Good Camel Games - Fun Multiplayer Games
We are pleased to announce the launch of another Web 2.0 application powered by OpCode Solutions: Good Camel Games - Fun Multiplayer Games. Good Camel Games provides real-time multiplayer games with public and private chat rooms. Games are free and are online; no need to pay or download anything. No registration is required, just enter the app and play with real people around the world, in real-time. On the client side, the app uses Google Web Toolkit (no flash, no plugin required). On the server side, we have Java back-end under Tomcat. What is fun about Good Camel Games it is that games are short and easy to play, so you can enjoy a game even if you only have 2 minutes.
USpeak - Anonymous Discussions
We are very pleased to announce the launch of USpeak. USpeak is a free service allowing anybody to create anonymous and confidential discussions. The discussions on USpeak are anonymous because all messages posted on a discussion are anonymous. The user who created the discussion itself also remains anonymous. However, all participants see who is participating in the discussion, they just don’t know who said what. Discussions are also confidential because a discussion is only visible to its participants. With USpeak, we hope to make it easier for people to talk about delicate, unpopular or taboo subjects. Here are few scenarios:
- A corporation wanting its employees to give anonymous and interactive feedback about things that could be improved in the organization.
- A family member expressing his/her views on a taboo subject.
- An individual in a group wanting to change things and trying to create a momentum.
We firmly believe Freedom of Speech is for everybody and we hope USpeak will encourage people to freely speak their thoughts. For more information, see USpeak FAQ.
Oracle to Acquire Sun
After IBM, now is the turn to Oracle. Oracle buys Sun and pays $7.4 billion for that acquisition ($9.50 per share), $5.6 billion if we take into account Sun's cash. Is that a good thing or a bad thing for the Java community? Probably a good thing as it will allow Sun's project to benefit from Oracle's technologies. But only future will tell.
With Java, GlassFish, MySQL, OpenOffice, Solaris and its cloud computing services, that certainly widens Oracle's possibilities. Hopefully Oracle will continue supporting adequately those famous open source projects. I am not concerned about Java, but maybe more about MySQL. While MySQL could certainly benefit from Oracle's expertise in database field, Oracle could also put MySQL behind in order to promote its more profitable flagship product: Oracle's RDBMS. The same is true for GlassFish and WebLogic. In any case, it is a very quick way for Oracle to have an open source offering for their products.
If we only consider Java, I have to admit that I rather see Oracle acquiring Sun than IBM doing it. The reason is simple, IBM already offers a Java runtime and they are competitors in that field. An acquisition by IBM would reduce the competition in that areas, which is always a bad thing for customers. In my opinion, Sun's JVM largely beats IBM's one, but it would still be a bad thing to see one of them die to the benefit of the other.