In 1991, James Gosling was part of a project team of Sun Microsystem programmers. Code-named "Stealth", the project was to investigate controlling consumer electronics from a central remote control device.

James Gosling was responsible for choosing/developing a programming language for this consumer electronic concept.  He started with C++ , but found it too limiting for different devices.  He devised a new "portable" language, originally named "Oak", that could run on different operating systems.

Oak was later renamed to "Java", the exact story of that new name is still shrouded in secrecy.

Today, Java is affectionately called "C triple plus", with the extra functionality that it can run on any kind of computer or electronic device on the world.

Java has brought tremendous functionality to web sites, cell phones, TV sets, portable electronics, and even appliances.