Java creator quits Google, develops robot comms

James Gosling, the creator of the Java programming language, has quit Google after only five months at the firm, and has joined a startup that uses wireless communication technologies for data harvesting.

Gosling joined Google in March of this year, after a long stint at Sun Microsystems, which was acquired by Oracle in 2010. His role at Google was largely undefined, “I don’t know what I’ll be working on. I expect it’ll be a bit of everything,” he said at the time, but he apparently didn’t stick around long enough to find out.

His new role as chief software architect at a small startup called Liquid Robotics, will see him take over the development of the onboard software—sensing, navigation and autonomy—and the company’s datacentre. The firm has a growing fleet of autonomous marine vehicles that rove the ocean collecting data from a variety of onboard sensors and uploading it to the cloud. The robots are connected by satellite uplinks as well as GSM and WiMax communication gear and GPS units.

The robots harvest energy from the waves for propulsion and can stay at sea for a very long time – longer than two years in some cases. They can cross oceans, slowly, but at a great speed for data collection, Gosling said.