7:30pm -- Pizza in the oven, time to relax (before doing my homework for the evening). It was wonderful having a Super Bowl that wasn't a blow out, showcased two equally matched quality teams, and which lived up to the "Super" name. I can admit now I was rooting for the Cardinals and thought they'd pull it out, but the Steelers had just a bit too much for them.

7:20pm -- Glad to see Santonio Holmes get the MVP award, always felt the QB got the nod a bit too often.

7:09pm -- Game over, Steelers win 27-23 after a Kurt Warner fumble ends Arizona's chances without even making a pass into the end zone. Outstanding game that obviously went down to the last play, and I'd say the outcome accurately reflects the Steelers as the better team tonight. Would guess Roethlisberger gets the MVP award given he's the quarterback and with his performance on the last, game-winning drive (though I think Santonio Holmes was just as vital to the victory).

7:00pm -- Santonio Holmes takes Larry Fitzgerald's name off the MVP trophy by making a circus touchdown catch of his own, a play after missing a similar catch by inches. Booth review confirms the touchdown and the Steelers are back on top 27-23 with 30 seconds left.

6:56pm -- Math lesson from Al Michaels, who goes out of his way to point out that Pittsburgh had two timeouts left, just took one, and so now has one left.

6:54pm -- Do *NOT* under any circumstances ask my wife what she thinks of the GoDaddy.com Super Bowl ads. (And don't tell her I own a domain name registered via GoDaddy.com. Guess I will have to move it after all.)

6:48pm -- Larry Fitzgerald puts his name on the Super Bowl MVP trophy (if the Cardinals can hold on) by taking a short pass and running for 55 more yards to the end zone, suddenly the Cardinals are up 23-20.

6:45pm -- Arizona's defense does *not* make the big stop and you might indeed think "game over", but the Steelers stop themselves by committing an offensive holding penalty in their own end zone which is an automatic safety. Arizona gets the ball back on the free kick, taking possession at their own 36 yard line with 2:50 left, trailing 20-16.

6:42pm -- Arizona makes a huge gamble that their defense can come up with one more big stop by punting from the Steeler 36 yard line with 3:36 left in the game and down by six points. TMQ might be writing "game over" in his book given his no-punt rule. I'm not so sure.

6:30pm -- Cardinals defense brings the heat and forces Pittsburgh into a three-and-out. Might be headed for a 21-20 score, at least that's what you're hoping for if you are a Cardinals fan.

6:26pm -- Finally the Cardinals have the chance to do the high, jump-up-and-catch-it pass to Larry Fitzgerald and he makes the spectacular catch as he has done all season. (I'm quite happy to have had him on my championship fantasy league team this year.) The Cardinals are back in it if their defense can do what it did to Atlanta, Carolina, and Philadelphia in the playoffs - stop Pittsburgh. Steelers still lead, 20-14.

6:13pm -- Stat of the Game (so far): Arizona has committed 10 penalties for 96 yards and given up four first downs by penalty. Pittsburgh has committed 2 penalties for 15 yards and given up no first downs by penalty.

5:55pm -- Pittsburgh gets first and goal for the second time on a long drive kept entirely alive by three personal foul penalties by Arizona, the last of which was for running over the kicker on a field goal. Amazingly, the Cardinal defense stops Pittsburgh again, forcing another Pittsburgh field goal. Steelers up 20-7.

5:30pm -- Missed the end of halftime and the second half kick-off but hey, I had to grab a few minutes sometime to hit the restroom, snag a beverage, and reload on chips and guacamole. Hopefully it means I also missed seeing Matt Millen again (who I noticed was *still* there at the opening of the halftime show.)

5:19pm -- Very nice job by Bruce Springsteen just now as the Super Bowl halftime. I knew there was no chance he'd do my favorite song of his, "Jungleland", but can't complain about what he did play. And no wardrobe malfunction, naturally.

