David G. Simmons' Blog: Not going green, going Yellow!

davidgs — 2010-09-02T23:04:15+00:00

I know, going green is all the rage these days (just look at the theme of my blog!).

And Sun has been one of the greenest of the green companies for years.

But we're (The Sun SPOTs Project) going Yellow!

For those of you that live on the hairy bleeding edge with us, you may have been using the Yellow engineering or developer builds for quite some time. But we're moving from Developer to Beta today, so the Yellow release is officially out in Beta as of tonight!

Just set your Sun SPOT Manager Tool to the Beta repository (don't make me have to tell you how to do that!) and download and install the Yellow-BETA1 version.

I'll be doing another post soon with all the new features and bug fixes included (we've been busy as bees making this a great release in anticipation of some new hardware!), so please download, install, test, and let us know what you think!

Derek White's Blog: Sun SPOTs at JavaOne/Oracle OpenWorld

Derek White — 2010-09-02T22:19:03+00:00

Between <a href="http://www.oracle.com/us/javaonedevelop/062264.html" title="JavaOne 2010">JavaOne</a> and <a href="http://www.oracle.com/us/openworld/index.html">Oracle OpenWorld</a>, and between the Sun SPOT team, other Oracle speakers, and Sun SPOT users, there will be two technical sessions, one hands-on lab, two BOFs, and a demo booth about Sun SPOT technology. So if you are coming to JavaOne or Oracle OpenWorld, come check out some of the sessions. If you're a college student 18 or older you can attend for free! Space permitting that is - see <a href="http://blogs.oracle.com/javaone/2010/09/calling_all_student_developers_get_into_javaone_and_oracle_develop_for_free.html">this page</a> for more details. There are also two tangential talks - "Java in the 2010 FIRST Robotic Competition" (which uses a version of the Sun SPOT SDK), and "Java Native Access: More Java, Less Native". See <a href="/blogsagainbynight/entry/cool_tech_sessions_at_javaone">my previous blog entry</a> for details. <hr width="100%" size="2" />Session ID:     S318467 Data Springs: The Internet of Things, Wireless Sensor Networks, and Sun SPOTs More and more devices are connected to the internet every day. Most of them are small and embedded, and many communicate wirelessly. The "internet of things" is becoming ubiquitous. This session demonstrates the IOTA project at Oracle's Sun Labs. This research project aims to create a complete hardware and software system to wirelessly sense and collect data about our environment as well as affect the world around us. The system covers everything from hardware (Sun SPOT devices) to Web services, including an embedded Java virtual machine, wireless mesh networking technology, end-to-end public key cryptography, development and management tools, data collection, storage, and visualization. Come see why the next big thing may be quite small. <address>Speaker:     Roger Meike, Oracle, Research Director, Sun Labs Event:     Oracle OpenWorld</address> <address>Schedule:     Tuesday, September 21, 11:00AM | Moscone West L2, Rm 2012</address> <address>Duration:     60 min.</address> <hr width="100%" size="2" />Session ID:     S314730 <meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="content-type" />Building the Web of Things with Sun SPOTs (was Sun SPOT Sensor Network Application Architecture Lab) In just a few years, the number of Internet-connected "things" (home appliances, smart energy meters, health monitors, sensors) is predicted to be orders of magnitude larger than the number of users and traditional computers. The Web of Things is a vision where everyday objects are seamlessly integrated into the World Wide Web using well-known standards and blueprints. This lab introduces participants to the motivation, key concepts and relevant technologies behind this vision. Lab attendees will use the Sun SPOT wireless device to learn how physical resources can be exposed as web resources and manipulated via HTTP commands. <address>Speakers:     Vipul Gupta, Oracle, David Simmons, Oracle</address> <address>Event:     JavaOne</address> <address>Session Type:     Hands-on Lab</address> <address>Duration:     120 min.</address> <address>Schedule:     Wednesday, September 22, 10:00AM | Hilton San Francisco, Plaza A </address> <hr width="100%" size="2" />Sun SPOT Demos and chatting: Members of the Sun SPOT team will be available for demos, chats, or whatever at the Mason Street Tent. <address>Mason Street Tent, Academic booth Schedule: specific times slots are still being worked out, but they will likely be a subset of the "Sun Labs" slots <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/Academia/Staffing+Schedule">listed here</a>. </address> <hr width="100%" size="2" /> Session ID:     S313933 Using Sun SPOTs in Educational Game Development A comparative study was made between Sun SPOTs and Wii Remote as the preferred game controller for KineSpell2, the digital game-based learning application designed to maximize learning of spelling. The two usability criteria employed were Ease of Use and Rate of Familiarization. Sun SPOTs received an average rating of 4.68 while Wii Remote received an average of 2.71, which indicates that testers were more comfortable and at ease with Sun SPOTs. SunSPOTs' learning time is 3.53 minutes while Wii Remote's learning time is 7.28 minutes, indicating that testers learn manipulating the Sun SPOTs much faster. In the end, 12 out of the 16 testers preferred Sun SPOTs over Wii Remote when playing KineSpell2. <address>Speakers:     Rommel Feria, University of the Philippines, Assistant Professor</address> <address>                       Ma. Rowena Solamo, UP Diliman, Assistant Professor</address> <address>Event:     JavaOne</address> <address>Session Type:      BOF</address> <address>Schedule:     Wednesday, September 22, 2:15PM | Hilton San Francisco, Golden Gate 4/5 </address> <address>Duration:     45 min. </address><hr width="100%" size="2" /> Session ID:     S313506 Making JavaFX Applications Look and Feel Real JavaFX enables developers and designers to create impressive, media-rich applications, quickly. However, creating these applications is only half of the equation. The applications must also look and feel right. Physics engines, parallax scrolling, and raycasting have all been used to greatly enhance games and make them look, behave, and feel real. We intend to incorporate and use these technologies in JavaFX. In this session, we'll demonstrate how to integrate nonconventional input devices, such as Sun SPOT, to bring realism to JavaFX applications. The session will cover: - General use of a physics engine in JavaFX applications - Mapping parallax scrolling to a devices accelerometer - Pseudo 3D with raycasting. <address>Speaker:        Angela Caicedo, Oracle, Technology Evangelist</address> <address>Event:     JavaOne</address> <address>Duration:     60 min.</address> <address>Schedule:     Monday, September 20, 11:30AM | Hilton San Francisco, Golden Gate 2   </address><hr width="100%" size="2" /> Session ID:     S313194 Automatizing Your House with JavaFX and Open Source Hardware In this session, we're going to open a new world of possibilities for your Java pleasure: how to use JavaFX as the UI to control gadgets in your own house. Using open source hardware devices, such as Sun SPOT architecture, we'll demonstrate how to control light fixtures, switches, or any other sensor-based electronic devices. And to make it even more interesting, they'll be controlled through a totally different JavaFX technology-based user interface. This session will help attendees discover a new way of combining inexpensive electronic components with Java and JavaFX. <address>Speakers:     Neto Marin, Globalcode, Mobile Engineer,  Vinicius Senger, Globalcode, CTO Event:     JavaOne Session Type:     BOF Duration:     45 min. Schedule:     Tuesday, September 21, 8:00PM | Hilton San Francisco, Yosemite A    </address>

