Congratulations, 2010 Duke’s Choice Awards Winners!

The Duke’s Choice Awards recognize and honor extreme innovation in the world of Java technology, and are granted to the most innovative uses of the Java platform. Because the primary judging criteria is innovation, the awards put even small developer shops on an equal footing with multinational giants. The winners are selected by Oracle’s Java technology leadership team.

The 2010 Duke’s Choice Awards winners will be featured at the Oracle Technology Network tent on Mason Street (between Ellis and O'Farrell streets) during JavaOne in San Francisco, September 20-23rd. Please plan to visit the OTN tent — which offers a morning cappuccino or an afternoon beer at Tap and Brew, a LEGO Pit game area, an e-mail lounge, as well as the opportunity to meet and hang out with the Duke's Choice Award winners and Java User Group (JUG) leaders.

And The Winners Are…

This year, the leadership team committee gave out ten Duke’s Choice Awards, in the following categories:

Category: Innovative End-to-end Consumer Application

Company: MLB Advanced Media

Product: Fantasy Baseball Live Scoring Application

Site: https://www.mlb.com/fantasy

Java technologies: Java SE 6, Swing, JavaFX 1.2

Using Java SE 6, Swing, and JavaFX 1.2, MLB’s Fantasy Baseball Live offers a rich client application, allowing over 250,000 online fantasy baseball managers to assemble their dream team, and interact with thousands of fantasy leagues—including instant messaging between managers, real-time updates of roster selections, live real-time stats, fantasy points, and league match-up updates. Fantasy managers can view game schedules, player bios, scoreboards, and live streaming game videos.

Category: Innovative Health Care & Human Services

Company: Pulse for Integrated Solutions

Product: Health Intact

Site: http://www.pulse-eg.com/

Java technologies: Server uses JDK1.6 and JEE 6 (Struts application with some exposed Servlets and Web Services), Java Encryption APIs, JDBC and Java Mail APIs. Mobile/PC clients use J2ME CLDC 1.0 and MIDP 1.1, push registry, Bluetooth APIs, File Connection APIs, Java SE 1.6 Swing, and RMS.

Employing a full complement of Java technology, the Pulse Health Intact system offers remote telemedicine solutions to the developing world—transmitting patient information and monitoring data (blood pressure, blood sugar, ECG, etc.) to doctors via Bluetooth connections and mobile handsets, as well as integrating with existent hospital medical record systems. The server portion of the system employs JDK1.6 and Java EE 6 (Struts application with some exposed Servlets and Web Services), Java Encryption APIs (for secure patient privacy), JDBC (for integration with existent hospital systems) and Java Mail APIs. Meanwhile, the mobile/PC client applications use J2ME CLDC 1.0 and MIDP 1.1, push registry, Bluetooth APIs, File Connection APIs, Java SE 1.6 Swing, and RMS to persist application settings. “Java’s complete set of APIs for web/enterprise solutions, Mobile applications, and standalone applications made this dream come true,” says company System Architect, Osama Oransa.

Category: Innovative Government & Public Works

Company: Perrone Robotics

Product: Pennsylvania Turnpike Laser-based Vehicle Measurement System

Site: www.perronerobotics.com

Java technologies: Java RTS, Solaris, Xeon Sun Fire Workstation

Using a laser-based technology in partnership with Transcore Corporation (www.transcore.com), Perrone Robotics has implemented a Java RTS-based solution on the Pennsylvania Turnpike that measures vehicles while in motion, effectively eliminating the need to pull off the road at a weigh station. The system is effective in either stop-and-go traffic, or at up to speeds of 100 mph—and can register motorcycles, cars, trucks, and tractor-trailers, gathering data on vehicle type height, width, length, and speed. The system employs laser-based detection of vehicle points, fusion of data across multiple lasers in real-time, transmission of laser data via Ethernet to vehicle scanning station server, and communication with lane controller and camera systems using Cinterion M2M technology.

Category: Innovative User Experience

Company: EffectiveUI

Product: 2010 Winter Olympics JavaFX Medal Geo-View

Site: www.effectiveui.com/, https://www.olympic.org/vancouver-2010

Java technologies: JavaFX

When the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) wanted to create a unique and innovative way to provide up-to-date Olympic data, they enlisted EffectiveUI and the Oracle/Sun JavaFX team. Accessed by millions of virtual visitors and fans during the Vancouver Olympic Game, the Vancouver Winter Olympics site provided interactive comparisons based on medal types, athlete gender and profiles, country populations and GDP, and included live results tickers listing recent, current and upcoming Olympic events. To appeal to the site’s obvious global audience, EffectiveUI incorporated census and other relevant statistical data into search results to give users a depth of perspective into each country’s background. The application was built using Java Web Start, which allowed users to run live event listings on their desktop without having to log on to www.Vancouver.com. And JavaFX provided ready access to the application across multiple platforms—including the Web, desktop, and mobile technology.

