May 29, 2009 - From new programming languages to embedded applications, robots, multi-threaded game engines and virtual worlds, JavaOne 2009 attendees have an opportunity to explore the rich variety of Sun Labs technologies on display. And just about every description for BOFs, Technical Sessions and Hands on Labs by Sun Labs researchers concludes with "See some cool demos!"

Please check out the overview below for a quick idea of which projects are doing what. Complete details at Sun Labs BOFs, Technical Sessions and Hands on Labs.

Sun Labs Projects . . . BOFs, Technical Sessions, Hands on Labs:

Project Fortress. . . . Get started with Fortress programming.

Christine Flood and David Chase, will present Targeting Project Fortress to the Java™ Virtual Machine, a BOF which discusses how the new programming language from Sun Labs relates to the JVM, as well as a Hands-on Lab – Project Fortress Programming Lab – where participants can make a start on programming in Fortress.

Project Darkstar . . .Design your own 3-D game.

Owen Kellet will make a deep dive into Project Darkstar with a Technical Session: Project Darkstar: A Scalable Application Server for Networked Games, Virtual Worlds, and MMOGs. The talk will cover technical challenges of developing scalable networked virtual worlds, recent technical advances and actual design and code of Project Snowman, a new 3-D action game built with Project Darkstar. Owen and Daniel Templeton will also run a Hands on Lab – Project Snowman: Developing a 3-D Multiplayer Game, Using Project Darkstar – which will expose attendees to the challenges of 3-D game design from the ground up.

Doug Twilleager's Technical Session, Creating Games with the Open-Source Multithreaded Game Engine (MTGame), will present the technical details of this game engine framework, including new methods for utilizing multi-CPU systems in real-time visualization and exposure to the latest 3-D graphics techniques.

Project Wonderland . . . Explore building 3-D virtual worlds.

Accompanied by plenty of special guests from the Wonderland and Java technology-based gaming community, Paul Byrne and Jonathan Kaplan will present the Project Wonderland BOF: Build 3-D Virtual Worlds with Java™ Technology. The group will discuss the experience of creating scalable, persistent worlds with the Project Darkstar game server and explore the cool worlds being built by the Wonderland community.

In a Technical Session, Eltjo Boersma and Jan van der Meer, Ericsson, will show off some very cool features they have added to Wonderland as part of A Virtual Multimedia Office, including support for navigating the world, hearing audio and using documents, all from a mobile phone.

Fusing 3-D Java™ Technologies to Create a Mirror World: Scott Bennett and Steve Vaughan from SRA International, Inc. have been working on building mirror worlds using Java APIs. This Technical Session gives information, and code, on how to use SRA's API to create your own 3D environment and live demonstrations of real-world applications being developed with the system.

Project Sun SPOT, FIRST, (For Inspiration & Recognition of Science and Technology) and the Squawk Virtual Machine.

If you're interested in how Java™ technology can be used to create new embedded applications, and how Sun SPOTs relate to the Cloud, Roger Meike and the whole Sun SPOT team will talk about the latest Sun SPOT technology, in the BOF: Java™, the Internet of Things, and the Sun SPOT.

In a Technical Session also titled FRC- FIRST Robotic Competition, Eric and Brad Miller from Worcester Polytech (WPI) will detail the port of Java technology, including the Squawk Virtual Machine, to National Instrument's CompactRIO programmable automation controller. This port, along with FIRST APIs and and the Java ME Information Module Profile (IMP) will enable competitors in the 2010 FRC to program the 4-to-5-foot-high FIRST robots using Java.

Finally, in a Technical Session titled Project playSIM: Experimenting with Java Card™ 3 System Programming, Eric and Fritjof Engelhardtsen, Telenor, show how to combine the flexibility of open-source technologies such as Sun SPOTs and Squawk Virtual Machine with the commercial license aspects of the Java Card 3 platform.

Sun Labs Projects and Friends in Keynotes, Pods, Change (Y)our World Playground

Community One General Session Keynote: On Monday, June 1, at 9:00 am, Dave Douglas and John Fowler will present the CommunityOne General Session Keynote for a look ahead at Communities and Open Source Innovation.

Dave will also introduce "Citizen Engineer: A Handbook for Socially Responsible Engineering", co-authored by Dave and Greg Papadopoulos, which will be available in July, 2009.   Sun employees have early access via Safari Roughcuts:  Safari Books Online. For more information about availability, pre-orders, employee discounts, visit Pearson Publishing in Pavilion Booth 333. 

Listen to a podcast of Dave and Greg talking to Net Impact members about Citizen Engineer.

JavaOne Keynote:

playSim Demo in James Gosling's Toy Show, Friday, June 5, 8:30 - 10:30 a.m.

Using a Sun SPOT as an execution engine as well as a modular hardware platform, Telenor will demo playSim, an open-source development kit for prototyping new and creative Java Card 3 technology-based applications without the hardware limitations of today's smart cards.

Duke's choice Award in James Gosling's Toy Show:

Stay tuned . . . .

Vodafone Pavilion Pod:

Vodafone R&D and the Sun SPOT team and have worked together since August 2008 to explore combining the sensing capability of the Sun SPOT platform with Vodafone expertise in UMTS  transmission and PUSH gateway technologies. Vodafone will discuss their experience with the Sun SPOT platform, including Sun SPOTs in the Vodafone SmartCampus initiative, and will demo their prototype Sun SPOT daughter card which has a Bluetooth module and a GPS  sensor onboard.

Change (Y)our World Playground

Project Yggdrasil and Sensor.network.com:

Sun Labs researchers have been working with teams from around the world to install Sun SPOTs in a variety of sites including rainforests of Panama, Salt Marshes in San Francisco Bay and Sun Datacenters. While the research in progress and the sensors required are different in each of the sites, the Project Yggdrasil and Sensor.network.com framework for data collection, analysis, visualization and sharing is the same for all the sensor installations. Arshan Poursohi, Vipul Gupta, Poorna Udupi and team will demo the Yggdrasil and Sensor.network technologies in a dramatic Eco pod in the center of the Playground during the Pavilion open hours.

Robot Arena:

Right next to the Eco pod, Eric, FIRST Robotics and representatives from four Bay Area high school robotics teams will demo the robots built by the teams for the 2009 FIRST Robotics Competion in Atlanta. Teams present include:

Monta Vista Robotics Team FRC 115, Monta Vista HS, Cupertino,
Funky Monkeys, Team FRC 846, Lynnbrook HS, San Jose,
uixilver, Team FRC 604, Leland HS, San Jose,
And FRC 2009 World Championship Team: Spartan Robotics, Team 971, Mountain View HS,

Community SPOTs:

The large, world-wide Sun Spots community has been using the Sun SPOT platform for several years and in the process, members have been doing lots of cool things! Come by and see what's going on and how the Sun SPOTs community around the globe is changing the world.

Additional Links:

• Sun Labs BOFs, Technical Sessions and Hands on Labs
• Project Fortress:
  - Open Source Page
• Project Darkstar:
  - Open Source Page
  - Blog
• Project Wonderland :
  - Open Source Page
  - Blog
• Project SunSPOT:
  - Open Source Page
  - Roger Meike's Blog