I have 2 bold predictions for the near future. The first is that an Android powered Kindle will be making it debut. The second is James Gosling will be making Java v2.0 at Google.
When Barnes and Noble created their version of the Android Marketplace, they did so without the ability for 3rd party developers to create their own apps. They had plans for an SDK, but did not have one at launch time. This created a real void for apps unless you rooted your Nook (which I did). Compare that to Amazon. Amazon created an Android Marketplace a while ago and without an official Android product. I am guessing that all Apps in the Amazon Marketplace are being tested against the forthcoming Android product. This will give it a much better launch time number of compatible Apps.
Amazon recently put in a try before you buy feature in their Marketplace. It seems to be another pointer towards moving to an Android based device.
Amazon seems to be putting far too much effort into Android to be a passing fancy. They seem to be poising it to be the next platform for the Kindle.
This week James Gosling, the creator of Java, announced that he joined Google. I predict this move is similar to Microsoft’s creation of C# in response to Java. I think Google is in the process of or has created a Java v2.0. I can only hope that this will exert pressure on the already stagnant JCP to get moving on the language features that Java is missing. I assume James learned a few things while creating Java first time and could draw on that experience to make a great language. If he is creating a new Java, I hope that he can solve the look and feel issues for the UI that Swing and AWT suffer from.
I am curious if he would go with a native compiled or virtual machine based language. Sun Microsystems, now Oracle, owns a lot of the virtual machine patents. So many so that when Microsoft created C#, Microsoft had to make a blanket patent agreement with Sun Microsystems.
