Java Masters 2006: And the winners are...

Category: Software
By: AK

The winners of the international developers' competition, organized by BenQ Mobile and Sun Microsystems, have been chosen. In the "Student" category, Weijian Chen from the People’s Republic of China convinced the jury with the music player application "LyricShow Player" which runs song lyrics synchronously and shows E-books at the same time. In the "Professional" segment, the German developers Thomas Bauer and Heiko Vogeler prevailed among the 10 finalists. Their GPS application "Bike GPS Mobile" is a Java-based application for outdoor navigation. It enables active mountainbikers not only to track downloaded routes and altitude profiles, but also recording of GPS tracks is enabled with this application. The participants in the Java Masters 2006 competition were required to develop new Java applications for the Siemens SXG75, S75 and CX75 mobile phones of BenQ Mobile. The prizes were awarded during the Developer Conference on August 22 at Games Convention Developer Conference (GCDC) in Leipzig, Germany.

The aim of the Java Masters is to motivate developers around the world to dedicate themselves to programming new mobile applications on the basis of the Java Platform (J2ME). This year’s competition again attracted a high level of international interest. The most numerous submissions came from countries like China, India, Germany, Ukraine, Turkey and Brazil.

 

More than 10,000 online voters visited the www.javamasters.org website from June 16 to July 16 and reviewed the 10 best candidates on the basis of demos and project descriptions in order to select their favorites in both categories and vote for them. The liveliest interest came from Turkey, China, UK and Brazil. All applications were specially developed and submitted for the Siemens SXG75, S75 and CX75 handsets of BenQ Mobile.

 

The jury in the elimination round, which comprised technology and marketing experts from BenQ Mobile and Sun Microsystems, based its evaluation not only on the innovative potential and user-friendliness of the applications, but also on their commercial possibilities. The winners of the "Java Masters" were decided by online voting of visitors to the Java Masters website.

 

This year’s prizes were awarded for two categories: "Student Java Masters" and "Professional Java Masters". In the first category, apart from Weijian Chen from China, who took first prize for the music player application "LyricShow Player", Vladimir Vasilyev from Germany came away with the second prize for the Webcam Application “Mobile Webcam” (server based), by which the pictures from your camera phone can be sent directly to your internet album. Cumhur Cevik from Turkey won the third prize for the community based multiplayer game "ChatRise".

 

Among the professional Java Masters participants, the winners Thomas Bauer and Heiko Vogeler from the Germany took first prize for the GPS application "Bike GPS Mobile", while Markus Koch from Brazil garnered second place for the dancing game "Dance Mania". Thailand ’s Permbun Aimsupasit came third with "Sim President", an economy simulation game which lets the game player act the role of the country's president who manages and controls the country’s economic growth.

 

The prizes were awarded the winners on August 22 during the Developer Party at Games Convention Developer Conference (GCDC) in Leipzig , Germany . The first prize winners received high-end BenQ-Siemens mobile phones and their travel costs to the awards ceremony, as well as a visit to the Games Convention in Leipzig combined with a few days’ stay in the historic city. Attractive technological prizes from BenQ Mobile and Sun Microsystems awaited the second and third prize winners.

 

Developers will find an extensive portal with detailed product information, developers’ tools, forum and business opportunities on the Internet at www.benqmobile.com/developer