested in details see the timeline at the end of the post). Open source is a long-term effort and success takes time. That's why I am overall very happy with the progress. The Mobile & Embedded Community is growing at a good rate and is blessed with many excellent members (for example, our Community Stars), but more importantly there is increasing proof that open source Java ME is seeing traction in many places around the mobile and embedded ecosystem. As examples, two projects we've been working with closely lately are BugLabs and Cineca (an english description of the jtv project is here) but there are quite a few others and more in the pipe. Carriers such as Vodafone with its Betavine program and Telenor with iLabs Mobile Toolbox are getting involved. And opportunities are popping up everywhere (how about adding phoneME to the Trolltech Qtopia Phone Edition GPL stack? And here is an interview of Rich Sands and myself by InfoWorld on Friday of last week. So where do I want to be at our 2nd birthday? First, and foremost, I want to see adoption of open source Java ME (and Java in general, for that matter) increase further and faster. We want more people to use it and more people to get involved, tearing down the barriers to innovation and remove inefficiencies that slow down the mobile and embedded ecosystem as a whole. At the top of my mind are three things that need to be addressed to accelerate:
We are investigating all three of these areas. Stay tuned. So there you have it. Let's sit back, have another slice of the virtual birthday cake and enjoy the moment. And please share your thoughts.
-- Terrence What A Year! Open Source Java ME and Mobile & Embedded Timeline Nov. 13, 2006:
December 2006:
January 2007:
February 2007:
March 2007:
April 2007:
May 2007:
At JavaOne 2007:
September 2007:
October 2007:
November 2007:
Powered by Qumana Update: Great content coming for Java Mobile & Embedded Developer DaysPosted by terrencebarr on November 08, 2007 at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Check out the current preview of sessions (of course, subject to change). Excellent content so far! And, as mentioned before, James Gosling is doing the keynote. Registration is in full swing. Click here. -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Sooo, what about Google Android and phoneME?Posted by terrencebarr on November 06, 2007 at 02:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)
Over the last 24 hours very little news and lots of opinion and speculation hit the airwaves about Google's Android platform and the Open Handset Alliance. Our very own community member Sean Sheedy has this very detailed blog entry to offer. After digesting the first barrage of information and talking to a couple of folks in the industry I thought I'd offer up my own personal thoughts about Android and the OHA. First, at a high level, I think the Android announcement shows that the era of proprietary and closed mobile platforms and networks is finally drawing to an end (remember that Google has also indicated they will participate in the auction of the 700 Mhz spectrum). And that's goodness because locked platforms and networks controlled tightly by vendors have been a huge barrier to innovation and ignored the needs of consumers for too long ("Ten things I want from my phone"). I commend Google for taking this step. But once you dig a little deeper into what Android is and what the business model and motivations are I think you'll be left scratching your head a bit. The Android press release and OHA website offers surprisingly little information (and I was a bit annoyed by this video which offers meaningless babble and a dog sitting in for Andy Rubin). The consensus seems to be that Android is a Linux- and Java-based stack including the low-level OS, middleware, application layers, and some basic applications - at first glance very similar to Sun's JavaFX Mobile (but without a key component FX Script). It appears to be highly customizable allowing, as Eric Schmidt puts it, "thousands of different phone models" (in contrast to JavaFX Mobile which places a strong emphasis on consistency and predictability). The stack is licensed under Apache v2 and an early access SDK will be available next week. OHA founding members are Google, T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm, Motorola, and Aplix. Other notables on the current member list are Esmertec, Intel, KDDI, LG, NTT DoCoMo, Samsung, Sprint Nextel, and Telefonica. That's impressive but also noteworthy for who is not on that list: Nokia, SonyEricsson, and most carriers around the world (except for Japan where OHA has good coverage with DoCoMo and KDDI). Also, remember that being part of a press release is easy and says very little about how much skin you will actually have in the game at a later point in time. So what does it all mean? Right away, the questions that come to mind are: How is this different from the existing 40+ Linux-based handset platforms? The LiMo Foundation, the LiPS Forum, and other efforts in this space? And who is the customer for this? Here a very interesting blog by Carl Howe "What's the Point of Google's Phone?". But every more perplexing is the question of what the business case and motivation is for OEMs and carriers to be part of Google's push. In the mobile space there is a very strong established pattern of maintaining tight control of the platform itself, the content on the platform, and the data streams to and from the platform to support business models that drive up the ARPU (average revenue per user). OEMs and carriers rely on proprietary features, walled gardens (directly, but more frequently indirectly), and business arrangements to implement these models. That's not to say they are not investigating new business models but history suggests that the closed model is something they are very comfortable with. Google, on the other hand, built its business around the open Internet and freely accessible content and applications running on standardized platforms (such as the web browser). Of course, the ad business accounts for something like 95% of Google's revenue so I assume Google's main motivation for Android is to build a new ad delivery platform with a potential for billions of new users and a reach they just never could have achieved on the desktop. Fair enough, but Google's model is diametrically opposed to the approach of OEMs and carriers. If Google's goal is to drive mobile users to the Google portal and use Google services anywhere at any time on any platform where does that leave the carrier and OEM? They basically become a commodity platform and a dumb data pipe with the purpose of driving Google eyeballs. Sure, Google can offer them revenue sharing and other incentives but fundamentally they would loose the leverage and monetization points they have built a huge business around. This is not a trivial problem. In fact, it is one of the key reasons the mobile space today is what it is, with a multitude of vendor-specific platforms, software