Google I/O: From Android 12 to Firebase and Flutter

There are so many announcements coming out of this year's Google I/O virtual conference this week that I couldn't cover it all it in one post. So, here's a quick rundown of other announcements from this (very well produced) event. (Loved the outdoor keynotes.)

Google's Jacob Lehrbaum, director of Android developer relations, advised Android developers to get ready for Android 12, due later this year, but available now in beta for some devices. This release will come with "one of the biggest design changes ever" in Android's history, he said. And that's not an understatement.

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Posted by John K. Waters on May 19, 20210 comments


Google Releases Android Studio IDE 'Arctic Fox' to Beta with Jetpack Compose Integration

Google kicked off its 2021virtual I/O conference this week with a multiple-camera keynote staged outside on the Googleplex campus in Mountain View, CA, that included a number of announcements for developers.

Topping the list of dev-related announcements at this year's event: the latest version of the Android Studio IDE, Arctic Fox (2020.3.1), gets released to beta. Among the many updates and enhancements in this release, the standout is the integration of Google's native UI toolkit Jetpack Compose, the 1.0 release of which is due in July.

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Posted by John K. Waters on May 19, 20210 comments


New Azul Java Platform Addresses Challenges of the Enterprise Cloud

Open-source Java development tools and runtimes provider Azul has announced plans to unite its commercial products into a single "Java platform for the modern cloud enterprise." Called the Azul Platform, it bundles the company's Zulu builds of OpenJDK and its Zing Java Virtual Machine (JVM), under a new set of services called the Azul Intelligence Cloud.

Users of the company's products will be able to develop, deliver, optimize, and manage their Java applications via this new platform, the company says.

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Posted by John K. Waters on May 12, 20210 comments


Oracle's 'State of the Penguin' Updates Penguinistas of Multiple Persuasions

Oracle Linux users in North America are gathering online tomorrow (Thurs. May 6, 10am PT) for the latest edition of the State of the Penguin. Wim Coekaerts, Oracle Software Development SVP and Linux Foundation Vice Chairman, will be leading what promises to be an enlightening conversation about the industry landscape, customer use cases, and the latest Oracle Linux technologies, including containers, KVM, open-source contributions, and developer tools, all to help Penguinistas "explore possibilities and update your plans."

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Posted by John K. Waters on May 5, 20210 comments


InfluxDB Makes it Easier for Disparate Devs to Collaborate on Time Series Data

The challenges of building applications that need to handle the massive volumes and countless sources of time-stamped data produced by sensors, applications, and infrastructure are myriad. Because of the uniquely critical need for efficient communication among dev team members working with what is known as "time series" data is critical, distributed teams especially challenged.

Enter time series database provider InfluxData, which recently announced a solution to this challenge, at least within the InfluxDB Cloud. The new InfluxDB Notebooks allows developers to discuss time series data analyses and trends inside the platform, so team members don't have to use third-party messaging apps, which can slow them down significantly. This new capability allows users to create what the company calls "a durable artifact" that shows teams how time series data is analyzed to solve business problems.

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Posted by John K. Waters on April 29, 20210 comments


Clash of the Titans: The Consequences of Google v. Oracle

An epic battle between titans splashed across news banners and came to a history-making end last week. No, I'm not talking about Godzilla vs. Kong, but the decade-long legal clash between Google and Oracle over software copyright and fair use. (I know… I know… but the comparison was just lying there.) 

As I reported earlier, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled last Monday that Google did not commit copyright infringement when it used 37 Java APIs in its Android mobile operating system without Oracle's permission. There was a lot of money on the line--Oracle wanted an $8.8 billion piece of Google's Android business and $475 million in lost potential licensing revenue--but there was more at stake here than an obscene amount of cash. More

Posted by John K. Waters on April 15, 20210 comments


Microsoft Rolls Out OpenJDK Preview Release

Java developers got a preview today of the soon-to-be-released Microsoft build of OpenJDK, a Long-Term Support (LTS) distribution of Redmond's version of the ubiquitous open-source Java dev kit. This preview release includes binaries based on OpenJDK 11 for x64 platforms covering the three major operating systems: macOS, Linux, and Windows.

The Microsoft build of OpenJDK binaries for Java 11 are based on OpenJDK source code, the company says, following the same build scripts used by the Eclipse Adoptium project and tested against the Eclipse Adoptium Quality Assurance suite (including OpenJDK project tests. The binaries for Java 11 have passed the Java Technical Compatibility Kit (TCK) for Java 11, which is used to verify compatibility with the Java 11 specification.  More

Posted by John K. Waters on April 6, 20210 comments


VMware Launches New Multi-Cloud Platform

VMware unveiled a new distributed, multi-cloud platform this week designed to help its customers simplify the adoption and operation of multi-cloud environments.

The pitch for the new VMware Cloud is aimed at both software developers and IT operators. The platform is designed to boost the productivity of devs by enabling them to build and deploy to any cloud. The platform also gives IT the ability to modernize infrastructure and operations with better economics and less risk. More

Posted by John K. Waters on March 31, 20210 comments


Eclipse Foundation Launches Adoptium Working Group Focused on AdoptOpenJDK Mission

The Eclipse Foundation this week announced the formation of the Eclipse Adoptium Working Group, a collaboration of vendors supporting the efforts of the Eclipse Adoptium Project, formerly known as AdoptOpenJDK.

AdoptOpenJDK is an open, community-led initiative formed to provide free, pre-built binaries of the reference implementation of the Java platform from OpenJDK. Since it was founded in 2017 by Martijn Verburg, a leader of the London Java Community, AdoptOpenJDK has seen more than 240 million downloads. More

Posted by John K. Waters on March 24, 20210 comments