Project Wonderland developers say they will continue working on the virtual world platform, despite being laid off after Oracle’s takeover of Sun Microsystems.
“I was laid off along with most of the rest of the team,” said Project Wonderland leader Nicole Yankelovich. “Most of us are working on the project now in a volunteer capacity.”
The project has moved its blog to blogs.ProjectWonderland.com. However, the rest of the project will remain in place where it’s always been — on the Java.net site. The main project Website remains ProjectWonderland.com.
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You’ve probably seen the news - the Sun/Oracle transaction has closed. With the passing of that milestone, I can once again speak freely.
Having had nine months to accelerate down the runway, there’s not a doubt in my mind Oracle’s takeoff and ascent will be fast and dramatic. I wish the combined entity the best of luck, and have enormous confidence in the opportunity.
Greg Papadopoulos, one of the brightest people I’ve ever known, once made a very interesting statement - all technology ultimately becomes a fashion item. It was true for timekeeping, and it’s definitely true of computing and telecommunications. To that law, I’d like to add a simple corollary: the technology industry only gets more interesting. It’s been true my entire life.
As for where life takes me next, you should follow me via Twitter at openjonathan to find out. I’ll also be rehosting this blog (and again, stay tuned to Twitter by following me here). I expect to do my part to keep things interesting.
Thank you for your support and commitment. I wish you all the best of luck building, taking advantage of (and likely wearing) the future!
Jonathan Schwartz
CEO, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Oracle Corporation.
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As of February 1, 2010 Microsoft officially jumps into the cloud-computing frey and now is charging customers for developing and running apps in its Azure cloud. More …
Windows Azure platform >>
Which open-source vendors can afford the cloud? >>
The last 12 months saw a significant rise in social networking spam and malware, as Facebook is identified as the riskiest website - SC Magazine UK.
[...]
“Data mining (both legitimate and criminal) will have a wider range of effects on individuals, and some of those effects will be far from beneficial. A notable example is Facebook’s lack of commitment to a realistic security model, which would be a very significant supplement to its rather generic security centre advice. It seems to me that Facebook is encouraging its users to share as much information as possible while essentially making them responsible for the security of their own data.”
Oracle completes takeover of Sun
Oracle Corporation has announced that it has completed the nine-month takeover of Sun Microsystems first announced in April 2009. [...] Oracle shall continue to enhance MySQL and make subsequent versions of MySQL, including Version 6, available under the GPL (General Public License).
How the Sun continues to rise
Where Oracle will now take Sun remains to be seen. But, at the very least, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz has given the open source community two very viable enterprise products, Solaris and Java –though, ironically, some would argue the move also spelt the downfall of Sun, which no longer had two very viable enterprise products to sell. Regardless, for as long as the open source community continues to build upon Java and Solaris, then Sun will continue to rise, even if the company has ceased to exist.
Joe Crawford
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Jason Kottke
The best way to get a sense of what kottke.org is all about is to head to the front page or check out some random entries from the archives.
Sample: Apple “Moses Tablet” unveiling
As usual, several media outlets will bring you breathless coverage of Apple’s shiny new thing, in this case, some sort of tablet-y device/service. The event starts at 1pm ET; you can follow along on Ars Technica, Engadget, gdgt, NY Times’ Bits blog, or Gizmodo (which is often irritating).
Michael Pollan shares 20 of his favorite food rules sent in by Times readers. Also see Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, a pocket compendium of food wisdom from our nation’s most trusted resource for food-related issues.
“if you let me keep my google books i promise to stop talking about it….”
Riffing on cofounder of Google, Sergey Brin’s New York Times Oct. 10, 2009 Op. Ed on the Google Books project , U.C. San Diego Asst Professor, Amelia Glaser makes a case for digital libraries that spread texts worth reading.
Bateson is the lead singer of the legendary mythic American rock band, The Ethnogs. If you knew the secrets behind The Ethnogs success, you’d be doubly impressed by the wit and heart of their insights.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big, big fan of the potential for social networking on the internet. I also have a deep suspicion of putting too much power in too few hands. From what I’ve seen of the 900 pound gorillas on the web, none manages how they throw their weight around better than Google. This was underscored most recently when Google declared it will stop censoring its search results in China and may pull out of the country after discovering that computers hackers had tricked human rights activists into opening their e-mail accounts to outsiders. This is tantamount to corporate civil disobedience, a courageous stance, which reaffirms its “Don’t Be Evil” policy.
Google is not beyond criticism. Will the information you trust to their online apps become droplets in the Google cloud? Most certainly. Is there a risk that your data could be misused? Sure. There will be a never ending need to keep your antennas up and vigilantly scrutinize the consequences of storing your personal details on third party servers.
Google is a noted supporter of network neutrality. Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. And I can’t say enough about the free apps Google supplies to the world. Though many are in beta, they most often are powerful, easy to use, “best in the class” tools. Most notably their organic search engine, but Google gives us so much more. A few of my favorites:
And do you understand the implications of Google Books? What it could add to accessibility, to the wisdom of the people?
I could go on and on gushing in detail about each of these, but suffice it to say I feel it in the marrow of my bones - Google’s apps rock. If you haven’t already, do take a look at Docs, Picasa Web Albums and Wave … and I bet you too will be reverently saying, thank you, Google!
Dan on the Web
