Keeping you abreast of the ever-changing Java world
SGI’s Cosmo Code Development Kit available
Silicon Graphics Inc. has released version 1.0 of its Java development environment, Cosmo Code. Based on Sun’s Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.0, Cosmo Code provides a source-level debugger, object-oriented static analyzer, and class browser. The company says a visual applet builder and advanced media libraries will be available mid-year.
Cosmo Code is the first product in SGI’s Cosmo suite of Web-development tools. The suite will include an HTML/VRML authoring tool, which can be used to create motion and enable interactivity in VRML 2.0 worlds, and a browser plug-in that supports SGI’s Moving Worlds VRML 2.0 standard.
Cosmo Code costs 95, and evaluation copies are available to IRIX developers from http://www.sgi.com/ Products/cosmo/code/index.html. –Max Airborne
Dimension X introduced the Liquid Reality Server, server software that allows multi-user interaction in a 3D environment. Liquid Reality Server and its companion, VRML authoring tool/viewer Liquid Reality, use Java to enable flexible 3D shared environments. The tools support Netscape Navigator 2.0 and any Moving Worlds-compliant browser, and incorporate chat capabilities.
The company plans to showcase the technology in an online game, In the System, developed jointly with Intel. Information about the game can be obtained at Intel’s Web site (https://www.intel.com). A beta of Liquid Reality Server is not yet available. For information about Liquid Reality Server and Dimension X’s other Java-related software, visit their Web site at https://www.dimensionx.com.–Max Airborne
Symantec, maker of utilities software products for many platforms, announced native-Java anti-virus software that scans Java applets sent over the Internet. The company’s Antivirus Research Center has developed a Java-class file scanner extension to its Norton Antivirus (NAV). The product scans Java applets for virus activity within any Java-compliant browser and can detect both Java Type I and Java Type II viruses. Java Type I viruses modify HTML pages and Java Type II viruses infect .CLASS files like parasites. The company says it will make the product available at the first sign of a Java virus threat.
In development news, Symantec released Symantec C++ for Power Macintosh, Version 8, Release 5, which includes Symantec Caffeine, a standalone Java development environment. Caffeine includes a full-featured project manager, a Java source code editor with automatic syntax highlighting, full support for AppleScript to allow automation of repetitive tasks, error-reporting capabilities, the Sun Macintosh Java Developers Kit, the Sun-standard Java compiler hosted in the project-manager environment, and automatic triggering of the Java Applet viewer from within the project manager. The product costs 99.00. A trade-up from any Symantec, Metrowerks, or Natural Intelligence Macintosh development tool is available for 49.95. All registered C++ for Power Macintosh customers will be sent Release 5 free of charge as part of the Symantec C++ Macintosh subscription.
Symantec Cafe for Windows, released in early March, is a standalone Java development environment independent of Symantec C++. A 90-day introductory price of 29 is available by downloading the product from https://www.symantec.com/lit/dev/javaindex.html.–Max Airborne
TakeFive software announced SNiFF+ for Java, which provides simultaneous multi-language development support for Java, C, C++, and Fortran, and integrated tools for browsing, editing, compiling, and debugging Java applications. SNiFF+ for Java is available free to current SNiFF+ customers, and comes with SNiFF+ 2.2. It runs on Solaris 2.x, and the company plans a port to all currently supported Unix platforms, including SunOS, HP-UX, IBM AIX, SGI IRIX, Digital Unix, DEC Ultrix, Novell UnixWare, SCO Unix, and Linux. https://www.takefive.com/.–Max Airborne
License management and license tracking for Java applications and applets are available in two products from CDSI. LicenseTrack 3.5 manages software licenses and allows quick evaluation of software-usage trends and status. LicenseSERV is a floating-license toolkit for Java, PC, and Unix applications that lets developers and system administrators implement network licensing schemes. https://www.cdsi.com/. –Max Airborne
Borland International Inc. released Borland C++ 5.0 for Windows 95 and NT, which now offers integrated development tools for Java and the Sun Java Development Kit. The Borland C++ IDE features complete support for developing Java applets and applications, including project manager support, access to Java compiler and debugger options, and color syntax for highlighting Java code.
