Sun and Siemens awarded prizes to the most innovative developers in the Java Masters Competition

Category: Software

The winners of the international developers’ competition organized by Siemens Communications and Sun Microsystems have been decided. In the “Student” category, Jiabin Feng from the People’s Republic of China convinced the jury with the 3D game “The Spirit of the Arrow,” an exciting search for treasure set in historical China around 580 A.D. In the “Professional” segment, Russian developer Nikolay Klimchuk prevailed among the 10 finalists. His GPS application “MobiTrack” impressed the jury particularly because of its comprehensive GPS functions. “MobiTrack” turns the mobile phone into an interesting GPS device by means of a Bluetooth connection to a GPS receiver. The participants in the Java Masters 2005 competition were required to develop new Java applications for the Siemens CX70, S65 and M65 mobile phones. The prizes were awarded during the Developer Conference on August 16 at the Games Convention in Leipzig , Germany.

 

The objective of the annual competition is to establish Java development at universities worldwide and to motivate not just young but also established developers to concentrate more intensively on programming mobile phone applications. The award, which is jointly bestowed by Sun and Siemens and is endowed with technological prizes, is designed to be an incentive to both students and companies. The development tools required are provided by Sun and Siemens.

 

This year’s competition again attracted a high level of international interest. The most numerous submissions came from countries like India, Turkey, Brazil, Germany, Russia and Poland, but also from the United States.

 

More than 11,000 online voters visited the www.javamasters.org website from June 15 to July 15 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 Germany, Turkey, the United States, China, Poland and Mexico. All applications were specially developed and submitted for the Siemens CX70, S65 and M65 mobile phones.

 

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

 

This year’s prize was awarded for two categories: “Student Java Master” and “Professional Java Master.” In the first category, apart from Jiabin Feng from China , who took first prize for the 3D game “The Spirit of the Arrow,” Emrah Budur from Turkey came away with the second prize for the application “Mobidic+” (Mobile Dictionary Plus), a mobile dictionary for six different languages. Panuwat Jantharajit from Thailand won third prize with the action shooter “Aero Force.”

 

Among the professional Java Masters participants, winner Nikolay Klimchuk from the Russian Federation took first prize with the GPS application “MobiTrack,” while Marcin Kwiatkowski from Poland garnered second place with the action game “Chili Chiquita.” Australian Vikram Goyal came third with “Trans-in-hand,” a translating tool which can recite the most important phrases for tourists aloud on a mobile phone in preformulated sentences.

 

The prizes were awarded to the winners on August 16 during the Games Convention Developer Conference in Leipzig. The first prize winners received 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 Siemens Communications and Sun Microsystems awaited the second and third prize winners.

 

Detailed information about the winners as well as the conditions for participating in next year’s Java Masters competition can be found on the Internet at: www.javamasters.org .

 

Developers will find an extensive portal with information, developers’ tools, forums and contact opportunities on the Internet at www.siemens.com/developer .