Will Java Survive?

We've been hearing for years about Java's pending demise but...... it lives on. That may be changing though. A couple weeks ago Oracle announced the upcoming end of Java 8 updates. Details:

• After January 19 public updates for Java SE 8 will not be available for business, commercial, or production use without a commercial license. 
• However, public updates for Java SE 8 will be available for individual, personal use through at least the end of 2020. 

Previously, Oracle had extended public updates for JDK 8, the development kit for Java SE 8, until at least January 2019, after having originally planned to end them in September. 2018. 

Confused? Here's a little more timeline info:

• JDK 8 debuted in March 2014
• Oracle released JDK 9 in September 2017 
• JDK 10 released March 2018, moved to a six-month release schedule
• JDK 11 due for release September 2018

What does this mean? Software Developer Marc van Woerkom has some interesting questions in a post over on Quora titled Is Java dying soon or not?

• Will this lead to the end of corporate freeloading and speed up of Java development under the guide of Oracle?
• Will companies band together and fund development for some free to use for all Java versions?
• Will the open source crowd pick up development stronger than it does now?
• Or will some other language benefit? (C#? JavaScript? Elixir? ..)

How about the classroom? In the academic world we've seen growing introductory Computer Science and Computer Engineering course use of high-level scripting languages. These include Python (my favorite right now), JavaScript (different than Java) and Ruby. Arguably, JavaScript probably makes the greatest sense of the three when it comes to employment. Most developers are using JavaScript  along with other languages in their day-to-day work. JavaScript is pretty versatile and works well for front-end web development and is increasingly used for back-end development. It is also being used for game development and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. 

According to a Philip Guo survey taken way back in 2014, Python has overtaken Java as the most popular introductory language of instruction at top US Computer Science programs. That said - Java remains an excellent first year/introductory language for Computer Science and Computer Engineering students. I've always believed that first course depends more on the quality of instruction and not the language de jour...... not going any further there though - that's for another post!

You can download Java SE from the Oracle Technology network.

An Experience With An Intelligent Car

Yesterday I attended an excellent advisory board meeting for a National Science Foundation funded eBook project called E-MATE at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, NJ. Mike and Kelly are doing some really cutting edge ground-breaking work in the development of electronic instructional materials and it was an excellent meeting. I need to do some writing here about the work they are doing. Today though – I want to write about cars.

Diane was away and I had the chance to drive her car (a 2014 Volvo XC70) back and forth to the meeting. We leased this car in December 2013 and she’s the primary driver.  Yesterday was my first opportunity to take this car solo (solo is the key word here) on a road trip of almost 500 miles. The car is loaded with just about every option including the technology package and I’ve been chomping at the bit to really give the technologies a test, especially after seeing one of the autonomous Google self-driving cars in downtown Mountain View a few weeks ago.

Volvo does not offer a self-driving package (yet) but my experience - it is pretty darn close to self-driving with the technology package that adds adaptive cruise control, automatic high beam control, frontal collision warning, automatic braking for frontal collision crash mitigation, a driver inattention monitor, blind-spot warning system, active xenon headlights, and lane-departure warning to an already incredibly safe and comfortable car.

Now - driving from Massachusetts to New Jersey on a weekday is always an experience – New York City cannot be avoided unless you want to add hours to the trip and that means bumper-to-bumper traffic, crazy drivers and lots of intense time behind the wheel.

I was so impressed with the car – stop and go for at least a couple of hours and no need to hit the brakes or the accelerator. It took some time to get used to – I had to “trust” the car but once I did – amazing! An alarm that goes off if the car starts to drift outside the lane (unless a directional has been used). Sensors that monitor and determine whether the driver is becoming tired and inattentive. Cameras that watch for speed limit signs and indicate when the speed limit has changed. A blind spot warning system that indicates a car is coming up from behind on either side. Sensors that monitor oncoming traffic and control high beams.

Does the car drive itself – no – not yet but it is pretty close. Did I push the technology? I don't think so. I let the car do what it is designed to do. What did I do? I pretty much steered and adjusted the cruise control up and down. I did not have to use the accelerator or brakes unless I wanted to on the highway, whether I was going 70 mph or in a stop and go traffic jam.

