msmoriarty writes "Oracle had lots of Java announcements at this year's JavaOne. So far the plans include: 'The availability of an early access version of JDK 7 for the Mac OS, plans to "bridge the gap" between Java ME and Java SE, an approach to modularizing Java SE 8 that will rely on the Jigsaw platform, a new project that aims to use HTML5 to bring Java to Apple's iOS platform, the availability of JavaFX 2.0, a pending proposal to open source that technology, gearing up Java EE for the cloud, and a delay in the release of Java 8.'"

jfruhlinger writes "One of Oracle's stated purposes when it bought Sun more than two years ago was to create full-stack appliances: SPARC servers running Solaris or Oracle Linux and Oracle's suite of app servers and of course its omnipresent database. Its new T4 processor is a reaffirmation of that strategy. But has the company painted itself into a corner? While it's cautiously embraced the cloud, its cloud services don't work with Windows or other companies' offerings, which kills much of their potential value; meanwhile, they've managed to alienate open source developers and big swaths of the Java community. It seems that Oracle's inability to play well with others is locking them out of the multipolar future."

rastos1 writes with this news from The Register: "In a demonstration last Friday, it took less than two minutes for researchers Thai Duong and Juliano Rizzo to wield the exploit to recover an encrypted authentication cookie used to access a PayPal user account. ... The researchers settled on a Java applet as their means to bypass SOP, leading Firefox developers to discuss blocking the framework in a future version of the browser. ... 'I recommend that we blocklist all versions of the Java Plugin,' Firefox developer Brian Smith wrote on Tuesday in a discussion on Mozilla's online bug forum. 'My understanding is that Oracle may or may not be aware of the details of the same-origin exploit. As of now, we have no ETA for a fix for the Java plugin.'"

packetrat writes "Ars Technica reports on Monday's launch of the Sparc T4, and how it finally (nearly 20 years after everyone else) brings out-of-order execution to Sun Sparc ... er, Oracle Sparc. But the benchmarks that Oracle has thrown up (surprise) are a smokescreen for the fact that the processor is still woefully behind state of the art, and it serves mostly as a placeholder to keep the remaining Sparc user base from defecting to Intel — even as Oracle is selling systems based on Intel and Oracle Linux. With the right benchmarks, my minivan outperforms a Maserati. The T4 is a minivan."

MojoKid writes "Oracle is publicly demonstrating its new T4 processor today and is shipping beta test systems to selected partners. The new T4 chip is a major departure from previous designs. The T4 offers a maximum of eight cores per physical chip and keeps the T3's eight-threads-per-core limitation. The T4 compensates for its lower maximum theoretical throughput in several ways. First, the T4 is an out-of-order processor with an enhanced branch predictor. Its maximum speed is said to be at least 3GHz, nearly double that of the 1.67GHz T3. Oracle claims the chip's single-threaded performance has been significantly boosted, and expects T4 to deliver a 2x-7x speed increase in single-threaded workloads compared to T3."

New submitter packetrat writes "Ars Technica analyzes the recent commercial additions by Oracle to MySQL Enterprise and the additional unrest it's added to the community. Oracle may be throwing itself out of the community as it pushes more customers to look at fully open-source alternatives."

Orome1 writes "Mysql.com was compromised today, redirecting visitors to a page serving malware. Security firm Armorize detected the compromise through its website malware monitoring platform HackAlert, and has analyzed how the compromise of the site's visitors unfolded. The mysql.com website was injected with a script that generates an iFrame redirecting the visitors to a page where the BlackHole exploit pack is hosted." According to Brian Krebs, the exploit used to compromise the site was being shopped around last week for $3,000.

sproketboy writes "It seems Oracle has decided in their infinite wisdom to remove digital signatures from the Java projects that they put into the open source community. Of course this breaks any application out there depending on Java Webstart using these libs. Looks like Java3D and JAI are currently affected — probably other APIs are as well. Oh Oracle! What are we supposed to do with you?"

jfruhlinger writes "Oracle has released proprietary extensions to the open source MySQL database, seeming to reinforce the worst fears of those in the open source community who opposed Oracle's acquisition of MySQL in the first place. But open source observer Brian Proffitt urges you not to panic: This dual source strategy really isn't unusual in the commercial open source world, Oracle has already released a bevy of open source improvements to the database, and anyway the EU extracted a commitment to keep MySQL open for another four years when it approved the Sun-Oracle merger."

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft's Neal Gafter, who was primary designer and implementer of the Java SE 4 and 5 language enhancements and now works for Microsoft on .NET platform languages, discusses the impact of Oracle's acquisition of Sun on Java, makes the case for adding segmented stacks and a meta-object protocol to Java, and offers some insights into how Java and C#/.NET compare." The first couple of answers meander a bit, but after that the interview picks up and is a pretty good read.

