The coming waves in computing technology: Java and Jini
By Zatni Arbi
BANGKOK (JP): Would you like to know the current exchange rate of one Thai baht to one rupiah in Singapore? If your mobile phone is equipped with a special card called a Java card, you can enter your query using the appropriate menu that appears on the phone's LCD screen, and after less than one minute it will beep and you'll be able to read the exchange rate.
The service, which was demonstrated during Sun Microsystems' Asia Press Symposium 1998 in Bangkok, Thailand, earlier this month, is just one of many services being made available to cellular phone customers in Singapore.
What the customers will be using is a small computer program called a Java application, which is written in a programming language of the same name. The application is stored in the SIM card of the mobile phone and interacts with a Java server at the service provider's premises.
Java is by no means new technology. It's been around since 1995, and even today it is still creating a lot of noise in the courtroom as Sun Microsystems, the inventor of the programming language, fights against giant Microsoft. Sun contends that Microsoft is trying to hamper future development of Java by changing some parts of the language as it is being incorporated into the Windows operating system. So far, Sun has been on the winning side.
The 16-year-old Sun Microsystem may not be as widely known as Intel, IBM, HP, Microsoft or Compaq, but it is the maker of a wide range of products from high-end enterprise servers to the Solaris operating system to JavaStations. Its top-end server, the Enterprise 10000, for instance, is used by companies with large operations such as GSM provider Excelcomindo. To most of us, however, the name Sun tends to be associated most with its Java technology.
What's so special about Java? Think of the small applications such as the one stored in the cellular phone's SIM card as electric shavers. In the past, each country had its own electric shaver that used the exact power plug and ran on the exact voltage level used in that country. If you had bought an electric shaver in the U.S., you'd have to buy another one when you came to Jakarta because here we used a different type of plug and voltage level. A Java application, on the other hand, can be run on any machine and in any operating environment because it resembles a traveler's electric shaver. All you need is the so- called Java Virtual Machine (JVM), which acts more like a portable voltage regulator and plug adapter for the same electric shaver.
In other words, if in the past programmers had to write separate programs for the same application -- say WordPerfect for DOS, Macintosh, Windows, and UNIX, today they can write only one version of WordPerfect using the Java programming language and it can be run on the different operating systems. In fact, Corel has Corel Office for Java, and Lotus Development Corp. has Java-based e-Suite that tap in on the benefit of the underlying "write-once, run anywhere" characteristics of Java.
It should not be surprising, then, that each time you browse the computer bookshelves in Times bookstores you'll encounter books on Java programming more than anything else. So, in case you're planning a career in computer programming, Java is the one that you should take up -- besides, of course, SAP's R/3.
Here comes Jini
However, Java is not the only thing that has been brewing under the sun. Developed secretly since 1994 by Sun's own cofounder and vice president, Bill Joy, another technology for building networking infrastructure called Jini has finally come into being. It is based on the same philosophy that enables all your telephone devices to talk to each other using the universal dial tone.
In a Jini network, we can use resources, including the computing power from different microprocessors that run different computers attached to a network, the storage capacity of hard disks in separate computers, as well as other Jini-based devices such as printers, scanners and digital cameras, every time we join it.
"A Jini network can be viewed as a federation of devices," Miko Matsumura, Sun's Java evangelist, told me during the two-day symposium. "When you plug your device into a Jini network, you can virtually tap the services of all devices and applications available on that network. That way, even your Personal Digital Assistance (PDA) can have the computing power of a supercomputer."
The benefits of Jini, as pointed out by Miko, are multiple. Among others, you don't need to worry anymore about device drivers. If you have tried to install the software driver of an HP DeskJet printer on a Windows 98 machine, you'll be familiar with the problem. Drivers are not needed in a Jini network because as soon as a new device is plugged in, it will announce its presence and all the services that it can render to everybody else in the network.
Any device with a computer chip and a Java Virtual Machine in it can offer a service to anybody else in a Jini network. So, for instance, when a Jini-compliant digital camera is plugged into a Jini network, everybody else in the network will be notified and will be able to see its icon on the screen of their Jini notebooks. If any user wants to print the image captured by the digital camera, all he has to do is drag the picture on his screen to the printer icon.
The Jini technology obviously makes it very simple for us to exchange information and data. And it is an interesting concept, too. Take today's high-tech car, for example. It is already a network of computerized devices that talk to one another. With the implementation of Jini, wouldn't it be possible to have a Jini-based car beckoning at you in the showroom one day?