Castanet Tuner for Windows 95

Castanet Tuner for Windows 95 http://www.marimba.com Marimba is a Java startup company formed in February of 1996 by Kim Polese and three other members of the original Java team. It is their charter "to provide the tools and infrastructure for creating a new breed of network-managed applications for consumers and businesses." On October 7th Marimba announced two new products "designed to take the Internet into the 21st century: Castanet and Bongo." Wait a minute, the presidential elections were last week. Castanet allows you to surf the web and tune in your own "channels". Note the tv analogy. Each channel can be a stand-alone Java application, a Java applet, or a Web site. Channels are stored locally, and can be used repeatedly without waiting for them to reload every time. Software and content get automatically downloaded from the channel's transmitter (server-side software) onto your hard disk. There's a WallStreetWeb channel that gives you the latest stock info (including data graphs), a chat channel run by HotWired, and a multi-user interactive game called A-Life and ExciteChannelGuide, a sort of TV Guide for Castanet channels put on by the Excite folks. For intranets and other networks, there are repeaters that subscribe to transmitters and serve channel updates to a broader audience -- up to millions of users equipped with tuners. Note again the internet tv analogy. Do you want your own channel? Marimba has also introduced an app called Bongo that lets graphic designers, writers, and other content developers create GUIs (graphical user interfaces) for Java code (and, in the future, ActiveX, Shockwave, and other components). More on that to come in the Bongo topic. Marimba may have the "next big thing". The killer app? We thought that when we first saw Pointcast. But this is much bigger with much more far reaching implications, in fact, Pointcast may adopt this technology as may many other major players. Definitely an app to watch. Pros Once you download an application, it runs faster locally without having to connect to the net. Apps, currently, tend to be primitive. We're in the early days and this will change if Marimba gets hot. Cons It uses up lots of your precious disk space. It tends to show up at odd times like when you boot up, did you ever see the Bill Murray movie "Bob"? Rating: four and a half walruses. apps conference Main Menu