Last week you asked the Director of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Eben Upton, about developing an ultra-low-cost computer and running a charitable organization. Below you'll find his answers. Thanks go out to a busy Eben for responding so quickly.

itwbennett writes "Slashdot readers will remember that on Sept. 1, a federal judge overturned a $1.3 billion judgment and approved SAP's request that Oracle accept a lower award of $272 million. Now, according to court documents filed this week, former SAP subsidiary TomorrowNow will plead guilty to criminal charges of copyright infringement for downloading software from Oracle's servers. Sentencing will take place at a hearing on Sept. 14."

itwbennett writes "Apparently, Oracle's president, Safra Catz, and Google's head of mobile, Andy Rubin, aren't senior enough to attend a court mediation session. Judge William Alsup, who is overseeing the dispute between the two companies, wants the Larrys to go head to head instead. Oracle agreed with part of Alsup's recommendation, saying in a Wednesday evening filing that, 'Oracle believes the prospects for a successful mediation will be far greater if Google's executive-level representative is a superior to Mr. Rubin, who is the architect of Google's Android strategy — the strategy that gives rise to this case.' Oracle also noted that Rubin has represented Google in past, failed mediations."

itwbennett writes "Federal judge Phyllis Hamilton has overturned the $1.3 billion judgment Oracle won against SAP and has approved SAP's request that Oracle accept a lower award, which would negate the need for a new trial." Oracle is in the habit of asking for awards in the billions; with that model, they really can make it up on volume.

littlekorea writes "Cables leaked by Wikileaks have revealed that the U.S. Government actively pressured the EU Competition Commissioner to approve Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems. The cable reveals that the U.S. went to great lengths to discover how the competition commissioner felt about the 'pro-competitive' nature of open source software and whether this would represent a threat to the US$7.4 billion deal."

theodp writes "If Apple's looking for a seamless transition, advises the NYT's James B. Stewart, it definitely shouldn't look to Hewlett Packard. In the year after HP CEO Mark Hurd was told to hit-the-road-Jack, HP — led by new CEO Leo Apotheker — has embarked on a stunning shift in strategy that has left many baffled and resulted in HP's fall from Wall Street grace (its stock declined 49%). The apparent new focus on going head-to-head with SAP (Apotheker's former employer) and Oracle (Hurd's new employer) in enterprise software while ignoring the company's traditional strengths, said a software exec, is 'as if Alan Mulally left Boeing to join Ford as CEO, and announced six months later that Ford would be making airplanes.' Former HP Director Tom Perkins said, 'I didn't know there was such a thing as corporate suicide, but now we know that there is.'"

GMGruman writes "After five years of a torturous political process and now under the new ownership of Oracle, Java SE 7 is finally out (and its initial bugs patched in the Update 1 release). So what does it actually offer? Paul Krill surveys the new capabilities that matter most for Java developers, from dynamic language support to an improved file system."

swandives writes "More in the Oracle/Google patent infringement saga. Oracle says no court has ever found that APIs for software like Java are ineligible for copyright protection. The claims were made in its objection to Google's request that the court make a summary judgment on Oracle's copyright allegations. In early August, Google asked the judge to rule that Google doesn't infringe Oracle copyright in its implementation of Android. In an objection to that request, Oracle asked the judge to let the charge go to trial. Earlier, Judge Alsup denied Google's attempt to get a potentially damaging e-mail redacted. Looks like this one could take a while."

dtjohnson writes "A newly published study (abstract) predicts that solar storms are going to become increasingly disruptive to satellites and communications in the coming decades as the sun cycles towards a minimum of activity. 'The work, published in Geophysical Research Letters, predicts that once the Sun shifts toward an era of lower solar activity, more hazardous radiation will reach Earth. The team says the Sun is currently at a grand solar maximum. This phase began in the 1920s — and has lasted throughout the space age....The evidence seems to indicate that although there are fewer solar storms once the Sun leaves its grand maximum, they are more powerful, faster and therefore carry more particles.'"

snydeq writes "Neil McAllister sees Oracle's buggy Java SE 7 release as only the latest misstep in a mounting litany of bad behavior. 'Who was the first to alert the Java community? The Apache Foundation. Oh, the irony. This is the same Apache Foundation that resigned from the Java Community Process executive committee in protest after Oracle repeatedly refused to give it access to the Java Technology Compatibility Kit,' McAllister writes. 'It seems as if Oracle would like nothing better than to stomp Apache and its open source Java efforts clean out of existence.'"