I'll be away in Montreal next week for the Extreme Markup Languages conference. Depending on what Internet access is available at the Hotel, updates may be a little slow until I return.
Meanwhile, a quick note about all the recent hoo-haa flying around in some gullible quarters about how open source developers hate Java and love Perl. This is, to put it in words only a Perl programmer can understand, $(~!*.)#^!. This ruckus is based on some recent experiences at the O'Reilly open source conference, which despite its name, is really only a conference for programmers in Perl, Python, and other weakly typed languages. For several years it was called the O'Reilly Perl conference. Java developers simply don't attend this conference because it's mostly irrelevant to them. They go to JavaOne, OOPSLA, Software Development or the No Fluff, Just Stuff conferences instead. I'm sure the Open Source conference is a nice enough conference for Perl folks, but asking the audience there what they think of Java is like asking the patrons of Boston's Bull & Finch pub what they think of the New York Yankees. The open source community is just fine with Java. Some Perl and C and Unix bigots aren't, for sure, but that has everything to do with the language and little or nothing to do with the licensing. The open source community as a whole (and as contrasted to the subset attending the O'Reilly conference) is a lot more conflicted about Mono and C# than they've ever been about Java.
Nokia has posted the public review draft of Java Specification Request 234, Advanced Multimedia Supplements. "This specification will define an optional package for advanced multimedia functionality which is targeted to run as a supplement in connection with MMAPI (JSR-135) in J2ME/CLDC environment." It includes APIs for 3D audio, reverb, equalizer, musical effects, cameras and video cameras, radio tuners, and image post-processing. Comments are due by August 30.