• Bruce Eckel: should we simply stop adding new features to Java?
• http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=221903
  

• Motorola has released a new version of the ROKR music playing phone
  
• http://www.mobilesworld.ca/mobiles-news/2008/01/07/
  motorola-rokr-e8-with-touch-screen-user-interface/

• Apache Wicket 1.3 has been released
• http://wicket.apache.org/

• JSR 286 - the Java Portlet Specification 2.0
• http://jcp.org/aboutJava/communityprocess/pfd/jsr286/index.html

• JSR 255 - JMX (the Java Management Extensions) version 2.0
• http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=255
• http://jcp.org/aboutJava/communityprocess/
  edr/jsr255/index.html
  

• JSR 279 - Service Connection API for Java ME
• http://jcp.org/aboutJava/communityprocess/edr/jsr279/index.html

• JSR 235 - Service Data Objects - has been stalled for about 3 years
• http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=235

• Apache Jakarta have released a new version Commons configuration
• http://commons.apache.org/configuration/

• There is a new preview version of Oracle JDeveloper 11g available
• http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/jdev/11/index.html

• Using Erlang (a functional language) and Java together
• http://www.theserverside.com/tt/articles/article.tss
  ?l=IntegratingJavaandErlang

• Pearson Education held a four day GWT conference in San Francisco
• http://googlewebtoolkit.blogspot.com/2008/01/
  videos-presentations-from-pearsons-gwt.html
• http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=24044DF77EB53015
• http://voicesthatmatter.com/gwt2007/presentations/

• The NetBeans source code is being moved to Mercurial
• http://blogs.sun.com/octav/entry/netbeans_moving_to_mercurial

• Django is getting very close to running on top of Jython
• http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=47992

• NetBeans has once again kicked off it's world tour
• http://www.netbeans.org/community/news/calendar.html#156

• The Java 2 Fifth Edition Complete Reference is now available for free as a PDF download
• http://ecyclopedia.blogspot.com/2008/01/
  java-programming-ebook-java-2-complete.html

• Groovy 1.5.1 has been released
• http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GROOVY/2007/
  12/21/Groovy+1.5.1+bug+fix+release

• The JDIC project have updated their netbeans plugin for NetBeans 6
• http://weblogs.java.net/blog/richunger/archive/
  2008/01/jdic_netbeans_i.html

• Infoworld reckons that Sun Microsystems is back in the game
• http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/12/28/
  52FE-underreported-sun_1.html
• http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2007/12/13/
  companies-that-listen-sun/
  

• Nominations for the 2008 Eclipse Community Awards are now being accepted
• http://www.eclipse.org/org/press-release/20071214_awards.php

• Jason LaPier has put together a NetBeans cheat sheet for Ruby and Rails development
• http://offtheline.net/2007/12/11/netbeans-6-0-cheat-sheet

• Grizzly 1.7 is out
• http://weblogs.java.net/blog/jfarcand/archive/
  2007/12/hohohoho_grizzl_1.html

• On a related note, Glassfish v2 update release 1 is also now available
• http://wiki.glassfish.java.net/Wiki.jsp?page=
  GlassFishV2UR1WhatsNew

• Metro versions 1.0.1 and 1.1 have been released
  
• https://metro.dev.java.net/discover/
• http://weblogs.java.net/blog/arungupta/archive/
  2007/12/metro_101_and_1.html

• A new version of Excelsior JET is now available
  
• http://www.excelsior-usa.com/jet.html
• http://www.excelsior-usa.com/jetlatest.html
• JRuby 1.1RC1 released
• http://docs.codehaus.org/display/JRUBY/2008/01/08/
  The+JRuby+community+is+pleased+to+announce+
  the+release+of+JRuby+1.1+RC+1
  

Bonus End Story

• BluRay Wins?
• http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iGIl39vo9p-
  D_x8VpJuPTB1e7hSAD8U1AG5O4
• http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/05/1337258