Derek White's Blog: Cool Tech Sessions at JavaOne 2010

Derek White — 2010-09-02T21:48:44+00:00

There are two great sessions at JavaOne that I can recommend - well because I'm giving them. The first is related to FIRST...

Java in the 2010 FIRST Robotic Competition

Learn how Java was ported to run on the FIRST Robotics Competition platform, and hear about the experiences of hundreds of high school teams using Java for the first time in the 2010 competition season. The FIRST Robotics Competition is one of the largest high school robotics competitions, with more than 77,000 students and volunteers. This session covers:

What is the FIRST Robotics Competition
Experiences with Java in the 2010 competition season
APIs for programming the robots through the CompactRIO controller

WPIlib (image processing, servos, sensors, control loops, CAN interface)
Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME), information module profile
Squawk Java virtual machine

NetBeans integration
How Java was ported to National Instrument's CompactRIO controller

Speaker(s):     Eric Arseneau, Asset Science, Brad Miller, WPI, Professor, Derek White, Oracle
Session ID:     S314633
Schedule:     Tuesday, September 21, 11:30AM | Hilton San Francisco, Golden Gate 4/5

The second session is related to FIRST in that it talks about the techniques that we used to interface both the Squawk JVM to VxWorks OS as well as the WPILib library to the FPGA code in robot controller. But these techniques can be used in Java SE and Java ME applications (in some cases) instead of using the traditional JNI in C code approach.

Java Native Access: More Java, Less Native

Developing embedded applications for Java often involves interacting with existing libraries, from common standards such as POSIX to custom FPGA libraries. Java Native Access (JNA) is an open source library that enables developers to access native code in shared libraries without needing to write more native code in Java Native Interface. Targeted at Java developers who need to call existing native code, this session will show how to use JNA and its recent improvements. Key points to be addressed include:

Java and native code: importing vs. outsourcing
How to declare imports of native code in JNA and how to use them
Cook book examples
New features (more platforms, Java ME and CLDC support)

Speaker: Derek White, Oracle

Session ID: S314579

Schedule: Wednesday, September 22, 4:45PM | Hilton San Francisco, Yosemite C

By the way, I just learned that college students (18 and older) can attend JavaOne for free! Check out this page for details.

OK, these aren't the only cool tech sessions at JavaOne. See see my next blog for a list of all of the Sun SPOT sessions, labs, BOFs, and demos.

Project Sun SPOT

David G. Simmons' Blog: Not going green, going Yellow!

Derek White's Blog: Sun SPOTs at JavaOne/Oracle OpenWorld

Derek White's Blog: Cool Tech Sessions at JavaOne 2010

Java in the 2010 FIRST Robotic Competition

Java Native Access: More Java, Less Native