The father of the widely-used Java programming language is leaving Google for a startup that makes sea-faring robots.

James Gosling, the former Sun Microsystems engineer who went to Google after Sun was acquired by Oracle, has joined Liquid Robotics as chief software architect, he said Tuesday. The Sunnyvale, Calif., company--profiled in the Wall Street Journal earlier this year--makes "wave gliders" that ride ocean currents and collect and transmit data such as water temperature, wave heights, whale songs and chemical levels.

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