The company is also due to release a beta version of its InterBase InterClient, an Internet database solution that allows Java applets to be downloaded and run in a Web browser, bypassing traditional time access methods, such as Common Gateway Interface (CGI). The product will be available for the Windows and Unix 32-bit platforms. https://www.borland.com. –Max Airborne
Vijay Mukhi’s Computer Institute wants to connect Java programmers with people or companies who need Java programmers. With this in mind, he’s launched a Web site called JUSTICE, the Java Universal Source and Target Internet Centre (https://www.neca.com/~vmis/). The company hopes to provide job and resume listings for free. Current offerings at the Web site include a Java tutorial that promises to be user-friendly and information about a “CyberConference” on how to teach Java. The conference is to be held May 29-31 in Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay), India. –Max Airborne
Roaster, Natural Intelligence’s Java development environment for the Macintosh, is being bundled with Teach Yourself Java for Macintosh in 21 Days, from Hayden Books.
“Natural Intelligence is excited to be part of Teach Yourself Java for the Macintosh in 21 Days,” said Joshua D. Wachs, President of Natural Intelligence. “The Macintosh is one of the best learning tools there is. Using Roaster and the excellent examples in this book, Macintosh developers, and even those new to programming, will be able to learn Java quickly and easily.”
Teach Yourself Java for Macintosh in 21 Days is priced at 0.00. –Max Airborne
VXtreme Inc. has unveiled advanced compression and application-synchronization technologies that will enable new uses for real-time video on the Internet. The new technology includes scalable compression, delivery over lossy networks, and application synchronization.
Lack of scalable compression has severely limited the availability of video over the Internet. VXtreme’s compression technology offers software-only compression, a high compression ratio, and single videostream delivery. Synchronization of the video with other applications allows integration of the video, the browser, and Java applets, helping to provide such applications as “training on demand, multimedia presentations, and video information online to customers at lower bandwidth and lower cost,” said Janpieter Scheerder, president of SunSoft. http://www.vxstreme.com. –Max Airborne
SunSoft announced it will incorporate Active Software’s GUI Builder for Java into SunSoft’s Java WorkShop development tool. Written in Java, the GUI builder supports all Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT) widgets. The GUI builder technology will form the basis of SunSoft’s VisualJava product, which will support an extensible palette of GUI components, allowing developers to use pre-built widgets in their Java applets. https://www.activesw.com/. –Max Airborne
Dun & Bradstreet is about to release the first in a series of Java applets that will extend the capabilities of its SmartStream accounting and business software. The first applet will let users fill out requisition forms with their browsers and submit them to the purchasing department, eliminating the need for each user to install a SmartStream client.
According to D&B Software CTO Jeff Scherb, applet technology used for important enterprise transactions validates Intranet computing as an affordable and effective means for conducting business. Intranet applets provide the capability for ubiquitous distribution of specific software functions to users, regardless of their location, hardware platform, hardware storage space, or processing power.
The applet is due for release in May. https://www.dbsoftware.com. –Max Airborne
IBM recently licensed Java, and according to the IBM North America Client/Server News, plans to implement Java technology in its Lotus Notes groupware. The company is also currently porting Java to its OS/2 and AIX operating systems, as well as to Windows 3.1. A beta release of the OS/2 port and up-to-date IBM Java information is available from https://ncc.hursley.ibm.com/javainfo/. –Max Airborne
PostModern Computing announced an object request broker, code-named Black Widow, that connects CORBA objects with the Web. Black Widow enables Java applets to communicate with CORBA server objects implemented in Java or C++. The product automatically generates both client-side and server-side Java or C++ code, ensures fault tolerance of server objects by creating replicas of objects that it executes on different machines, and provides Web connectivity to legacy applications through the use of object wrappers. Black Widow can also bypass http and CGI protocols in favor of the CORBA Internet Inter-ORB protocol. It will available in Q2 1996 for 95 from https://www.pomoco.com. –Max Airborne
Sun Microsystems Inc. Chairman Scott McNealy beat the drum to garner support for Sun’s Java strategy on a whirlwind one-day visit to Taiwan on April 2. McNealy met with a number of government and industry officials to discuss Sun’s plans for the ballyhooed Java programming language as well as possibilities for future cooperative efforts, sources said.