4:58pm -- 3-D Time! Got my glasses on just in time to enjoy the "Monsters vs. Aliens" trailer. The 3-D effect was well done, looks like it'll be a fun movie (and would be even without 3-D). Wasn't expecting the SoBe Life Water ad that followed, also in 3-D, and enjoyed it too. (Nice job with the "SOBE" bling set in the the lizard's teeth.) And a 3-D plug for "Chuck" tomorrow night, reinforcing my intent to watch. "Monsters vs. Aliens" is the first animated film being released using InTru3d technology jointly developed by DreamWorks and Intel. I wonder if we can get InTru3d to work with Tru2way? ("InTru3D2way"?)

4:52pm -- Total nightmare for the Cardinals. After a nifty interception of a Roethlisberger pass off a deflection, Arizona drives and has first and goal at the Pittsburgh one yard line with under 30 seconds left in the half. Looks like the worst they can do is get a chip shot field goal and go in tied 10-10. With luck they get a TD, perhaps off a high pass to Larry Fitzgerald, and lead 14-10 at the break. Steelers come with an all-out blitz, Warner throws a bad pass off his back foot while retreating, and James Harrison intercepts. I'm thinking "Dang, bad break for Arizona as they'll get neither field goal or TD." Next thing I know Harrison is weaving upfield through heavy traffic for 100 yards and a TD with 0:00 left on the clock. Suddenly Arizona is down 17-7 and has to be in their locker room shaking their head.

4:37pm -- Happily I *do* have my 3D glasses, having snagged a set of four from a display at the grocery store a month ago. With luck I can catch "Chuck" in 3D tomorrow night too.

4:21pm -- The Cardinals offense shows up, puts together a nice drive including a couple of good blitz pick-ups, and gets back in the game (though behind) 10-7. Maybe I won't have to ignore the game and just watch the commercials after all.

4:12pm -- Congress should pass a law that Budweiser can only make commercials with horses. Two good ones in a row (liked the "go fetch" one better) after nothing but insipid Budweiser commercials with humans.

4:08pm -- Pittsburgh powers it in after their second long, smooth drive and leads 10-0. Not looking good for the Cardinals.

4:03pm -- Liked the Castrol grease monkeys commercial until the kissing scene at the end. Ewwwww

4:01pm -- End of the first quarter and it was all Pittsburgh who gained 140 yards on 17 plays while the Cardinals gained 13 yards on 5 plays

3:54pm -- On the Steelers first play after the punt the Cardinals blitz and Pittsburgh picks it up nicely. Roethlisberger hits Santonio Holmes on an outlet pass that Holmes takes for 25 yards.

3:50pm -- Steelers blitz on 3rd and 17, an obvious passing down, and Arizona can't make the short, quick pass work. Punt. That's my fear for the Cardinals, an inability to pick up the blitz and dump the ball off for adequate yardage before Warner gets hammered.

3:42pm -- Aha! Cardinals challenge is upheld (risky move, Ken Wisenhunt), as the refrees determine Big Ben's knee was down before he crossed the goal line. Touchdown nullified and Pittsburgh forced to kick a field goal. Steelers up 3-0.

3:40pm -- First stupid Budweiser commercial, in which the key concept is that in these hard economic times companies would consider a lot of tough changes *except* not having Bud Light to drink at every meeting. Yeah, that ought to appeal to everyone who has been laid off or fears being laid off.

3:38pm -- Touchdown Pittsburgh after an easy first drive down the field. Big play to score on third down as Roethlisberger ran over some Cardinal linemen to slip over the goal line. But did he really score?? Cardinals challenge.

3:32pm -- Kickoff!

3:22pm -- "Sell Avon" commercial. Interesting. The fact they'd drop large cash for the ad says something about who they believe is watching.

3:20pm -- First year watching the Super Bowl on a high-def, widescreen (46") TV. Definitely an improvement (except maybe for the tight close-up of Al Michaels).

2:45pm -- In talking about Ben Roethlisberger, Millen says "very unique" at least four times in the span of two sentences. Not only does he not know anything about football, he's not particularly skilled with the English language. There simply are no comparative degrees of uniqueness. Unique means there is only one of something. How can you be "very unique"??