Category: Innovative Technical Data Visualization

Company: Gephi

Product: Gephi

Site: www.gephi.org

Java technologies: Java SE 6, NetBeans Platform, JOGL, SwingX

Gephi is open-source graphic visualization software based entirely on Java technology. It allows users to manipulate and visualize large quantities of data—to reveal hidden patterns, structures, and associations. Gephi is presented as “Photoshop for graphs,” and wants to create a sustainable software ecosystem driven by a large international open-source community—offering tutorials, plug-ins, development documentation, and student projects. Gephi is built with Java SE 6 on top of the NetBeans Platform, and uses a large number of Java libraries, including JOGL for its 3-D rendering engine. The strength of Gephi is its usability, performance, and modularity. Modules are loosely coupled, and extensible with plug-ins. Social networks, computer links, transportations routes, power grids, email networks, or dependencies in a source code are all examples of networks Gephi can be used to visualize. Data-centered companies such as LinkedIn, Xerox, Elsevier, and many research laboratories have already used Gephi for visualizing their data.

Category: Innovative Java for Developers

Company: Wabi Sabi Software

Product: Log4JFugue/Application Sonification

Site: www.log4jfugue.org

Java technologies (and others): Java SE 6, Groovy 1.5.7, JFugue 4.1, Spring

Most people have heard of application visualization, but few have heard of application sonification. Just as an auto mechanic can listen to a car and often hear what’s wrong, Log4JFugue lets you listen to your application in the background—while attending to more important tasks. By converting a program’s log4j output into a JFugue music stream, developers gain new insights into programmatic behavior. Log4jFugue consists of a core engine written in Java and Groovy, which is then configured using Spring. Every program has a key set of log messages corresponding to its primary verbs—such as “create a thing,” “process a thing,” “destroy a thing,” “get an error.” Each of these log messages is configured and associated with a musical instrument such as a bass drum, snare drum, or symbol crash. Running either in real time or after the fact, Log4JFugue counts the occurrences of each message in one-second time increments and creates a corresponding music stream. As the program runs, you can hear what it’s doing, the pace at which it is running, and the relative frequency of errors. Your brain will soon recognize when the sonic patterns change.

Category: Innovative Java for Education

Company: MyUniPortal

Product: Rolling Thunder

Site: www.myuniportal.com

Java technologies (and others): Java 6, SwingX, VLC, Worldwind Java (NASA), JNA, JAXWS, JOGL, Yahoo Search, Substance (Skins)

Rolling Thunder is a highly interactive and dynamic Java technology-based education solution, offering an MDI (multiple document interface) that merges information from such diverse sources as video, 3D & 2D maps, search results, tests, and web cams, for multiple perspectives of users. It is not just a Rich Internet Application (RIA), or a simple Web Service, but an advanced form of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)—architected to take advantage of multi-threaded and multi-core PCs to deliver an advanced learning environment. The data source, type, destination in client (viewer or custom window), and available role-based services are all stored in a central database so that no data is kept on the client PC. In this way, the same view of information and availability of services can be offered at any location.

Category: Innovative Visualization and Data Intelligence

Company: Visual Mining

Product: NetCharts Pro v7.0

Site: www.visualmining.com/nc-pro/

Java technologies: Java SE 6

NetCharts Pro v7.0 allows Java developers to deliver dynamic, interactive charts and graphs within applications, web-browsers, or Internet enabled devices. With support for SVG included in Pro v7.0, users can deploy rich-client, chart-enabled applications in HTML5-compliant browsers without the need for a third party plug-in. And to support browsers that may not be HTML5 compliant, NetCharts Pro v7.0 can automatically translate SVG into Flash within the browser. NetCharts Pro's comprehensive API allows Java application developers to create award-winning charts, graphs, scorecards, and dashboards in virtually any format—such as Flash, SVG, PNG, JPG, BMP or a Java Applet. And it supports diverse web application languages (i.e., ASP, .NET, Java, PHP, PERL, or Cold Fusion), Java Web frameworks (Struts, JSF, Servlets, JSPs), desktop SWING applications, and mobile apps

Category: Innovative Automotive/Transportation

Company: Case Systems, Inc.

Product: Solar Traffic Monitoring Solution (Solar TMS)

Site: www.caseglobaltech.com/solartms.shtml

Java technologies: Java ME

The Solar TMS is an innovative, solar-powered, loop-based, integrated and intelligent traffic monitoring solution. The Solar TMS and ILDA (Intelligent Loop Detection Application) running on the TMS employ cutting edge hardware and Java software that provide accurate, real-time traffic information. Solar TMS is ideal for locations where A/C power is not available, and can provide both traffic census and real-time information using wireless cellular communication.

Category: Innovative Java Building Block

Company: Cinterion

Product: Cinterion TC65i + EGS5 Java-enabled Wireless Modules for mHealth solutions

Site: www.cinterion.com/tc65i, www.cinterion.com/EGS5

Java technologies: Java ME (IMP-NG, CLDC 1.1 HI)

mHealth is one of the hottest topics in healthcare today. Patients and healthcare providers both benefit from quality of care and cost savings through mobile healthcare solutions. Java powered wireless M2M (machine-to-machine) modules like Cinterion’s TC65i and EGS5 are utilized as core building blocks in diverse telemedicine systems, enabling medical devices to communicate securely over cellular networks. Cinterion’s wireless-enabled silicon modules implement Java ME, and provide easy-to-use building blocks for dedicated microelectronics solutions with onboard wireless/GSM communications capabilities. The Cinterion TC65i Java-powered module is employed in both Diabetech’s GlucoMON Wireless Diabetes Management System and the Philips Respironics Sleep Therapy System , used for patients suffering from sleep apnea.