JavaOne, now on its 13th year, kicked off with a keynote delivered by Sun Executive Vice President for Software, Rich Green, along with CEO Jonathan Schwartz and none other than Dr. James Gosling, the creator of Java.

For the first time, Sun delivered a web stream of the keynote live via http://ustream.tv/sun. Previously, the recorded keynote are made available a couple of hours after and in Real Media format (which sucks!). Whilst it is web-stream uses Flash, at least you don't need to install RealPlayer. :)

This year's theme is "Java + You", which highlighted the non-technical aspect of Java, i.e., the consumer side. The upcoming JavaFX is given a lot of air-time just to show Java engineers what to expect in the future -- rich internet applications (RIA). The demo showed a Java applet running inside a browser displaying a Facebook page. Nothing special until you click and drag the applet to your desktop and make it a stand-alone application. Now, I have not seen AIR or Silverlight do that! Now, if only the demo cooperated instead of crashing. (Later, I learned that the demo crashed because it was not connecting to the internet - thanks to those who were blogging and twitterring!)

More JavaFX applications were shown and proves to be a promising technology from Sun. Oh, did I mention that THAT same code can be sent to your mobile phone and executed? Again, this seems to be unique. In addition to this, video and audio playback has been improved dramatically. Try running 100 or so HD videos at the same time and JavaFX with the new Java Virtual Machine 6 update 10 (6u10) can easily handle it.

More consumer-centric announcements were presented including the Blu-Ray Disc archives of singer Neil Young. Whilst this is a bit of a tangent to previous keynotes that I have attended before, it simply made sense since it highlighted what Java can do with those BD discs. I must say that I was impressed with what they have done, graphics and all, to present the more than 40 years of Neil Young music.

With all these content-centric and consumer-centric news announced, one may think that JavaOne this year is not about Java or Java developers. On the contrary, there are tons of technical sessions to attend, new friendships to make and more parties to attend.

I wish I can make it to next year's JavaOne on June 2 to 5, 2009. Maybe I can ask my editor to shoulder by plane fare and hotel accommodation - should just be around USD2500. :)