Stories by: Paul Krill

Oracle on Tuesday showed JavaFX rich client software running on both an Apple iPad and a Google Android-based Samsung Galaxy tablet, along with introducing a separate project using HTML5 to bring Java to Apple's iOS platform, called Project Avatar.

Martin Odersky is the designer of the Scala programming language, a general-purpose statically typed language that runs on the Java Virtual Machine. It can be used to build distributed systems and even Android mobile applications. Odersky is chairman and chief architect at Typesafe, a company offering a Scala-based software stack geared to parallel and distributed computing environments. He also teaches in Switzerland. Scala debuted in 2003 and was redesigned two years later. Recently, Odersky fielded questions about Scala from InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill.

Objective-C, used for developing Apple iOS applications, climbs to No. 6 in the monthly Tiobe Programming Community index for most popular programming languages, after being ranked at number 8 a year ago. Also posting gains, C# rose to No. 4, a jump of two spots a year ago, while PHP dropped from No. 4 at this time last year to No. 5.

During a Silicon Valley panel discussion Monday evening, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner emphasized how the online venture he runs enables members to create their own professional brand.

Google has unveiled an incremental release of the Android platform featuring optimizations for a wider range of tablets and a compatibility enhancement for fixed-size applications.

Google is launching on Tuesday a redesigned Android Market client for phones that is intended to better showcase top applications and features an improved UI and faster downloading of products.

Microsoft is improving accommodations for Java developers on the Windows Azure cloud, with an upgraded plug-in for Eclipse-based software developers.

To maintain its prominence, Java must evolve to meet the needs of cloud computing, the author of the popular Spring Framework for Java said on Tuesday.

Microsoft introduced this week technology for C++ developers to leverage GPUs (graphics processing units) for parallel programming.

The much-criticized JCP (Java Community Process), which maps out procedures for amending officially sanctioned Java technologies, is set for a facelift that includes greater transparency and the possible loss of voting privileges for JCP members who disregard their responsibilities.