2:30pm -- WTF?! Matt Millen is one of the five "experts" on the official Super Bowl pregame show? How in the heck did he get the job given he's so amply demonstrated he has no understanding of football whatsoever? See http://www.firemillen.com

The latest episode of our "This Ain't Your Dad's Java" podcast is available with special guest Danny Coward, Chief Client Architect for Java. Our topic is Java SE and the cool new update 10 release of Java SE 6 (so "Java SE 6u10" or just "6u10"). There are a lot of great features in 6u10, with "draggable applets" being one of my favorites. We've had had over a million downloads of the early access so far. (Get it yourself here).

Danny has put together a nice compendium of Java related podcasts in his blog, and I love his summary of "Ain't Your Dad's Java."

Danny has also started a new blog, The Planetarium, as a daily news wire on all things related to client Java from smart cards to mobile devices to desktops. If you only have time each day for one quick check of interesting updates on Java then The Planetarium is the place to look.

I'm having a great time as co-host of the "This Ain't Your Dad's Java" podcast we started back in late July. Eric Klein, my boss and the VP of Java Marketing, is host and Jennifer Winger is our producer. Our idea is to have episodes more or less weekly and talk about all things Java. We'll share news of what's going on in the Java product group at Sun, have a special guest to chat with us about a topic of particular interest, and introduce cool new Java products from all corners of the marketplace.

The title of the podcast means more than you might think. The breadth, presence, and scope of Java in the world today is extraordinary - the result of over a dozen years of innovation and inspiration by innumerable contributors at Sun and elsewhere. We could spin up a podcast on just that and be busy for a long time to come.

The big story, though, and what has all of us at Sun so excited, is where we are taking Java. It's about immersive, media rich, highly stylized applications and services that are built collaboratively by developers, designers, scripters, artists and others to take full advantage of the unsurpassed ubiquity of the Java platform and the pervasiveness of the Internet. It's a time of rapid evolution and explosive growth, and while there's an awful lot yet to happen at Sun and elsewhere it's clear that what's emerging "ain't your dad's Java".

We've recorded six episodes so far with topics and guests covering the history of Java (James Gosling), Java gaming (Chris Melissinos our Chief Gaming Officer), Java strategy and futures (Jeet Kaul, VP of Java Engineering), Java in TV and Media (Bill Sheppard our Chief Digital Media officer), and JavaFX (Param Singh, Sr. Director of Mktg for JavaFX). We like to get our guests to reveal a bit about themselves and have had a lot of fun, perhaps to the point of saying things we might oughtn't.

Our podcast is available via the iTunes store and cross platform via Feedburner. You'll find an icon and link in the navbar of my blog. We're hoping to get questions from listeners and answer them on the air, so if you have anything you'd like to know about Java drop us a line at aintyourdadsjava@sun.com

Eric, Jenn and I, on behalf of all our guests past and future, hope you'll give us a listen and let us know what you think.

I'm taking satellite radio for a test drive and thought I'd share a few initial observations, particularly since the experience so far has been a positive one.

Our high school band's annual Crab Fest fund raiser includes a silent auction. At the event two weeks ago I won an XM Satellite Radio package which consisted of a Delphi Roady2 receiver kit and $45 worth of service. I'd been contemplating satellite radio for some time as I'd long ago grown weary of all the mindless chatter and endless commercials on drive time radio, as well as the horribly limited range of musical content even though we have quite a few FM stations here in the Bay Area. The package I won at the silent auction seemed a reasonably low cost, low risk way to find out if satellite radio was indeed a better solution.

Installation was fairly straight forward, but reading the instructions pointed up a few limitations I didn't realize going in:

• The receiver requires three separate input connections - one for power, one for the antenna, and one for audio output (generally to the car cassette deck through an adapter included in the receiver kit). This creates a pretty serious tangle of unsightly and bothersome cables that have to snake their way into the unit. There is no practical way to hide them as they connect right next to the display and control panel, them though the installation kit did include a cable wrap so I could bundle the three modest-sized wires into one much larger and more unsightly assembly. You can dispense with the audio output connection and connect the unit via an FM modulator in the XM receiver but past experience with similar setups has shown them to be annoying due to a need to constantly shift the broadcast frequency and retune the radio, plus the audio quality of the FM connection is noticably worse than a direct feed through the cassette deck
• The antenna needs to be mounted outside the car on a horizontal metal surface, fastens with a magnet, and trails a small wire that must be fed back into the interior of the car and connected to the receiver. Happily the magnet is quite strong and the antenna cable more than long enough, but I admit I was hoping I could mount the antenna inside the car on the top of the dash board just as I do my GPS antenna when using it on long trips. The instruction manual specifically warns against using the antenna on the dash, saying it was designed ot only work well when mounted on a large metal ground plane. Some basic testing with the unit confirmed this to be the case - I got almost no signal with the antenna on the dash but got a quite strong one with it on the roof.This meant having to run the antenna cable along under the dash, through the door opening, along the edge of the roof via the rubber door gasket, and then out in the open on the roof to somplace approxmately near the center line of the car. This also means the antenna is just sitting there for some prankster to haul off, unless I want to take it off the roof and lock it inside the car.
• The receiver power cable is designed to plug into the cigarette lighter rather than connect to the fuse block. That's bad because I already have two other devices to plug into my cigarette lighter - my cell phone charger and my iPod charger (especially given the problems I'm having with my iPod battery). Clearly I need to get under the dash and find a way to add a few more 12VDC power connections so I can charge my cell phone while listening to satellite radio.

Once the unit was installed I needed to activate it. I had intended to do that via the XM web site as the activation fee is $9.95 via the web and $14.95 via the phone. However, I discovered you can't redeem a gift certificate if you activate via the web and as I had a $45 gift card as part of my auction purchase I had no choice but to go the slightly more expensive phone route. In doing so I learned that each XM radio has a uniqe ID, which might actually cut down on theft since I'm assuming XM would be able to recognize when someone was activating a unit that had been reported as stolen. Activation was easy, and within less than ten minutes of completing the procedure my receiver was fully operational. One thing I liked about XM radio was their simple programming plan - $12.95 per month for all their channels. Not having to mix and match packages to get what you are looking for is so much easier and less irritating than dealing with, say, cable TV.

After a week of regular use I can say I'm pretty pleased. Reception has been solid except for a few cases in remote areas along heavily wooded mountain roads with limited southern exposure. There are a wide variety of channels to chose among, and the Roady2 supports three different banks of 10 preset stations each so tuning across stations is simple. I've actually found I do far less station jumping than with FM as the music seems consistently good and in keeping with each stations theme plus the lack of commercials and "on air personalities" means less annoying content to dodge. My daughter even seems happy with the mixture of musical content so our morning shared commute is more relaxed.

The Delphi Roady2 isn't a bad little receiver. It is compact and easy to install. The display is reasonably large though it only has two lines and so can only display a subset of what you want to know. (The options are 1) Station and Artist, 2) Station and Song Title, 3) Artist and Song TItle, or 4) Artist and scrolling stock quotes.) I wish it could scroll artist or song title when they are longer than will fit on the display. You can chose among several backlight colors to pick something that matches your taste and existing dash lighting scheme. A nifty "Favorite Song" feature lets you bookmark songs you like and the receiver will automatically switch to them if they are being played on any XM station. It also seems easy to move it between cars or between car and home so I plan to pick up a few other antennas and see how that works.

I still have some experimenting to do. I haven't tried accessing the local traffic content and though there are a number of news and sports stations haven't investigated them yet. I'll keep you posted

This week I attended the 3GSM World Congress (usually just called "3GSM") in Barcelona, Spain. 3GSM bills itself as "the most important gathering for the mobile industry" and it's pretty hard to argue with that. Most of my time was spent meeting with partners, customers, potential partners, and potential customers, but I did have some time to explore the exhibit halls. That exploration was constrained to be cursory as the exhibits covered four floors in three large and separate buildings and housed several hundred vendors. Even if I had made it a full time job for the three days I was there I could hardly have made a thorough investigation. However, zooming through quickly does offer an opportunity to do some visual integration of what's on display and from that I extracted a few observations to share.

