Review: A Minecraft review isn’t really possible, but we’ll try anyway

How the hell do you write a review for a game that’s been out since 2009? A game that you’ve played across many changes, with additions and subtractions, a game without a box, a user manual, or, really, any sort of guiding pedagogy. I’ve personally spent at least 100 hours, probably more, playing this procedurally generated oddity of a video game across the beta and official versions, on servers, my own server, and in single … Continue Reading

Kid studies Java as a second language; should more do so?

At the Park School just outside of Baltimore, Maryland, 8th grader Chance Williams was having a lot of trouble in Spanish.

At one point, Chance’s father, Jeff, found himself sitting in the principal’s office with the Spanish teacher when a wild idea struck him.

“I thought, he loves computers, why not let him pursue that instead? Why not let him take Java as a foreign language.”

In a conversation with VentureBeat, Williams, who runs a … Continue Reading

Google vs. Oracle trial delayed, but it’s no threat to Android, spokesperson says

The judge in the ongoing Google/Oracle lawsuit over Android and its use of Java has issued a stay. That means the trial will be delayed, and no new date has yet been set.

Sources close to the matter tell us the trial, which was previously scheduled to begin on October 31, had to be put off because of the judge’s full schedule, which includes a particularly thorny gang trial.

Also, the U.S. Patent and Trademark … Continue Reading

Java creator James Gosling joins ocean robot maker Liquid Robotics

James Gosling, the creator of the Java programming language, has joined Liquid Robotics, a maker of robot vehicles that explore the bottom of the ocean, as its chief software architect.

Gosling is a former Sun Microsystems fellow who is best known as the father of the Java programming language, which has become pervasive as a web-based programming environment since it was first released in 1994. Bill Vass, chief executive of Liquid Robotics, was a former … Continue Reading

Cloud app platform Heroku now supports Java

Cloud application platform Heroku has announced support for Java, one of the most popular programming languages in existence.

Java will join Ruby, Node.js and Clojure on Heroku’s Celadon Cedar runtime stack.

While Ruby in particular is popular in the world of web startups and Node.js is wildly buzzy at the moment, Java is without doubt the most widely used programming language now supported by Heroku and may do a lot to increase Heroku’s adoption within … Continue Reading

Cloudbees lands $10.5M to move Java development into the cloud

CloudBees, which offers a Java platform as a service (PaaS) for developers, has raised $10.5 million in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

CloudBees was founded by Sacha Labourey, the former chief technology officer of JBoss. Its first investors included JBoss founder Marc Fleury. Kohsuke Kawaguchi, creator of Hudson, the most popular continuous-integration tool in the Java world, also works for the company, making CloudBees something of a Java dream team.

In a … Continue Reading

Google may settle in Android lawsuit with Oracle

In Oracle’s patent lawsuit against Google, the latter company has made a surprising concession: It might be willing to settle.

If Oracle’s claims (that Android violates patents in Oracle’s Java programming language) are found to be valid in a trial, Google could end up paying between $1.4 and $6.1 billion, depending on whether the alleged infringement was willful or unintentional.

Google’s most recent statement hinting at the possibility of an out-of-court settlement, which was tellingly … Continue Reading

Google hires Java founder James Gosling

James Gosling, father of the Java programming language at Sun Microsystems, has announced that he will be taking up a new, undisclosed position at Google.

The news comes at an time when Oracle is suing Google for copyright and patent infringement concerning Google’s use of Java in its mobile operating system, Android.

Perhaps the most qualified person to speak on the infringement, Gosling has been critical of Oracle’s decision to go after Google, stating that … Continue Reading

CloudBees' Java dream team lands $4M from Matrix Partners

CloudBees, which offers cloud services for Java developers, just announced $4 million in Series A financing led by Matrix Partners with participation from individual investors, including JBoss founder Marc Fleury and JBoss/HP/Bluestone veteran Bob Bickel. CloudBees was founded by former JBoss CTO Sacha Labourey in August this year.

A typical Java development team uses a range of software life-cycle tools for source control (stores the latest version of the code and manages changes), builds (compiles … Continue Reading

Oracle: Google stole our Java code and used it in Android!

The spat between tech giants continues with Oracle updating its lawsuit today, stating Google stole Oracle’s Java code for its Android mobile operating system.

Oracle is suing Google over the use of a third of Android’s Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) — which Oracle says are “derivative of Oracle’s copyrighted Java API packages.” Oracle filed the original lawsuit in early August.

Patent trolling seems like the thing to do this month when it comes to tech … Continue Reading

DEMO: CloudBasic makes building business cloud applications easy

CloudBasic is one of 70 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Fall 2010 event taking place this week. These companies do pay a fee to present, but our coverage of them remains objective.

Small and medium-sized companies looking to bring their business operations to the cloud but lacking the technical knowledge or resources to do it themselves may have just found a friend in new startup CloudBasic, which is unveiling a tool … Continue Reading

Oracle sues Google over Android

Oracle announced today that it has filed suit against Google for alleged patent and copyright infringement.

The business software giant headed by Larry Ellison (pictured) said that the suit concerns intellectual property related to the Java programming language, which Oracle purchased through its acquisition of Sun Microsystems. In a press release, Oracle spokeswoman Karen Tillman said, “In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property.”

I’ve embedded a copy of Oracle’s … Continue Reading

MobileBeat: Snaptu wants to make dumbphones smarter with apps

Snaptu is one of 20 promising startups included in the MobileBeat 2010 Startup Competition, and is in the running for one of two coveted Tesla Awards.

Mobile app startup Snaptu has a simple goal: To bring the rich mobile app experience seen on the iPhone, Android, and other smartphones, to every cellphone — in particular, low-end phones (often referred to as “dumbphones”).

The company has developed an application that runs on any phone that supports … Continue Reading

Want to make money off a mobile app? Build a free Java version

Snaptu is one of 20 promising startups included in the MobileBeat 2010 Startup Competition, and is in the running for one of two coveted Tesla Awards.

Mobile app startup Snaptu has a simple goal: To bring the rich mobile app experience seen on the iPhone, Android, and other smartphones, to every cellphone — in particular, low-end phones (often referred to as “dumbphones”).

The company has developed an application that runs on any phone that supports … Continue Reading

Lucid Imagination lands $10M more for enterprise search solutions

Snaptu is one of 20 promising startups included in the MobileBeat 2010 Startup Competition, and is in the running for one of two coveted Tesla Awards.

Mobile app startup Snaptu has a simple goal: To bring the rich mobile app experience seen on the iPhone, Android, and other smartphones, to every cellphone — in particular, low-end phones (often referred to as “dumbphones”).

The company has developed an application that runs on any phone that supports … Continue Reading