Languages and standards - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Oracle releases Java SE 7

  In what is the first major update to the programming language in more than five years, Oracle has shipped Java Platform Standard Edition 7 (Java SE 7), the company announced Thursday.

• Wolfram makes data interactive

  Wolfram Research, the maker of the popular Mathematica computational software, has released a new platform for visualizing and interacting with complex data sets, the company announced Thursday.

• Oracle wants to grill Google's Page in Android suit

  Oracle wants to put Google CEO Larry Page on the hot seat in the companies' intellectual property lawsuit over the Android mobile operating system, according to a court filing made late Thursday by the companies.

• Judge: It's 'possible' Google knew of Java violation

  It "appears possible" that Google knew that its Android mobile operating system would violate Java patents held by Oracle, but decided to go ahead with the effort anyway, the judge overseeing the companies' intellectual property lawsuit said in a letter filed Tuesday.

• W3C chastises Apple on HTML5 patenting

  The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is seeking to invalidate a pair of Apple patents so the underlying technologies can be used as part of a royalty-free HTML5 stack.

• Oracle ships Java 7 RC

  Oracle has issued the first release candidate of Java Standard Edition version 7.

• Oracle: Google owes us US$2.6 billion

  An Oracle damages expert estimates that Google owes the company US$2.6 billion for alleged Java patent violations, according to a court filing made Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

• Oracle's patent claims versus Google take a potential hit

  Oracle's lawsuit against Google over alleged Java patent violations in the Android OS is facing a potential setback, following a ruling by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

• Google disputes possible $6 billion Java lawsuit price-tag

  Google may owe Oracle nearly as much money in damages as Oracle paid to buy all of Sun Microsystems, according to Oracle's paid expert in the companies' Java intellectual property dispute.

• A decade later, W3C finalizes CSS 2.1

  The World Wide Web Consortium has updated its widely used specifications for formatting the look and feel of Web pages, a standard known as CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

• Oracle seeks hefty slice of Google's ad revenue

  Oracle wants a significant chunk of the ad revenue Google generates in connection with its Android mobile OS, according to a filing made this week in the companies' ongoing patent litigation suit.

• Microsoft Windows 8 demos spur developer worry

  Thanks to two brief demonstrations of Microsoft's next-generation operating system, third-party Microsoft Windows developers are expressing frustration over what they consider a lack of clear direction on how to develop applications for Windows 8.

• Oracle-Google trial could be delayed for years

  The federal judge overseeing the Java patent litigation between Oracle and Google has said it might be necessary to delay a trial until U.S. authorities finish re-examining a number of Oracle's patents, a process that could take years.

• Oracle frees JRockit

  Following through on a promise made last September, Oracle will now offer its legacy JRockit Java Virtual Machine (JVM) at no cost for personal and internal use.

• Microsoft regearing .Net for easy concurrency

  Microsoft is building two new additions to its .Net framework that should make it much easier for programmers to utilize all the cores of a multicore processor.