A language for object-oriented programming, especially applicable to the World Wide Web; it was developed from 1990 at Sun Microsystems by P. Naughton. In 2006–07 Sun released its Java source code as open-source software. The output produced by a Java compiler is not executable code but an intermediate code, known as bytecode, that is designed to translate directly into native machine code for high performance. Bytecode can thus be interpreted on any computer on which the Java run-time system is installed, allowing cross-platform portability (see platform, portable). Allegedly, full security is provided as no Java program can break out of this run-time environment or access unprotected system resources. Java is optimized for small networked applications that are dynamically downloaded across the Internet. These small programs, known as applets, can react to user input.

http://www.java.com/en/ Sun’s Java home page