stacks, proprietary features, and limitations. It's also a situation Sun and the Java ME ecosystem have been having to deal with since the release of KVM in 1997. One of the key reasons Java ME has been extremely successful (admittedly not without its share of pain and frustration) is because Sun's position allowed it to be a neutral 3rd party that provided a platform and ecosystem but didn't need to enforce any particular business model. So it was a natural symbiosis for OEMs and carrier. And this point precisely is where the Android news leaves a big void. It's like fitting a square peg into a round hole. I don't see how Google's business model and the OEM and carrier model align sufficiently to make this a happy partnership. And what's ominous for developers is that the Android license choice and FAQ explicitly encourages proprietary extensions on the platform as well as the removal of functionality - which spells trouble for delivering a widespread integrated platform that allows developers to build compelling services easily and quickly. This seems to have "fragmentation" of the worst degree written all over it. Imaging thousands of unique Android-based platforms ... Java ME fragmentation, with all its quirks, may be a piece of cake compared to that. Which leaves us with the final question. What about Sun and Java ME? Obviously, Sun isn't part of the OHA at this point - I am disappointed at this but I assume the OHA and Sun had disagreements over business and strategic issues that made a joining of Sun at that time impossible. That might change but I am not privy to those discussions. Next, why is Java ME not mentioned in the press release? Well, since Aplix and Esmertec are part of OHA I think that is a strong indication Java ME is a key component of the Android platform. And Google being famously secretive I am not surprised they are not volunteering that information. Fact is, Google recognized Java to be a necessary part of success. It literally guarantees Java remains the dominant platform for years to come. So what about phoneME? phoneME is fully open and licensed under GPLv2 in the Mobile & Embedded Community. Sun believes the GPL license is the best choice for reasons of compatibility with GNU/Linux as well as to ensure ongoing innovation benefits everyone in the ecosystem while maintaining a consistent platform. Google has chosen Apache v2 for Android which means the licenses are incompatible and therefore phoneME cannot be part of Android at this point in time. If and how this might be resolved in the future is speculation and not a particularly useful exercise right now. But with Sun's vision of the JavaFX Mobile as the next-generation mobile software platform Java wins in any case Welcome to exciting times. -- Terrence PS: I'll take the opportunity to remind you of the upcoming Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days conference. Registration is now open. Check it out here. Powered by Qumana Developer Days News-Flash: James Gosling, and over 60 papers submittedPosted by terrencebarr on November 02, 2007 at 04:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)Things are really coming together for the Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days conference. Here is a brief news-flash: We have secured none other than James Gosling himself for the keynote of the conference. What's more, he pretty much gets to decide what he wants to talk about ... and knowing James and his interest for cool demos and geeky stuff this promises to be a sure-fire crowd-pleaser. Also, as we had hoped and expected, the submissions came pouring in during the last 24 hours of the Call for Papers. We now have over 60 high-quality submissions across a wide range of topics. Among the speakers are experts from Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, Intel, Cineca, eZee, Mobile Distillery, Trilibis Mobile, Medio Systems, several Java User Groups, the JCP program office and JSR spec leads, key project leads in the Mobile & Embedded Community, and of course a number of experts from Sun and SunLabs. This is going to be the can't-miss-it event in 2008 for anyone interested in mobile and embedded Java. Click here to register. -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Nice interview on 360mobile.us & Java Mobile & Embedded Developer DaysPosted by terrencebarr on October 31, 2007 at 08:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)John Muchow did an interview with me for his site 360Mobile.us. I like it! Thanks John. As for the Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days: This is promising to be an exciting event. We've received a ton of great paper submissions already ... picking content and putting together a feature-packed agenda will be hard but rewarding. But, if you are still sitting on this great idea of yours - you still have a few more hours left: Today (10/31) is the final day for submissions! Registration for the event opens tomorrow (11/1). Why would you want to register?
Attendance is limited to just over 300 people so I expect this one will fill up quickly. Hope to see you there! Cheers, -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Meet me at Sun Tech Days, Dec. 3-5 in Frankfurt, GermanyPosted by terrencebarr on October 26, 2007 at 05:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
So if you're near Frankfurt you might want to stop by and check it out. Tech Days are always a good place to catch up on latest developments and meet some of the movers and shakers - like myself ;-) and hang out for a beer. And if the German language is your thing ... Deutsch geht auch! See you at Sun Tech Days in Frankfurt. Oh, and James Gosling will do the keynote. -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Adieu Java ME?Posted by terrencebarr on October 23, 2007 at 03:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)Just came across this c|net article titled "Sun starts bidding adieu to mobile-specific Java" (see also a slanted and partially inaccurate article by The Register) - which sounds quite dramatic until you set the context. The long-standing trend of hardware evolution is especially obvious in mobile and embedded devices that today can comfortably execute a level of software complexity unimaginable just a few years ago. Devices sporting 200 MHz or more and 32 MB or more of dynamic memory are moving into the realm of desktop machines of just a few years ago. That, quite naturally, means that more people will be trying to run Java SE on these devices. SavaJe, for example, was one of the early proponents of this shift (SavaJe was aquired by Sun earlier this year and the technology now forms the basis of Sun's Java FX Mobile effort). Two or three years ago a Java SE stack would really push the limits and devices would struggle to cope with the code. Today high-end devices run Java SE quite comfortably. So, naturally over time, we will see more and more Java SE on such devices. However, this progression is not as quick and black-and-white as it seems.
