Java 7 Released

Java 7 has finally been released by Oracle after five years, 9494 bug fixes, 1966 enhancements, 9018 changesets , four JSRs, 13 milestones and 147 builds. You can download java 7 immediately.

Java 7 does not have revolutionary changes but it includes some good features and language clean-ups. The changes includes 4 major JSRs which are :

• JSR 334 : New language features : Strings in switch statements, try-with-resources statements, improved type inference for generic instance creation ("diamond"), simplified varargs method invocation, better integral literals, and improved exception handling (multi-catch)
• JSR 292 JVM support for dynamic languages (eg. jruby, scala), following the prototyping work currently done on the Multi Language Virtual Machine = invokedynamic
• JSR 166 A new multi-core ready API : Fork/Join is a Java framework for supporting a style of parallel programming in which problems are solved by splitting them into subtasks that are solved in parallel, waiting for them to complete, and then composing the results.
• JSR 203 new I/0 APIS : Many of the methods were created without exceptions. File deletion fail error messages are detailed. Greater access to metadata such as file permissions is possible. java.nio.2
• JDBC 4.1, XRender pipeline for java 2D, Upgraded classloader architecture, ECC, Gervill sound engine

Visit Java 7 product page for more information.

And be ready for Java 8. Java 8 will be implemented with the remaining features in late 2012. Java 8 is planned to include closures (lambda operator) and features to make a modular JDK (project jigsaw)

Java Magazine, Premier Issue

Java Magazine is ready by and for Java Community !! If you have a subscription, you can start reading the digital issue. The digital issue is very fun to read since it is highly digital, supported with videos, links and attached notes.

Java Magazine is a free bi-monthly digital magazine and is all about Java technology, the Java programming language, and Java-based applications. The premiere issue of Java Magazine is published the same day as the long awaited Java 7 release.

Front Cover of the Java Magazine, 1st Issue

Editor in Chief of the Java Magazine is Justin Kestelyn. He is the senior director, developer programs at Oracle.

Apache SOLR : A Powerful Search Platform by Lucene

Considering the recent Apache SOLR version 3.3 release, it is a good chance to give some brief introduction about this powerful Java-written search library.

Apache SOLR is the popular open source enterprise search platform from the Apache Lucene project. It is a very powerful tool,especially for full text searching. It also provides features such as hit highlighting, faceted search, dynamic clustering, database integration, rich document (e.g., Word, PDF) handling, and geospatial search. [1]

Solr is written in Java and runs as a standalone full-text search server within a servlet container such as Tomcat. Solr uses the Lucene Java search library at its core for full-text indexing and search. It supports any programming language since it has REST-like HTTP/XML and JSON APIs. [1]

!!! ALSO READ THIS !!! Twitter Search is Now 3x Faster thanks to Java and Lucene

Periodic Table of HTML5 Elements

You've already known the periodic table of elements in chemistry from your early school days.
How about a periodic table for HTML5 elements?

Josh Duck prepared the following HTML5 periodic table showing the 106 elements currently in working HTML5 draft and two proposed elements.

You can view the original HTML5 periodic table from Josh Duck's web site. You can even interact and see descriptions of each element. It is very useful, try it.

Google Acquired the Pittpatt for facial recognition improvements

Google has just acquired the Pittpatt ( Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition ), a successful facial recognition start up. After this acquisiton, Google possibly aims to speed improvements related to face recognition and add new features to Picassa, Youtube and Google plus.

What is FreeMarker?

FreeMarker is a "template engine"; a generic tool to generate text output (anything from HTML to autogenerated source code) based on templates. It's a Java package, a class library for Java programmers. It's not an application for end-users in itself, but something that programmers can embed into their products.  

FreeMarker is designed to be practical for the generation of HTML Web pages, particularly by servlet-based applications following the MVC (Model View Controller) pattern. The idea behind using the MVC pattern for dynamic Web pages is that you separate the designers (HTML authors) from the programmers. Everybody works on what they are good at. Designers can change the appearance of a page without programmers having to change or recompile code, because the application logic (Java programs) and page design (FreeMarker templates) are separated. Templates do not become polluted with complex program fragments. This separation is useful even for projects where the programmer and the HTML page author is the same person, since it helps to keep the application clear and easily maintainable.

Although FreeMarker has some programming capabilities, it is not a full-blown programming language like PHP. Instead, Java programs prepare the data to be displayed (like issue SQL queries), and FreeMarker just generates textual pages that display the prepared data using templates. 

 

Google Reverse Image Search

Google can finally perform reverse image search. Using this new feature, one can figure out the source of an image.

You can try image search by uploading an image of yours from http://www.google.com/imghp.

Oracle Java 7 Celebration Webcast

Oracle will launch Java 7 -the first major Java revision in about five years- at July 28. The changes in the language and platform are more evolutionary than revolutionary, according to Java experts—including Mark Reinhold, chief architect of the Java Platform group at Oracle [1]

Oracle has celebrated the forthcoming Java version hosting a global celebration on 07/07 for java 7. You can view the Oracle Java 7 Celebration Webcast from following link:  Introducing Java 7 . More information about this event can be found here.

ZDNet also reported that Oracle debuted JDK 7 and a preview of MySQL 5.6 at OSCON 2011 this week and acknowledged it is trying to be a better open source citizen — but it is not trying to be an open source company. [3]

And some Java usage stats ... [1]

1.1 billion desktops run Java
930 million Java Runtime Environment downloads each year
3 billion mobile phones run Java
31 times more Java phones ship every year than Apple and Android combined
100 percent of all Blu-ray players run Java
1.4 billion Java Cards are manufactured each year

[1] http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Oracle-and-Java-7-The-Top-10-Developer-Features-626145/
[2] Image by http://geeknizer.com/java-jdk-7-feature-complete/
[3] Report by ZDNet : http://www.zdnet.com