JavaOne 2012: Easel, JavaFX for arm, JDK8, and More...

Thu, 4 Oct 2012 10:36:38 -0400

From what I've read and heard, JavaOne 2012 is a hit. With success stories around Java SE 7 JavaFX on ARM, JDK 8 profiles with JavaFX bundled, demos of Java and JavaFX on Raspberry Pi and BeagleBoards, simple sized-down Java EE deployments, HTML5 enhancements for NetBeans, and a sneak peak at JDK 9, what's not to like? The keynote sessions should be available on Oracle's Video on Demand site - be sure to check them out if you weren't able to attend. First, let's dive into JavaFX (a favorite of mine these days, if you couldn't already tell)! Here is an excellent write-up of the Sunday JavaOne Technical Keynote.

Read more on Dr. Dobb’s here...

Terracotta BigMemory Go and BigMemory Max

Tue, 2 Oct 2012 05:56:08 -0400

For Terracotta, the past two years have been very successful ones. They're on track to triple their entire 2011 revenue, with the second quarter 2012 revenue alone greater than all of fiscal 201. They've also recently expanded their partnerships with companies like Digital Globe, Discover, and PayPal.

What do these companies have in common? They have big data related problems to be solved. For instance, PayPal recently worked with Terracotta to deploy a solution where over 160 Terabytes of data are stored in memory using their BigMemory product. They've been helping to deploy enterprise in-memory solutions with other mainstream companies, including telcos, where customer data size demands continue to grow. All of this proves that big data business problems do indeed exist, and are only getting bigger.

JDK8: Getting a head start with lambdas

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 05:37:53 -0400

What are Lambda expressions (http://openjdk.java.net/projects/lambda/)? The goal of Java's Project Lambda is to add support for closures to the Java programming language. In a sentence, a closure allows a piece of code to reference the variables of another method or function without being in that method or function's scope. The OpenJDK site states that Lambda expressions can only appear in places where they will be assigned to a variable whose type is a functional interface. Two simple examples provided are:

Runnable r = () -> { System.out.println("hello"); };

or

Collections.sort(strings, (String a, String b) -> -(a.compareTo(b)));

The first example assigns a function whose implementation outputs the text "hello" to r, which is a Runnable. The second example uses a closure (Java Lambda Expression) to implement a Comparator method for sorting a collection of Strings. JDK 8's implementation of closures depends on Java SE 7's newly added Invokedynamic. This makes sense, since closures are usually associated with dynamic, functional languages, and Invokedynamic was added to Java to support code written in those languages (i.e. Groovy, Ruby, and so on).

Read more at Dr. Dobb’s here...

Zero-Day: Inside the latest Java Exploit

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 05:40:49 -0400

You may have <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/security/attacks/java-zero-day-attack-could-hit-enterpris/240006341">heard that this past week</a>, a zero-day security flaw was uncovered in the recently released Java SE 7 update 6. According to FireEye Malware Intelligence Lab, the Java plugin (part of the Java runtime that allows Java binary code to execute within the browser regardless of OS), had a flaw that could allow a malicious hacker to install software on your computer, effectively taking control. First, what exactly is a "zero-day" flaw?

Zero-Day Attack

We've all seen the media report "zero-day" attacks or flaws in urgent articles or blogs, and the title alone is enough to alarm you. What it means exactly is that the risk is real and was already present when the security hole was found. So, it's simply another way of say "we've found a security hole in the existing release you're using." This is as opposed to a virus or worm that's set to deliver its payload on an advertised date, at some point in the future. A zero day vulnerability is present now, whether anyone (even the "bad guys") knows it or not.

Read more at Dr. Dobb’s here...

It’s a Java Embedded World

Mon, 3 Sep 2012 05:43:41 -0400

While you still may not be able to run Java on iOS devices, or pure Java on Android devices yet, you can still run Java on billions of embedded devices. This includes feature phones (flip phones and others not considered smart phones, of which there are billions in the world), embedded controllers (i.e. RFID readers, kiosks, and so on), and small footprint computers called plug computers. These devices, such as the ones sold by Global Scale Technologies.

I have a Global Scale GuruPlug Server, which is a low-power multi-core ARM device running at 1.2GHtz, with 512MB RAM, 512MB Flash, gigabit Ethernet, Wifi, Bluetooth, USB2.0, running Debian Linux all in a shell about 3 or 4 inches square. You can see from the image below that it's about the size of my coffee mug.

Read more at Dr. Dobb’s here...