So while the migration to Java SE for some of the more powerful new mobile platforms makes a lot of sense there is still a lot of room and growth for Java ME-based technologies for years to come. These technologies are not mutually exclusive but coexist and complement each other. And stay tuned for more updates and exciting news in the next coming months around Java ME. As you have come to expect, the Mobile & Embedded Community will follow these trends and expand its coverage of Java SE aspects and technologies as the mobile and embedded space evolves. See also the blog entry by James Gosling on the topic. Latest news: An interview with Laurie Tolson, Vice President of the Client Software Group at Sun. -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Jonathan Knudsen is at it again: Preview his new book at OOPSLA, October 22ndPosted by terrencebarr on October 09, 2007 at 01:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)Jonathan Knudsen is an accomplished technical writer who has published dozens of books and articles on Java and Java ME over the years. He is currently working on his latest book "Kicking Butt with MIDP and MSA" which will be a one-stop guide to developing cool and feature-rich applications for the next-generation Java ME devices implementing the Mobile Services Architecture (JSR 248). Jonathan will be doing a tutorial "Using Java ME to Program Your Mobile Phone" at OOPSLA in Montreal, Canada (October 21 through 25). This is a 3 1/2 hour session on Monday based on material from his new book and geared to encourage new Java ME developers to learn and experiment with the latest Java ME technology. So if you're in the Montreal area in two weeks time and you want to brush up on your Java ME knowledge I highly encourage you to check out Jonathan's tutorial. Cheers, -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Announcing: Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days, January 22-24, 2008Posted by terrencebarr on October 02, 2007 at 05:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Have you been missing a dedicated conference for mobile and embedded Java? A place to get together with peers, community members, and industry experts to deep-dive on all things Java mobile & embedded? A conference that is driven by the community for the community? Where you decide on the topics? We thought so ... ;-) In fact, we've heard this request many times at conferences around the world when mobile and embedded topics are often just tacked on to existing "Big Java" conferences and as a result the content and participation just doesn't satisfy the mobile and embedded developer. So, after months of thinking, probing, and investigating we decided it was time to "roll our own" (drum roll please ...) Announcing the first ever Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days This conference is devoted solely to the technologies of mobile and embedded Java platforms and is targeted for application developers of intermediate and advanced skill levels, platform developers, and technical personnel at tool vendors, OEMs and carriers. Click here for more information about the conference, including information on how to get the latest news and updates, get involved, and submit papers. It's going to be a whole lot of fun (and a whole lot of work!). We're looking forward to your ideas, input, and participation! Cheers, -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Brief Report from the Open Source in Mobile conferencePosted by terrencebarr on September 20, 2007 at 03:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)I just returned from two days in Madrid, Spain, attending and speaking at the "Open Source in Mobile" (OSiM) conference.
Most of the conversation and sessions seemed to revolve around bringing Linux to mobile devices - a difficult task as assembling a high-quality, complete, and configurable Linux-based stack is not a trivial effort. Numerous companies are competing in the field resulting in something like 44 different mobile Linux offerings with hundreds of derivatives. Fragmentation in the mobile Linux market is a major problem and is weighing heavily on people's minds (Java ME fragmentation looks relatively harmless in comparison). It may well turn out that Java will again be the unifying language and API that hides the fragmentation of the Linux platform and middleware, similarly to what Java ME did in the early days of the mobile phone market with its many proprietary OSes and platforms (that's not to say we don't need to improve the consistency of Java implementations, too). Surprisingly little content and discussion was devoted to the upper parts of the mobile open source platform, things like frameworks, services, and application APIs. This is, I believe, where it gets much more interesting because at the end of the day it is the content and services that drive the industry. Most of the ecosystem, including the end users, the developers, and the carriers don't care much about the specifics of the operating system are as long as it meets the requirements and isn't controlled exclusively by a single vendor. Most people I talked to agreed but clearly the industry is still very much focused on the basics of the OS platform. Vivek Mody (the Mobile & Embedded Community Marketing Manager) and I did a session on "Sun’s Progress in Open Sourcing Java" (see the picture above where Vivek is talking about the community) which was well attended and we got some good questions on contribution and license topics. I was also part of a panel discussion on finding the optimal balance between open and close technologies on mobile devices. Quite interesting. I met up with key people at OpenMoko, Telenor iLabs, Celunite, A La Mobile, The Wireless Industry Partnership, VirtualLogix, and Trolltech. We had some very good conversations with a bunch of action items to establish and deepen relationships between the Mobile & Embedded Community and these folks. Stay tuned for more to come over the next