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Since PersonalJavaTM technology was introduced, it has enjoyed widespread
support and momentum in the consumer electronics industry. PersonalJava
technology is a revolutionary software environment designed to bring the
power of JavaTM technology to personal, consumer, and mobile devices.
Based on Sun's acclaimed Java application environment, PersonalJava technology
is ushering in a new era of network-connectable devices that can communicate
with a wide range of information sources on the World Wide Web or other
network. Already, devices such as web phones, digital set-top boxes, personal
digital assistants (PDA's) and car navigation systems are rolling out with
this exciting technology. With the PersonalJava platform, new content and
functionality can be delivered to the device after it is in the hands of
the end-user, thereby enriching the device's usefulness and product life.
Broad Adoption
From its inception, PersonalJava technology was designed to shift the burden
of innovation in consumer electronics from hardware to software where the
development cycles are faster, the business model is more leveraged, and
the pace of innovation is accelerated. Everything you need for innovation
is already in place, including a broad industry knowledge base about Java
software, and the infrastructure to support it. All of this can help you
to lower your reliance on proprietary systems and their accompanying support
costs. Since writing to the PersonalJava API means using the popular Java
programming language, the standard JavaTM Development Kit (JDKTM) toolkit
or familiar off-the-shelf development tools can be used.
Cross-Platform Compatbility
The PersonalJava platform is available on most commercial embedded operating
systems used in consumer products running on most microprocessors. This
means you spend less time porting, testing, and tuning, and more time focused
on hot new product features. We also give you a rich object-oriented component
architecture, so that adding new software components to your product doesn't
mean a complete system rewrite. Your newest software components simply
snap into place and run.
Integrates New Consumer Products with the Rest of the Networked World
PersonalJava technology provides a smooth bridge from the next wave of
consumer devices to the network. It joins the growing family of scalable
Java technologies that reach from smart cards to supercomputers. By joining
forces to support a standards-based platform, you can take advantage of
new network-based consumer services as soon as they're available. Your
PersonalJava CompatibleTM devices will simply download new functionality
"on the fly", seamlessly and dynamically across the network.
Focusing on the User Experience through the Graphical User Interface
Often with consumer devices, the success of the product hinges on the design
of the user interface. User interfaces for the consumer market must be
designed with the unique needs of the target user in mind. A consumer user
may choose a device for emotional reasons (Is it attractive? Do I want
to pick up the device and play with it?), with usability (Is there a steep
learning curve? Does it react in ways that I expect?) playing a large role
in whether the device gets accepted by a wide audience. One of the best
ways to address these considerations is through the design of an effective
graphical user interface. PersonalJava technology provides a platform-independent
toolkit for application developers to easily create graphical user interfaces
(GUI's) - the Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT). This is the same AWT that
exists in the Java application environment which has been adopted by developers
worldwide.
Desktop Look-and-Feel vs. Consumer Look-and-Feel
As its name implies, the AWT consists of a set of abstract graphical components
that have no associated look-and-feel. An application developer can specify
the desired graphical components and layout (e.g. 3 horizontally-placed
rectangular buttons and a set of vertically-placed radio buttons underneath
the leftmost rectangular button). However the look-and-feel is largely
determined by the underlying Java platform implementation. On desktop systems,
the look-and-feel is often part of the operating system e.g. Motif on a
SunTM Workstation or Microsoft Windows on a personal computer. However,
on a consumer device, it may be both impractical and undesirable to carry
over the desktop look-and-feel. It may be impractical because the consumer
device may have neither the memory capacity nor the processor power to
provide a desktop graphics capability. It may be undesirable because the
consumer user does not necessarily have experience with desktop computers
and, therefore, may have difficulty with desktop user interface paradigms.
TruffleTM Graphical Toolkit
To address this issue, the TruffleTM Graphical Toolkit is provided as
a complementary part of the PersonalJava platform. The Truffle toolkit
enables the creation of platform-independent, fully-customized look-and-feel
designs for consumer devices. It is useful to look at the Truffle toolkit
from the perspective of the different parties who contribute to a successful
consumer product.
For a product designer, the Truffle toolkit provides a mechanism for
putting more of the graphical design of a product into software. A toy
device and an automobile racing gadget would have very different look-and-feel
designs. For an engineer developing a consumer product, the Truffle toolkit
provides a way to easily modify and support alternate look-and-feel designs.
For an application developer, the Truffle toolkit uses a subset of the
JDKTM 1.1 AWT programming interface.
The Truffle toolkit serves the needs of these three groups by providing
a standards-based GUI with enough flexibility to support a variety of different
consumer product designs.
Look-and-Feel Designs for Consumer Devices
As previously described, the design effort that goes into developing a
look-and-feel for a consumer device is a critical element in product design.
This is in contrast to the desktop software world where the look-and-feel
design is set by the platform operating system.
The designers of successful consumer devices must pay close attention
to the mechanisms with which users interact with their devices. As time-to-market
factors encourage more software-based devices, the same attention to the
look-and-feel of the GUI will be required. The Truffle toolkit provides
a framework for delivering these kinds of consumer-friendly devices.
Features
Touchable look-and-feel implementation. The Touchable look-and-feel
design is a reference look-and-feel design targeted for touchscreen-based
devices from which other look-and-feel designs can be derived. Alternatively,
the product designer may devise a look-and-feel design entirely from scratch
depending on the consumer usability or product identity requirements.
Flexible. The Truffle toolkit is portable at several
layers from the graphics hardware to a native window system. The product
designer can choose at which level to port from depending on the needs
of the applications.
Low memory footprint. The Truffle toolkit has
been designed for the low memory conditions of consumer devices.
Portable. Many layers of the Truffle toolkit are
written in the Java programming language, thereby benefiting from the portability
aspect.
An address book application using the baseline Touchable look-and-feel
design.
An e-mail application using a variation of the baseline Touchable
look-and-feel design. By making minor modifications to the baseline implementation,
this greyscale, scaled down design with rectangular buttons can be obtained.
An e-mail application using a more "sophisticated" variation
of the baseline Touchable look-and-feel design.
A scrolling list using a whimsical variation of the baseline
Touchable look-and-feel design.
Begin Evaluating PersonalJava Technology Today
Find out why major consumer electronics players have already licensed the
PersonalJava technology. Call 1-800-786-7638 to learn more. Or visit our
web site at http://java.sun.com/products/personaljava.
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