For our March 9th meetup, we are going to turn our attention to the extremely fun world of embedded Java development!

Some of you may remember Shawn Silverman's talk on SunSPOT-driven TrackBots that we got to play with, so you'll be happy to know we are going to have him back!

This time around, Shawn and his colleague Michael Knopp are going to talk about Livescribe's Java platform for pen-based computing. What does this have to do with our day-to-day enterprise/desktop/mobile Java development? Nothing. But is it fun? Definitely! It's mind-blowing to see what these guys where able to do with Java in their super-sexy pens. You can even develop apps for them! Crazy!

Don't worry - this is not a marketing event! Michael and Shawn will walk you through the history of the Livescribe Java framework from the initial design phase to the current implementation and beyond. They'll examine why Java was selected for Penlet development, the process of implementing varied Java specifications, and the risk/benefits of early public API access. Finally they'll detail the mapping of existing data structures and paradigms for pen-based computing to the Livescribe platform.

Pizzas for this event will be sponsored by Diana Henninger from TEKsystems and refreshments will be brought in by David Sadler from Guidewire Software!

Be sure to stick around until the end to get a shot at winning a SunSPOT and other interesting goodies from Sun, books O'Reilly and Packt Pub, as well as a copy of IntelliJ IDEA from JetBrains.

Update: I just heard that the folks from Livescribe will be giving away one of their super-cool pens to a lucky winner!

Speaking of winning, the Livescribe folks is hosting a Developer Challenge. Create a noteworthy smartpen app and you get a chance of winning $10,000 :-)

About Michael Knopp:
Michael Knopp brings nearly 10 years of mobile product development and developer support to the Livescribe Platform. His varied experience with Java-based technology began with varied implementations on the Palm Platform, supporting the eBay API Java implementation, and development of the core Livescribe Java Penlets. His experience with Livescribe originated in the demo/stealth phase and has progressed from Java Applications and Developer Tools to a lead role supporting their growing 3rd party community.

About Shawn Silverman:
Shawn Silverman has been using Java since 1996, and is currently working with Embedded Java. He has a Master's of Science in Electrical Engineering, and his speciality is Power Systems. Shawn is a member of IEEE and is a seasoned presenter, having given seminars on such topics as Embedded Wireless, and undergraduate courses at the University of Manitoba. He worked with robotics and swipe card systems, and developed firmware for interfacing with a variety of hardware and communication protocols. He even managed to hack an embedded web server and Servlet container for small Java-capable devices including cell phones, and a graphics framework for colour LCD's.

He currently works as System and Apps Software Engineer at Livescribe.