weeks and months. Overall, a very good networking opportunity. -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Proudly presenting: The Mobile & Embedded Community Stars!Posted by terrencebarr on September 14, 2007 at 02:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)At the end of the day external participation is what makes or breaks an open source community. The virtuous cycle of open source, external participation and contributions, leveraging each other's innovation and work, and feeding it back into the community and code base is the sole point of going open source. Open source without a vibrant community is an academic exercise. Quite a few companies seem to be doing 'open source' because it is the politically correct thing to do. But without investing in a community that truly cares the code quickly ends up dead in the water. I think we're seeing a lot of that these days. The Mobile & Embedded Community has been very fortunate to attract a good crowd of external community members pretty much from the start. And participation is growing every day - the page views, downloads, and forum postings are testament to that. In fact, since the launch in November 2006 we've had almost 500,000 cumulative page views, more than 20,000 downloads of the code in various projects, and close to 4000 individual postings on our forums. I am particularly proud that the community is continuing to attract well-known industry pundits and expert individuals as well as important entities and companies in the mobile space. Because we really appreciate your interest and investment in the community we'd like to recognize special community members who are going the extra mile by engaging in the forums, writing blogs, contributing ideas and code, or pursuing any other noteworthy activity that makes the community a vibrant and interesting place for all. Herewith I proudly present the brand-new "Community Stars" section of the Mobile & Embedded Community. A round of applause for our first set of Community Stars! Thank you. -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Need a database with your phone?Posted by terrencebarr on September 05, 2007 at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)In one of our recent podcasts we interviewed Rick Hillegas from the Apache Derby project (also known as JavaDB). JavaDB is a compact, easy-to-use, feature-rich relational database that runs on platforms supporting Java 1.4 and later. We in the Mobile & Embedded Community frequently get asked about database support for Java ME. Well, with the release of JavaDB 10.1 with JSR 169 (JDBC API) the Java ME CDC/FP stack is now fully supported. That means phoneME Advanced and JavaDB are a perfect match. Check it out! Here: JavaDB (or Derby), and here: phoneME Advanced -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Flashback to 1992: Video of the Green projectPosted by terrencebarr on August 31, 2007 at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)As many of you may know the Java language and runtime concept was born as part of Sun's "Green project" in the early nineties. The Java platform was originally designed to fit the needs of mobile and embedded devices even though it turned out its appeal of course went way beyond the embedded space. James Gosling just posted a very interesting old video from 1992 on the UI of the Green project running on the "Star 7" device (which was especially created for the Green project). It's fascinating to see many of the concepts and UI paradigms that became widespread today (yes, also in Apple's iPhone) in this video as well as understanding just how far hardware platforms have matured and improved as well. Highly recommended. Here's the link. -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Your chance to "Ask the Experts" on the Mobile Services Architecture (MSA)Posted by terrencebarr on August 21, 2007 at 04:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)Summertime is slow, seems like lots of people are on vacation these days. Still, the Mobile Services Architecture (MSA or JSR 248) is hitting the market this year and being deployed in a large numbers of devices throughout 2007 and beyond. This week, Monday through Friday, is your chance to ask our experts about MSA. If you have questions about the technology, the APIs, the features, or business and marketing aspects of MSA then I highly encourage you to take the opportunity to participate. Update: The link to the currently posted questions and answers is easy to overlook. Check here. -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Matt Asay: "Sun is rising, and open source is the driver behind its rebirth"Posted by terrencebarr on August 10, 2007 at 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)Open source at Sun is here to stay ... the open sourcing of Java SE, EE, and ME should prove that beyond a doubt. But how does that translate into a business strategy that drives value for Sun? Matt Asay blogs about his interview with the CEO of Sun, Jonathan Schwarz, at LinuxWorld. A highly recommended read. -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Java on the iPod ... Whoa!Posted by terrencebarr on August 08, 2007 at 02:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)One of our newest community members, Stefan Saftescu, posted this question on our phoneME forum. Java on the iPod and a dozen other multimedia players? Way cool! That's the thing about open source: Innovation and ideas come from all sorts of unexpected places. Roger and I also talk about this briefly in the "What's Cool" section of our latest podcast. So, check out RockBox, get in touch with Stefan, and get involved! Cheers, -- Terrence Powered by Qumana More on SunSPOTsPosted by terrencebarr on August 02, 2007 at 02:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)I blogged about SunSPOTs a few weeks back. The topic is actually heating up a lot these days and, while I can't give you specific details right now, you'll see several interesting