The Internet of Things

Devoxx tends to shift focus every year to another aspect of Java. This year I have the impression that the highlight is on Java interfacing with all kinds of hardware. It started with the wristbands which are equipped with a NFC (Near Field Communication) tag. At the entrance of every room there is an NFC device which allows you to vote for the sessions you attended (votes are stored in a MongoDB). Then there are the touchscreens that were custom build with a Raspberry Pi computer board running the JavaFX  Devoxx schedule app.  And last but not least there are the Aldebaran’s humanoid robots stealing the show especially this morning with an impressive dans act at the start of the keynotes.  There were numerous sessions today covering all these technologies including a session about TinkerForge and I attended them all. I know, it is not really our cup of tea, but I just couldn’t resist. And I wasn’t the only one. Especially the Raspberry Pi session was very popular: the room was stacked with people.