Richard Leggett on New Media

NASA have released a Java component called World Wind that enables developers to build something that includes Google Earth-like 3D map data. This component can be added to for example a Swing application and the developer can create a mashup in any way they see fit.

These applications can be launched via Java web start (an app that launches from a web page as long as the Java JRE is installed, they state 1.4 onwards with some minor trepidation) or distributed as a standalone desktop app (again JRE required).

The terrain is 3D, so you don't just zoom in and out on a flat image you can roll/tilt/yaw, it's mountainous; in one example they have a flight sim that lets you fly a plane over some real mountains which turns a globe into a game.

See the vid (recommend the mp4):

http://java.sun.com/javaone/sf/media_shell.jsp?id=193627

Normally this kind of tech is very expensive, so it's great of them to donate this data and it opens up a world of opportunities for developers.

Later on in the video (near the end) Sun shows what looks like a Java-based competitor to WPF(well Silverlight really)/Flash, an in or out of the browser hardware accelerated 3D rich GUI with fullscreen capabilities... They challenge anyone to "do the same in any other browser technology"). They don't state whether it is JavaFX, doesn't look like it from the 1 min you do get but I could be way off.