developments happening over the next few weeks. Stay tuned. In the meantime, check out these videos about all the cool stuff people are doing with SunSPOTs: Listing of SunSPOT videos on YouTube: Enjoy! -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Open technologies need open accessPosted by terrencebarr on July 20, 2007 at 05:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)To make a technology truly useful, accessible, adaptable, and innovative in a way that impacts our lives profoundly there are two fundamental prerequisites: First, the technology itself (the specifications and designs) must be open and, second, access to the use of that technology must be open (accessible in a non-discriminatory manner). The Internet, of course, is a prime and important example: There have been numerous attempts by various entities over the years to introduce proprietary extensions and protocols or to limit access to a "walled-garden". In the long run all of these attempts fail because the value of the Internet is defined by the fact that it is based on open standards, that access is open, and that everyone can participate (whether a large corporation, non-profit organization, or individual) equally (the network effect). This is not to forget that a large part of the world still doesn't have reliable Internet access for economic or political reasons. The point is, participants on the Internet simply won't accept anything less. This self-governing mechanism is critical because it maintains the general health of the Internet and the attached technologies. However, not all is well in the wireless space. Wireless data and Internet access are dominated and controlled by a small number of wireless carriers who have a history of proprietary technology and tightly controlled access. For sure, these carriers have spent billions of dollars building out the wireless infrastructure and need to recoup these costs over time. As long as wireless access mainly meant voice, where features are few and innovation mainly occurred behind closed doors, that approach was probably acceptable. As wireless features increasingly shift from voice to data and Internet-like functionality this approach is becoming increasingly limiting. As it stands today mobile devices are often tied to certain carriers and plans, restricted in the data they can send and the protocols they can use, 3rd party developers are generally limited in the functionality they can access on the device (even after testing and verification by the carrier), and finally carriers limit the types of applications that can be used on a device through their portals. Just image for a second a similar situation for the wired Internet and your PC or Mac. Imaging Microsoft or Apple would control the applications you can install. Image your Linux application would be barred from accessing certain APIs without you paying a fee. Imagine your Internet provider would only open port 80 on your Internet connection and then cripple the incoming and outgoing HTTP traffic. That's essentially what's happening in the wireless space today. The carriers argue that the reliability and security of the wireless network and the attached devices is paramount and they need to exert that control to maintain service guarantees and protect against liability issues. I buy into that argument to some extent but have the distinct impression carriers are overshooting that goal by far. For example, on laptops your wireless PC Card allows you to access pretty much everything on the Internet on all ports with very few limitations (notably often, VoIP). Why is that all of a sudden a security or reliability concern on a phone which uses the very same network infrastructure and carrier? Or is this more about protecting a business model that is built around the comfortable situation the industry is in today where a small number of carriers hold the keys to essentially all wireless data access? To be clear: Some carriers are better and more open in this regard than others. Some are moving, albeit slowly, in the right direction but there are still many carriers that don't get it. Interestingly, these carriers appear to ignore the history of the wired Internet where almost all innovative (and eventually many lucrative) services came from unexpected places. In the current tightly controlled and restricted wireless environment most of these innovations would fail at the carriers doors thus depriving these very carriers of the revenues they seek to extract from their infrastructure. And opening the wireless Internet doesn't necessarily have to mean the carrier networks simply become "dumb pipes" - the ultimate fear of every service provider. Precisely because the typical wireless customer is non-technical there are still many opportunities for generating revenue based on innovates services with higher integration and a superior user experience. Java ME, together with all other mobile software technologies such as OpenMoko, depends on open wireless networks and access in the same way the open Internet gave rise to the Linux, Google, EBay, and YouTube. This in not just about freeing the iPhone. This is an issue for the entire IT industry. It is about wireless freedom that enables the mobile Internet to allow pervasive information access and features and services we don't yet imagine. Among other things access to the 700 Mhz spectrum is critical for taking wireless technology to the next level, to make it truly useful, accessible, adaptable, and innovative beyond todays stalemate. -- Terrence Powered by Qumana How are we doing? ... and what does Dalibor Topic think?Posted by terrencebarr on July 11, 2007 at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)If you haven't had a chance to listen to the just-published podcast with Dalibor Topic I highly encourage you to do so. Dalibor is a well-known and respected open source Java advocate, a lead developer on the Java VM "Kaffe" project, and currently a member of the interim OpenJDK governing board.