First and foremost, I'd say the Age of Entertainment is upon us thanks to a happy convergence of relatively recent progress on three fronts. Handset manufactures are now producing mobile phones with sufficient multimedia capabiliites and on-board storage that they can run engaging games, receive captivating video streams, and play CD-quality music. Our cellular networks now have the bandwidth to drive that volume of information to devices at a price point that people will find acceptible. And there's enough motivation among game, video, and music creators to begin capitalizing on the opportunity by creating content well suited for delivery and consumption by mobile consumers. Better still, it's a win-win-win-win situation for everyone involved. Device manufacturers offer these features as enticements to trade in last year's cell phone, carriers thrill in the increased consumption of billable connect minutes, content providers have sufficient markets to generate positive return on their creative investment, and humans in general have the ability to be truly and affordably entertained any time, anywhere.

It seems to me the key concept here is "entertainment". It's what binds all these communities together and creates the ecosystem that can sustain them. Yes, there are some other active and interesting markets - one oft-cited example being mobile enterprise applications such as corporate email, group scheduling, and document sharing - but I think the practical maximum demand in that market pales in comparison to entertainment.

3GSM was awash in folks offering to contribute to the entertainment ecosystem. I was pleasantly surprised at the number of new and speculative device manufactures. Little companies were everywhere offering interesting alternatives to the traditional phone vendors, in some cases banding together to form groups around common platforms like Linux. And the established heavy hitters weren't resting on their planet-sized laurels either. Sony Ericsson seems to have become a veritable volcano of devices, erupting new ones almost continuously. Models that premiered last November are now being swept aside by new versions both major and minor, with obvious emphasis on combining phone, digital camera, music player, and TV. I had the pleasure of borrowing a Sony W900i (new at Thanksgiving but now surpassed) for my time at 3GSM. It has a high quality 240x320 display with powerful on-board graphics controller, 2 megapixel camera, built in music player with a separate control panel spliced into the headset cable, 470Mb of storage for music & media, Bluetooth, Java ME support, Memory Stick slot for accessing all your media, and it still fit comfortably in my pocket.

The producer end of the ecosystem was also present in force. Most of them were concentrated in a special "Content Zone", largely because a thriving subsegment is populated by "adult entertainment" and let's just say their booths were not the kind of thing you wanted people to accidentally wander into. Games were everywhere. Serialized content was hot as well, with many companies specializing in animated episodic entertainment built around characters like "Cat Bastard" and "Suicidal Squirrels". (Think of it as if new "Itchy and Scratchy" cartoons were pushed out to your phone every two weeks.). Vendors specialize in helping content creators package their media so as to reach the largest possible range of devices and carriers, and extend thriving mainstream developer tools like NetBeans to serve the mobile market.

Carriers get help too, in the form of products like Sun's Content Delivery Server, which provide powerful platforms for getting all that content out to folks and making possible marketing campaigns that promote new services and reward consumers for purchases or plan upgrades. Carriers are going to need as much of this kind of technology as they can get as we will soon reach the point where success will depend on ulitmate flexibility in creating offers and linking titles at the peak of their bursts of fame so as to drive more consumption.

There came a time in the evolution of the Internet where the matra became "Content is King". For the mobile marketplace I think the mantra is "Entertainment is King".

A few other quick observations in closing:

• I was quite pleased to see significant activity in providing mobile mapping services to cell phones, and innovation in GPS chip sets so our phones can be GPS receivers. There are some powerful, as yet untapped business models lurking in the map-enabled realm.
• I found the most stunning technology in an unassuming glass case in the far rear corner of the second floor of Hall 2. Lots of great innovations had been assembled for display by Ken Blakeslee of WebMobility Ventures, but I was most impressed by 1) The iTech laser beam keyboard, a small bluetooth device that projects a laser outline on any flat surface and allows you to enter text by typing onto the projection, 2) Polymer Vision's Readius rollable display device, and 3) MicroEmissive Displays' "eyscreen" devices which provide LED televisions smaller than a dime.

Barcelona was a great host city, and I look forward to attending 3GSM there next February. The tapas and paella were grand and I was impressed by the locally-brewed Estrella Damm beer. If I plan next year's trip better I'll arrange more time to sightsee so I can tour more of the astonishing Sacrada Familia and explore the musems in Monjuic Park.