As an FYI Volvo in 2017 will start testing 100 "production-viable" autonomous self-driving cars in Sweden with real drivers like you and me. These test cars have 28 cameras, lasers, sensors, and radar units along with integrated computers and communications systems that make up the self-driving system.  How soon will we have the chance to purchase a self-driving car? Right now it is looking like 2020.

With my new position at the Center for Optics and Photonics Education and my past position at the Information and Communications Technologies Center, cars (and a lot of other devices) are really hitting a sweet tech spot for me. Infrared lasers, optical sensors, integrated GPS, radar and cameras collecting large amounts of data, onboard computers processing the data, communicating back to the car and driver and making intelligent "pretty-big-data" decisions. Super cool stuff and I’ll be writing over the summer about some of these individual technologies and how they work.

Now for me – it is back to my older Toyota product with none of the car sensor and intelligent technologies (it does have a back-up camera and Bluetooth). I have to remember when I’m driving my car all of the “intelligence” is up to the driver. Ohhhh Noooo :)

Facebook Will Need Its Own Operating System

Gabby came home today for a little while and she had her Chromebook with her. If you haven't seen one yet - it's a pretty cool little notebook running Google's Chrome operating system. It boots up in about three seconds and has a battery that lasts over 8 hours. Everything is stored in the cloud so everything is accessible with a web connection. Pretty nice for a first generation device.

It got me thinking - Facebook does not have a mobile operating system (or any operating system for that matter). Apple does, Microsoft does and Google now has more than one. Poking around on the web I found an interesting report from ABI Research titled Mobile Social Networking. Here's some quotes from that report:

The number of people accessing social networks from mobile phones will exceed 550 million in 2011, and that figure will more than triple to over 1.7 billion by the end of 2016. 

For Facebook, the growing importance of mobile is both an opportunity and a serious strategic challenge. On one hand, mobile allows the world’s leading social network to engage with millions of new consumers, but on the other hand its ability to make money from mobile users remains untested. 

Senior analyst Aapo Markkanen is also quoted in the report saying, "A huge problem for Facebook is that while on the web it is a platform, on mobile it’s just another application. To strengthen its hand in the short term we expect Facebook to aggressively take advantage of HTML5, but in the longer term it should absolutely become a mobile operating system of its own."

Facebook is lagging. Google+ is tied in very tightly with Android and Chrome already. Twitter is going to be built into Apple's iOS 5. Practice director Dan Shey is also quoted saying, “The interesting aspect in Apple’s and Twitter’s partnership is how it can provide iPhone users with a verifiable social identity for websites and apps. That gives developers a lot of scope to innovate in areas such as authentication, personalization and advertising. It’s a hint of things to come.”

Simulation and Modeling in Technology Education (SMTE) Project

This is a temporary video for the Knowledge and Skills Builder level 4A - the "Column Strength Test Challenge" in the Survival Master game for STEM learning. In this level, the learner advances through the level by selecting columns that will support dead loads.



You can follow along via the project website at http://gaming2learn.org/

Simulation and Modeling in Technology Education (SMTE) Project

This is a temporary video for the Knowledge and Skills Builder level 4C - the "Platform Bounce Challenge" in the Survival Master game for STEM learning. In this level, the learner advances through the level by selecting braces to stablize platforms used to cross an obstacle.



You can follow along via the project website at http://gaming2learn.org/

Simulation and Modeling in Technology Education (SMTE) Project

This is a temporary demo video for the Knowledge and Skills Builder level 1 - the "Cave of Volume (shape volume and surface area) Challenge" in the Survival Master game for STEM learning.

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You can follow along via the project website at http://gaming2learn.org/

Simulation and Modeling in Technology Education (SMTE) Project

This is a demo video for the Knowledge and Skills Builder level 3 - the "The R Value Snowshoe Relay Race" in the Survival Master game for STEM learning.