It's very encouraging to hear Java ME open source is on the right track and the steadily increasing participation and activity in the community seems to confirm that (check the forums for more). But how do you think we are doing? Post your comment here or email me at evangelist[@]mobileandembedded[dot]org. Looking forward to your thoughts! -- Terrence Powered by Qumana New Java ME content on Sun Developer NetworkPosted by terrencebarr on July 10, 2007 at 12:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)The Sun Developer Network (SDN) is a treasure-trove of information for developers. It has a large section on mobility and mobile technology which gets updated frequently. I just saw the new article on The Java ME GUI APIs at a Glance and thought I'd take the opportunity to point out some of the latest changes and additions in the mobility area:
Also, if you haven't had a chance to check out the NetBeans "Mobile Applications Learning Trail" I really encourage you to do so ... it's a great place to learn about building Java ME applications and using advanced NetBeans features. Finally, if you're not registered with SDN then you're missing out on news, benefits, and special offers. Signing up is free and easy. That's it for now. Cheers, -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Jazoon Wrap-UpPosted by terrencebarr on June 29, 2007 at 02:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Just back from Jazoon in beautiful Zurich, Switzerland. It was a very good conference, 800 attendees, high-quality sessions, and very well organized. And some excellent live rock Karaoke singing, too ;-) Hard to believe it was the first time the conference was being held! I made some excellent new contacts and had an audience of about 50 for my session on "Developing Java ME applications using Sun's open source platforms". Overall, it was a very worthwhile conference and I plan to be back next year. -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Late-breaking news at Jazoon 2007Posted by terrencebarr on June 25, 2007 at 09:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)Jazoon is an international conference on Java technology and it's happening this week in Zurich, Switzerland. I'll be giving talk #1840 on Thursday at 1:10 pm and I'll also be staffing the Sun open source both. If you're attending Jazoon and want to learn more about Java ME and the Mobile & Embedded Community I'd be delighted if you drop in for my talk or catch up with me at the booth. Cheers, -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Ever played with a SunSPOT? Here's a chance to get one for free!Posted by terrencebarr on June 15, 2007 at 04:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)SunSPOTs are tiny Java-powered embedded sensor- and control platforms. You may have seen them at Sun Tech Days or JavaOne. They are getting a lot of attention lately and people are doing really amazing things with them. Due to their versatile I/O and sensors they are perfect for many embedded control applications. They come preinstalled with a CLDC 1.1 VM and basic OS functionality and you can write Java ME applications for them. There even is a NetBeans plugin for easy coding and deployment that comes with the SunSPOT development kit. The java.net robotics community has a number of people and projects working on SunSPOTs. Here are some blog entries on the topic: Vipul Gupta, David Simmons. By now I hope I have sparked your interest ;-) And here's the news: ZDNet is giving away two complete SunSPOT developer kits as part of their "Deputy Tester of the Week program". Check out this link for more information and a video about SunSPOTs. The way it works is that you make a pitch to ZDNet as to why you are best suited to be a tester. If you're selected you get a complete SunSPOT developer kit to keep (valued at US$ 550) in exchange for testing it and reporting your findings back to ZDNet. Pretty sweet deal. Give it a try! If you are one of the lucky testers please let the Mobile & Embedded Community know how you liked the SunSPOT and what you used it for. Cheers, -- Terrence Powered by Qumana JavaOne 2007 content now available onlinePosted by terrencebarr on May 24, 2007 at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)An update/addition to yesterday's JavaOne 2007 wrap-up post: Starting in 2006 Sun has made most of the JavaOne content available online. For JavaOne 2007 the slides and hands-on labs are now being posted. The multimedia presentations/videos are being added over the next weeks. You can find it all right here, including all 2006 content. Access is free too all, even if you didn't sign up for JavaOne. Enjoy! -- Terrence Powered by Qumana JavaOne Wrap-UpPosted by terrencebarr on May 23, 2007 at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)JavaOne is already more than a week behind us but I am still recovering ... being half-way through the first year of open source Java ME this JavaOne was more intense than usual. I was basically engaged from Monday morning (CommunityOne) until Friday afternoon, with sessions, meetings, events & parties from 8:00 am to 11:00 pm every day. Hard work, but lots of fun! By all accounts this seems to have been a hugely successful JavaOne. The Moscone Conference Center was bursting at its seams and the place was buzzing. Here are some of my highlights:
One thing that came up repeatedly during JavaOne was the desire to have an opportunity to meet in a context specifically around mobility, maybe in the form of a dedicated "JavaOne Mobility" conference. Interesting & worthwhile thought. Let's see if we can put something like this together. Comments and input welcome! Cheers, -- Terrence Powered by Qumana Last-Minute Updates to Java ME Guide to JavaOne 2007Posted by terrencebarr on May 04, 2007 at 02:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)See below. Check the "Updates" section at the top. Powered by Qumana Your Java ME Guide to JavaOne 2007Posted by terrencebarr on April 16, 2007 at 07:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)Updates: This being year 1 of Java ME open source we have worked especially hard to expand the Java ME footprint at JavaOne to include as much relevant and interesting mobile and embedded content, expertise, and events as possible and to give you a chance to mix and mingle with the community and catch up with all the things going on in the Java ME space. Since JavaOne is so big it is easy to miss out on something or overlook an interesting event or talk. I thought it would be useful to collect all the various bits and pieces related to Java ME and the Mobile & Embedded Community and create a "Java ME Guide to JavaOne 2007" for overview and quick reference. Please be aware that, as with any such event, all information is subject to last minute changes. I've tried to include all relevant URLs so be sure to check those before the event to make sure you're up-to-date. Also, please leave comments or email me if you have changes or additions to this guide. I will try to continuously update it to make sure it provides the latest information. Enjoy JavaOne 2007. Hope to see you there! -- Terrence Java ME Guide to JavaOne 2007 CommunityOne, May 7 (Monday), 10:30 am - 7:30 pm ("Day 0" - the day before JavaOne)