McNealy also met with executives from Acer Inc. and Tatung Co. about possible manufacturing deals for Sun’s version of so-called network computers, small-footprint Java terminals that will run applications from the Internet and use the company’s Hot Java browser, according to sources close to Sun’s Taiwan branch.
Commercial Times, a local Chinese language daily, today reported that within one month Sun is expected to sign a strategic agreement with a consortium of Taiwanese software, hardware and semiconductor makers led by the island’s Ministry of Economic Affairs. Under the terms of the agreement, the group will work toward making Taiwan a center for Java-related development in the Asia-Pacific region, the report said. –Terho Uimonen, IDG News Service, Taipei Bureau
The widely backed Moving Worlds proposal from Silicon Graphics Inc. has been chosen as the specification for Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) 2.0, the standard for transmitting 3-D graphics on the World Wide Web, SGI announced on April 10. The few companies that pitched rival proposals, including Sun Microsystems Inc., IBM Japan, and the German Dynamic Research Center for Information Technology, either joined the Moving Worlds bandwagon before the final decision was made or were expected to support it eventually. Microsoft Corp. was the only holdout, and it is hanging onto the promise of its Active VRML technology.
“We’re in a very good position because our friends in Redmond do not have a 3-D file format, so Microsoft is left out in the cold,” said a source close to Apple Computer Inc. Apple had submitted its own proposal initially, but then agreed to join the Moving Worlds contingent when SGI decided to incorporate in its proposal a modified version of Apple’s 3-D MF (Meta File) as the format for transferring binary files.
But a Microsoft spokesman objected to the portrayal of Microsoft as losing out to Moving Worlds. “It wasn’t to target VRML 2.0 that we did Active VRML,” said Paul Osborne, director of multimedia for Microsoft’s Internet platform and tools division. While Microsoft will support VRML 2.0, the company also plans to go forward with Active VRML.
VRML 2.0 is designed to speed the performance of programs, add multimedia support, and offer other enhancements such as allowing objects to be programmed to move around and enabling users to interact more with the environment, rather than merely view it. Moving Worlds incorporates Sun’s Java object-oriented programming environment and adds behaviors, animation, sensors and sound to the VRML feature set. Primarily used in games now, 3-D applications are expected to expand into corporate environments for use in spreadsheets, data mining, and advanced interfaces. –Elinor Mills, IDG News Service, San Mateo Bureau
Integrated Computer Solutions (Cambridge, MA) has begun providing advanced Java language and tool training to the Support Services Group of SunSoft. ICS is the first company selected by SunSoft to teach Java to its own employees. ICS has already finished a first round of training on SunSoft’s Java WorkShop product in California and is conducting additional courses in April at SunSoft offices in the United States, Europe, and the Far East.
“Sun is so busy doing Java right now that it’s hard for them to keep up with all the training of their own people,” said Peter Winston, CEO of ICS.
“The explosive interest in Java created a need for SunSoft to quickly bring our support teams up to speed on this technology,” said Joe Keller, director of marketing for SunSoft developer products. “To accelerate this process, we looked outside our organization for the best training we could find.”
“As corporations begin to feel that there’s an opportunity to get on the front of this wave of developments in Java, that is where we see our opportunity for teaching large numbers of classes,” said Mark Hatch, vice president of marketing for ICS.
In addition to its exclusive Java WorkShop course for SunSoft, ICS also offers courses in Java to the public.
For more information on ICS’s Java training programs, visit the company’s Web site at https://www.ics.com/.
