As we entered the the JavaOne 2008 Kick-Off General Session opened, we were greeted by flashing lights, upbeat music and an energetic dance troupe “kickin’ it” on stage. SUN Microsystems Vice Presidents, John Gage, James Gosling, and Chris Melissinos opened the session saying that this conference was going to have the same energy as the dancers.

The three showed off tiny remote sensors that had been placed throughout all of the Moscone Center. The sensors pick up the RFID tags in our badges and record the current populations in each of the rooms as well as tracking individuals coming and going.

They then showed a hand-held Nokia device that would scan our cards and report whether or not we had been pre-registered to attend a session.

Also shown were inductive meters from Sentillium, which track the electrical flow and carbon dioxide gas levels in each room. The device is also capable of tracking forty other types of gas — The major theme being: How can we use technology to make the unseen, seen?

The main keynote speaker was introduced, Rich Green, Executive Vice President of Software, Sun Microsystems. He said that businesses no longer drive the technology revolution. Technology is now driven by consumers. Consumers are connected 24/7 and the line between work and life is blurred. Businesses must compete for consumers on the Internet with interfaces that are not only functional, but also simple, intuitive, and compelling.

Green introduced Ian Freed, Vice President of Kindle Amazon. He showed the Amazon device called Kindle, which is a device that is meant to replace the “book”. It allows a user to read books, newspapers, and blogs. It uses Amazon’s recommendations, and allows the user to purchase books anywhere using 3G wireless technology. In most cases, purchased books are downloaded to the device in under a minute.

Green spoke of Rich Internet Applications (RIA), which he defined as a great user experience that merges information from different services across all facets of life. However, RIA is not just for the user. Developers must be able to quickly create simple, intuitive and compelling designs — it’s all about how fast you can iterate changes.

He then demonstrated a Facebook widget, called ConnectLife that unifies live messaging and pictures from Twitter, Flickr, and Facebook. ConnectLife is written in JavaFX. He showed how the application could be dragged out of the browser and dropped onto the user’s desktop. At this point, the browser is no longer needed, and the application can even be saved to the local machine.

The next demo was the Photo Flocker application. It used Flickr to search and display pictures from a typed key word. He also showed a 3D demo of an application using JavaFX that was simultaneously playing 200 videos with all of their audio.

Green then introduced Eric Klein, Vice President of Mobile Applications, SUN Microsystems. He showed a mobile phone running the same ConnectLife application that was running in the browser and on the desktop. It was implemented with JavaFX mobile and Android from Google.

Green said that SUN’s Glassfish Application Server has been re-engineered. The kernel is only 98KB. All other functionality is provided through modules such as an HTTP server, an application server, etc. It’s small footprint will allow Glassfish to run anywhere as a container.

Next Green introducted Jonathan Schwartz, CEO and President, SUN Microsystems. Schwartz presented four driving forces today:

1. Technology must be able to reach all devices in the world, but it must be compelling and high-performing.
2. It must be accessible to consumers and developers.
3. It must provide more insight into the users than any other platform.
4. All of it must be free.

Next Johnathan introduced musician Neil Young to the stage. Back in the 80’s, Neil had wanted to create a multimedia autobiography showing his entire career, but it has taken twenty years for the technology to mature to point where Neil’s vision could finally be fulfilled. Using Blu-Ray discs and Java technology, he was able to create a rich and interactive multimedia environment. Progress on the project can be found here: http://www.java.com/en/java_in_action/neil_young.jsp