CommunityOne is a free event! Register here. JavaOne, May 8 - 11 (Tuesday - Friday)
Sun Tech Days are rolling along. Next stop: St. Petersburg, Russia (April 11-13)Posted by terrencebarr on April 05, 2007 at 04:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)Sun Tech Days is like a well-oiled machine. It keeps rolling around the world, delivering in-depth technical content to local developers, informing about what's new and cool, and connecting people, communities, and Sun. Thanks to all who participated and worked so hard to make Hyderabad the success it was! We really enjoyed it and hope to see you again next year. I've uploaded some pictures to give you a feel for the event. Powered by Qumana Tagged! ... five things about mePosted by terrencebarr on January 20, 2007 at 02:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)Yup, I was tagged two weeks ago by Hinkmond and I thought "Hey, this is a good idea to get to know people better" - so here we go:
Jonathan Schwartz on open source, the iPhone, and morePosted by terrencebarr on January 19, 2007 at 07:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)A very interesting in-depth interview of Sun's CEO Jonathan Schwartz where he comments on the iPhone, open source, and multiple near-death experiences. Highly recommended. The iPhone-related comments begin at around 8 mins. into the interview: "The market ability of a device that is truly closed [limited to static content but not open to dynamic/executable content] just limits its appeal." Some insights around open source at 33 mins.: "Every software asset that we produce is open source. If it isn't today, it will be pretty damn quickly." Find it here. Enjoy, -- Terrence Powered by Qumana iPhoneME?Posted by terrencebarr on January 12, 2007 at 07:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)So, of course the big news of the week was the introduction of the Apple iPhone. And I have to say: It's impressive. Slick. Cool. It will, in more ways than one, reshape the mobile industry. It is a personal mobile "accessory" with desktop-class power that is tuned to meet the needs of the mobile consumer life-style. It shatters conventions because it radically simplifies and integrates functionality in ways that make you go "Duh, that's obvious!" - and I mean that in a good way. Take the scrolling functionality on iPhone: Very cool, very obvious (once you've seen it, that is). Or take the finger pinching gesture used to zoom in and out. Not that Apple invented it but they use it very effectively to address a critical shortcoming of mobile devices (limited screen size). Or visual voice mail: Why wasn't that done before? More importantly, from my perspective, iPhone highlights the failure of the mobile industry to date to provide consumers with truly user-friendly and useful mobile devices and services. Smart phones today are, by and large, complex beasts that do many things but are hard to use, buggy, and poorly integrated with the world around them. It takes a company like Apple to leapfrog the industry and show them how things should be. I applaud Apple for that and iPhone immediately makes everything else look dated. But, nevertheless, I am still disappointed by iPhone. The exclusive contract with Cingular is one aspect. I fundamentally dislike exclusive arrangements for many reasons. I understand some of Apples motivations but that doesn't make me like the lock-in any more. What if I don't like Cingular? What if I can't use Cingular? What if I have a contract with another carrier? Thanks, but no thanks. Second, iPhone doesn't support 3G wireless. UMTS is widespread in many places in Europe and very nicely complements the big white spots on the Wi-Fi map. At up to 384 kbit/s is surprisingly useful and, for me, has already become indispensible. Third, iPhone doesn't appear to have a VoIP client. I assume this is a concession towards Cingular to not jeopardize their voice business (still think exclusive arrangements are ok?) but to me it is a deal-breaker. I started using VoIP almost a year ago and rely on it heavily to cut cellular voice costs while on the road. Roaming charges are ridiculous. VoIP saves me hundreds of Euros a year. Next, it appears that iPhone runs a non-standard version of OS X which means normal OS X applications can not be run on iPhone. On top of that, iPhone applications appear to implement a new application model and use new APIs that are not available on traditional OS X platforms. This means, for most purposes, you couldn't care less whether iPhone runs OS X or some proprietary OS because you can't run your existing apps on it. If, and this brings me to the next point, there even were an iPhone SDK. Several sources seem to confirm that iPhone is a closed system meaning it is not possible for 3rd party application developers to write and deploy applications on iPhone. The functionality of iPhone is locked to whatever Apple provides. If you don't like what Apple installs on the phone or you need more functionality (disconnected navigation client, anyone?) your screwed. I am flabbergasted as to how Apple can think it can succeed selling powerful high-end devices that cannot be customized and enhanced. I understand that providing the ability to install applications requires a robust and secure architecture and maybe iPhone is not quite there yet in that respect. Maybe Apple intends to provide an SDK down the road and open up iPhone to ISVs. But until that day the iPhone is basically a next-generation iPod that can make phone calls and surf the web, a fixed-function device. I'm sure there is a good market for it but a general-purpose mobile device it's not. Which brings me to the final point: The lack of any sort of Java on iPhone. Even if Apple had been concerned with opening up iPhone for native applications, Java ME is a perfect alternative for a proven, robust, and secure application and content platform. Apple has done a great job integrating Java SE into Mac OS X before, so why they decided to pass on the Java ME platform, developer community, and content is puzzling. This would have been a unique opportunity for Apple to support the whole range of Java ME applications and content right out of the gate in the typical slick and well-integrated manner that Apple is known for and leapfrog the industry in this aspect as well. Opportunity missed. Well, but then again, that is precisely what the Mobile & Embedded Community is here for. As soon as Apple makes available an SDK for the iPhone I am sure there will quickly be a port of phoneME Feature or Advanced to iPhone. And then we can look forward to