J2ME (Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition) is a derivative of Sun Microcomputer’s JAVA development platform. J2ME is specifically designed to build applications that run on portable and wireless devices including cell phones and PDAs. It’s also finding wide acceptance among companies that develop applications for TV boxes and many of the new embedded devices which are flooding both the consumer and industrial markets.

BREW, another development language from QUALCOMM, provides a development platform that’s also suited for the wireless industry. BREW’s claim to fame is that fact that the developer can write device-independent applications which do not need to be recompiled for different phone manufacturers.

SYMBIAN is probably the most commonly used OS in the game-enabled wireless telephone market. Embraced by all major phone manufacturers, SYMBIAN supports J2ME, BREW, C++, and JAVA.

So, what does the future hold for this high-tech blockbuster that’s still in its infancy?

According to industry analysts Frost & Sullivan, the “global mobile game industry, which generated US$436.4 million in 2002, will balloon to US$9.34 billion by 2008.“ Asia is at the epicenter of the wireless gaming explosion where an estimated 500 million people are wireless Internet subscribers and two out of five are wireless gamers.

Some gaming fortune tellers predict that the convergence of GPS and wireless gaming technology will result in live-action and role playing games that will adapt themselves to the player’s physical location and include geographic-specific scenarios that change as the player moves to new locations.

Judging by the progress that’s been made in the last two years alone, the future of wireless gaming may be the most revenue and employment-generating technology of the 21st century.