Sun Microsystems Inc has announced that it will port its PersonalJava consumer devices Java platform to Microsoft Corp’s Windows CE platform and will also develop sets of APIs for the television, automotive and telecommunications markets. However, this comes as no real surprise as Sun won cable giant Tele-Communications Inc (TCI) as a licensee for PersonalJava for up to five million of its set-top boxes earlier this year, with PersonalJava running on top of Windows CE, so the work will already have been started presumably. Sun says it will be complete in the third quarter. Sun says the addition of CE completes the portfolio of platforms for PersonalJava, which is the slimmed down version of the Java platform for devices such as telephones, handheld computers, pagers and other small devices with screens. In addition to cable set-top boxes, the JavaTV API will cover satellite receivers, digital televisions and high-definition televisions. It will enable, says Sun, a person using a set-top box conforming to the spec to choose a movie, pay for it with a smart card and download it from the internet. The AutoJava API defines such things as car navigation, in-vehicle audio/video controls and voice recognition. The JavaPhone API includes power management, display controls and data synchronization.
