Forthcoming third-generation improvements to the Blu-ray specification are "going to be just mindblowing," according to James Gosling, vice president and fellow at Sun.
Demonstrations planned for the company's JavaOne conference in May to show off the new features "will blow [delegates'] socks off" providing the code is ready in time, he said.
"People are going nuts trying to exploit everything that's in Blu-ray," Gosling added.
While Gosling was unable to reveal details of what's ahead, he was keen to talk about what we'll see when Blu-ray Profile 2 (agreed about a year ago) finds its way into players in the coming months.
Blu-ray Profile 2 increases the amount of local storage that must be provided by a player (flash memory is now so cheap that this is unlikely to make much difference to the price of Blu-ray hardware) and also mandates the provision of Internet connectivity.
This will result in "all kinds of really interesting Blu-ray applications that use the network," Gosling told iTWire, such as first-person shooter games, shopping, and community subtitling.
The idea of allowing outsiders to provide subtitles is getting a mixed reception from the movie industry, he said. On one hand, it means they can release movies before subtitling is complete and it provides a way of reaching many more markets with a single product, but the studios are also concerned about the loss of control. There are quality control issues when subtitles aren't subject to review by the movie's creators, and there is also the possibility that spoof or otherwise humorous subtitles could be unofficially released.
"There's still a lot of dissension in the industry," Gosling observed.
Most manufacturers of upgradable Blu-ray players have almost finished work on Profile 2 upgrades, he said.
Furthermore, people have realised that "Blu-ray players are pretty interesting things even when they don't have a disc in them" as with appropriate programming they could deliver other functions such as acting as an IPTV set-top box.
Sun's Java language - originally designed by Gosling - is part of the Blu-ray standard.
Source: IT Wire