having the best of both worlds: Apples slick iPhone and Java ME's ubiquity. Cheers, -- Terrence Here are some interesting posts regarding iPhone over the last few days: JavaLobby Thread PS: And, of course, there's still OpenMoko. For a comparison between iPhone and OpenMoko see here. Powered by Qumana Wow, is it 2007 already?Posted by terrencebarr on January 03, 2007 at 07:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)I hope you all had a safe and enjoyable holiday break. We here at the Mobile & Embedded Community sure welcomed a bit of a rest after the intense weeks and months up to the Java ME open source launch. The new year is always a good time for reflection and to ponder things to come. So, while things are still quiet I figured I'd take the opportunity to share some thoughts. From all I've seen and heard the launch of Java ME into open source and the creation of the Mobile & Embedded Community was a resounding success, and it certainly feels that way. We have made good on our promise to deliver buildable, high-quality code that is actively developed in the open. We have created a community that allows external developers and Sun engineers to share ideas, exchange information, and create together. We have forged ties with other communities, groups, and organizations to collaborate and advance the Java ME platform. While the big achievements are certainly important it is easy sometimes to forget some of the individual actions and events going on in front of and behind the scenes that contribute to the success and make the project into a living, breathing thing. So let's take a step back and look at some of the highlights of what happened in the last seven weeks:
Obviously, this is not a comprehensive list by any means. But I do think it shows we've started with a bang and are gaining speed. There are kinks we need to work out, things we need to get plugged into, code we need to get out. Please help us if you find something is broken or unsatisfactory. But I think we as a community can be proud of what we've achieved together. 2007 will be big and exciting. I am looking forward to it. I wish you all a healthy and industrious 2007! -- Terrence Powered by Qumana A License To InnovatePosted by terrencebarr on November 22, 2006 at 06:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)As the latest James Bond movies makes its way around the world I thought it fitting to recycle the tagline A license to kill into A license to innovate. This is really what open sourcing Java ME is all about. As you may have noticed Sun released Java SE with the classpath exception, but Java ME was released without the classpath exception. Of course, the community immediately picked up on this (and I'm glad you did!), for example here. So why did Sun chose to release Java ME under GPL without the classpath exception? Does this limit Java ME developers in the way they can innovate, and more importantly, does the viral nature of GPL infect any and all application code running on top of a Java ME open source platform implementation? Answers: See below, no, and no. Sun has every interest in encouraging innovation in the Java ME application space. The reason we have chosen not to add the classpath exception to Java ME is simply because Java ME applications are typically not shipped in a bundle together with the platform implementation and therefore an explicit classpath exception is not needed. For more details please see the this thread, including my clarification posted at the end of the thread. So, there you have it: A License To Innovate. -- Terrence | |
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OSiM World a few days later (Sept 16-17) is a whole different ball game - a big gathering of over 400 decision makers and developers including CEOs, CTOs, VPs, and Directors of most of the big names in the mobile industry. I'll be participating in a panel discussion on Wednesday afternoon (
With all the travel I'm doing lately I've been looking for a convenient way to keep people who are interested in getting in touch with me updated on my current whereabouts - I don't know about you but I prefer to get phone calls and IM messages during my waking hours rather than at 3 am local time ;-)
We're pushing ahead with the continuous process of opening Java ME - here is another step along the way.
This is big! If there was still any need to demonstrate that open source is going mainstream - how about winning 
Palm OS has had a spotty relationship with Java. Way back in the ancient days Java ME was born when a few undeterred engineers at Sun Labs managed to squeeze Java into a Palm Pilot via the famous KVM ... the mother of all Java ME stacks. Yep, Palm was cutting-edge then.
JavaOne 2008 is almost over. It was another fun and content-filled event - even if it lacked the big announcements this year. I'll be blogging about some details and interesting things I saw over the next couple of days.
Update:
Update:
Update 4/22/08:
In December of last year I 
One of my personal goals for the Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days was to make this conference different from your average developer conference. Different with regard to the focus (deep mobile & embedded Java content), different with regard to the cost (very reasonable), and different with regard to way it is organized (by the community).
Just came back from the Tech Days in Frankfurt, Germany. Thanks to the organizational team and in particular Ulrike Werneck from Sun Germany for putting this together!-low.jpg)
All very interested developers, some fairly new to ME but many with several years of experience and current involvement in commercial Java ME projects. The quality of questions was high and the discussion was active and engaging.-low.jpg)
I also had some excellent conversations with some individuals such as Michael Samarin and Ronan Ciosoig - podcasts of these will be coming. Furthermore, I spoke with Manfred Kube from Siemens about their new 
If you've been procrastinating signing up for the Java Mobile and Embedded Developer Days conference - well, you've got just a little over 24 hours left. The early bird discounted rate of $175 ends November 30th.
Updates:
This was not your typical open source conference. The focus was clearly on the decision makers, executives, and strategists of commercial companies. The audience and speakers were carefully picked and the high price of admission (up to GBP 4225.00) resulted in a fairly small but "high-value" crowd. Many of the important names in the industry were there, including the Dr. Tero Ojanperä (CTO of Nokia), Brian Stevens (CTO of RedHat), Luigi Licciardi (EVP of Telecom Italia), Eirik Chambe-Eng, (Co-CEO & Co-Founder of Trolltech), Hilde Lovett (Director of iLabs/Telenor R&I), and a number of key engineers and business people involved in various open source efforts in the mobile industry.
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