Last week’s JavaOne conference provided insights in the roadmap of 
the Java platform as well as in the current state of things in the Java 
community. The close relationship between Oracle and IBM concerning 
Java, the (continuing) lack of such a relationship with Google, the 
support from Microsoft for Java applications on its Azure cloud and the 
vibrant developer community – with over 200 different Java User Groups in many countries of the world.
  There
 were no major surprises or stunning announcements. Java EE 7 (release 
in June) was celebrated, the progress of Java 8 SE explained as well as 
the progress on Java Embedded and ME. The availability of NetBeans 7.4 
RC1 and JDK 8 Early Adopters release as well as the open sourcing of 
project Avatar probably were the only real news stories. The convergence
 of JavaFX and Java SE is almost complete; the upcoming alignment of 
Java SE Embedded and Java ME is the next big consolidation step that 
will lead to a unified platform where developers can use the same 
skills, development tools and APIs on EE, SE, SE Embedded and ME 
development. This means that anything that runs on ME will run on SE 
(Embedded) and EE – not necessarily the reverse because not all SE APIs 
are part of the compact profile or the ME environment.  However,
 the trimming down of the SE libraries and the increased capabilities of
 devices mean that a pretty rich JVM runs on many devices – such as JavaFX 8 on the Raspberry PI.
  The
 major theme of the conference was Internet of Things. A world of things
 that are smart and connected, devices like sensors, cameras and 
equipment from cars, fridges and television sets to printers, security 
gates and kiosks that all run Java and are all capable of sending data 
over local network connections or directly over the internet.
  The 
number of devices that has these capabilities is rapidly growing. This 
means that the number of places where Java programs can help program the
 behavior of devices is growing too. It also means
 that the volume of data generated is expanding and that we have to find
 ways to harvest that data, possibly do a local pre-processing (filter, 
aggregate) and channel the data to back end systems.
  Terms 
typically used are edge devices (small, simple, publishing data), 
gateways (receiving data from many devices, collecting and 
consolidating, pre-processing, sending onwards to back end – typically 
using real time event processing) and enterprise services – receiving 
the data-turned-information from the gateways to further consolidate, 
distribute and act upon.
  A cheap device like the Raspberry PI is a
 perfect way to get started as a Java developer with what embedded 
(device) programming means and how interaction with physical input and 
output takes place.
  Roadmaps
  The over all progress on Java is visualized in this overview: Read the full article here.
  
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