You can follow along via the project website at http://gaming2learn.org/

Simulation and Modeling in Technology Education (SMTE) Project

This is a temporary video for the Knowledge and Skills Builder level 2E - the "Heat Flow Formula Challenge" in the Survival Master game for STEM learning. In this level, the learner advances through a "snowball assault" level by solving for unknown variables in the heat flow formula - arming their laser that they use to disable snowball firing turrets.



You can follow along via the project website at http://gaming2learn.org/

Simulation and Modeling in Technology Education (SMTE) Project

This is a temporary demo video for the Knowledge and Skills Builder level 2D - the "Material Thickness (L Value) Challenge" in the Survival Master game for STEM learning.



You can follow along via the project website at http://gaming2learn.org/

Simulation and Modeling in Technology Education (SMTE) Project

This is a temporary demo video for the Knowledge and Skills Builder level 2C - the "Thermal Conductivity (K Value) Challenge" in the Survival Master game for STEM learning.

Thermal conductivity, k, is the property of a material's ability to conduct heat. Heat transfer across materials of high thermal conductivity occurs at a higher rate than across materials of low thermal conductivity. Correspondingly materials of high thermal conductivity are widely used in heat sink applications and materials of low thermal conductivity are used as thermal insulation. Thermal conductivity of materials is temperature dependent. 

(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_conductivity)

You can follow along via the project website at http://gaming2learn.org/

Simulation and Modeling in Technology Education (SMTE) Project

Here's an overview video of the  Survival Master game for STEM learning.




You can follow along via the project website at http://gaming2learn.org/

Simulation and Modeling in Technology Education (SMTE) Project

This is a temp demo video for the Survival Master game for STEM learning - Knowledge and Skills Builder 2B - Surface Area Heat Flow Challenge level. In this single player platformer level, the learner uses knowledge about heat flow for shapes based upon surface area - to negotiate unlocking a series of elevators and catapulting across a pit of solvent hazard to complete the level and earn energy bonus points and achievements.



You can follow along via the project website at http://gaming2learn.org/

Simulation and Modeling in Technology Education (SMTE) Project

This is an overview of the design of the Survival Master multiplayer game level, which is a small team survival shelter engineering challenge that incorporates the STEM skills developed in the four single player "knowledge and skills builder" levels for shape volume and surface area, conductive heat flow, insulators, and structural stability and integrity.

You can follow along via the project website at http://gaming2learn.org/

This is a temporary demo video for the  Survival Master game for STEM learning -  Knowledge and Skills Builder 2B - Catapult level. In the video the learner uses Heat Flow knowledge to negotiate the single-player platformer gameplay. This is a first playable temp build.



You can follow along via the project website at http://gaming2learn.org/

Simulation and Modeling in Technology Education (SMTE) Project

This is a temporary demo video for the Knowledge and Skills Builder level 2A - the "Delta T Challenge" in the Survival Master game for STEM learning.



You can follow along via the project website at http://gaming2learn.org/

Simulation and Modeling in Technology Education (SMTE) Project

This is a quick animation demo for the Survival Master game for STEM learning illustrating how the development team plans on introducing the concept of the "Net" of a cube to the player.



You can follow along via the project website at http://gaming2learn.org/

Cloud Computing Technologies Podcast

On Monday (5/2/10) Mike Qaissaunee and I recorded a podcast titled Cloud Computing Technologies. The podcast references a couple of Infoworld.com documents that we think you will find interesting:

• A short white paper written by Eric Knorr and Galen Gruman titled What does Cloud Computing Really Mean
• A 21 page document titled Cloud Computing Deep Dive Report

The Deep Dive Report breaks down cloud computing into 11 categories and goes into more detail than the shorter white paper. What's really interesting is the categories are different in each document. You can see where the confusion lies when it comes to defining what cloud computing is. Here's the 11 cloud technologies we discuss:

1. Storage-as-a -service
2. Database-as-a-service
3. Information-as-a-service
4. Process-as-a-service
5. Application-as-a-service (a .k .a . software-as-a-service)
6. Platform-as-a-service
7. Integration-as-a-service
8. Security-as-a-service
9. Management-/governance-as-a-service
10. Testing-as-a-service
11. Infrastructure-as-a-service

We also discuss the CloudCamp event (great places to get info and meet people involved in cloud technologies) we hosted at Springfield Technical Community College last month and how you can get information on CloudCamps in your area.


Here's how to listen:

To access show notes and audio of our 23 minute and 26 second audio podcast titled Cloud Computing Technologies click here.

Listen to it directly in your web browser by clicking here.

If you have iTunes installed you can subscribe to our podcasts by clicking here.

Network Security Update Podcast with Sam Bowne

On Tuesday, Mike Q and I did our second network security podcast with Sam Bowne, Professor of Computer Networking and Information Technology from City College of San Francisco. We had a nice discussion with Sam sharing his thoughts on security and providing us with a snapshot of some of the latest and greatest developments in the field of network security.

Here’s some of the questions we asked Sam:

In our last conversation you mentioned that you got a BS and PhD without ever graduating high school. A number of listeners were amazed that you were able to do this and wanted more details – for example did you get a GED? Did you take the SATs?

Mike sent over an article on password cracking – did you see anything interesting in that article?

It’s been over a month since we last spoke. You had mentioned the PWN 2 OWN contest and were also planning to attend some training. Could you tell us the outcome of the contest and anything interesting you learned in your training?

Any interesting news in network security exploits or defenses in the last month?

Sam discusses a number of things in the podcast including:

• Lifehacker password-guessing
• Web of Trust Firefox (and Chrome)Extension
• NoScript Firefox Extension
• IPv4 Address Exhaustion
• Wikileaks

Sam's class content, email and lots of other great stuff can be found at http://samsclass.info/ Check him out - one of the best!

Here's how to listen:

To access show notes and audio of our 30 minute audio podcast with Sam titled Network Security Update with Sam Bowne click here.

Listen to it directly in your web browser by clicking here.

If you have iTunes installed you can subscribe to our podcasts by clicking here.

U.S. Needs More Cyber Security Training and Education

Richard Marshall, director of global cyber-security management at the Department of Homeland Security made some interesting comments yesterday at the FOSE government IT show in Washington, DC. FOSE is a conference focused on cyber-security issues facing the public sector and what it means for protection against threats, cloud computing and new open government directives.

Here's a few quotes Marshall made at the conference taken from a post over at esecurityplanet.com

Working in concert with the government, the private sector has made significant strides in improving software security and ferreting out vulnerabilities in the supply chain, but the flow of cyber-security experts graduating from the nation's universities with advanced degrees remains anemic.

One of the most important steps policymakers can take is to nourish the education and training of a new crop of security expert.

No matter how successful we are in those two elements, we are going to fail if we don't invest more money, time, attention and rewards to educate the workforce. That's our legacy-to-be.

"The IT industry provides a one trillion -- with a 'T' -- dollar contribution to the U.S. gross domestic product. If you're looking for a metric for cyber-security, money is a good metric.

And my favorite quote from the piece which I'll probably catch some flack for posting:

Look at all the great football and basketball programs. They're all on scholarships. They're not playing for fun -- they're playing for money. We need to do the same thing with our computer science students.

Nicely said.

ICT - Ten Years After The Dotcom Boom

The March 2010 issue of Wired Magazine has an interesting piece titled 10 Years After: A Look Back at the Dotcom Boom and Bust. Here's some striking numbers comparing today to ten years ago:

Item	Then (2000)	Now (2010)
ECommerce Sales (Annual)	$19.5 Billion	$156 Billion
Hard Drive Storage (per GB)	$44.50	$0.07
Bandwidth for Streaming Video (per GB)	$193	$0.028
Web Storage (monthly, per GB)	$1,250	$0.15
Domain Registration (per year)	$129	$10
Hosting (monthly per MB)	$2.59	$0.0005
24-pack of Red Bull	$57	$38

Note: Numbers have been adjusted for inflation.

This is only a tiny sample of what is in the March issue - it brings back a lot of memories. Things certainly have changed lots!